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“What?” It suddenly seemed to dawn on Amanda that she was being insulted. “Whatdid you say to me?” she demanded, glaring at Grath. “Do you know who I am? My family isimportantin this town!”
“All I know about you is that you seem to be a very fucking unpleasant person,” Grath growled. “And I don’t give a fuck about your family either,” he added, and turned back to Mattie. “Come on, baby—let’s bake.”
Mattie was working hard to keep from laughing as she watched Amanda’s face turn first red with embarrassment, then white with rage. She grabbed Grath by the arm and dragged him over to the oven that had been set aside for her. It had a big sticker with the number 9 on it.
“Grath, you didn’t have to do that!” she exclaimed, still trying not to laugh.
He shrugged.
“Why not? I just told her the fucking truth—no warrior is going to want afrastianharpy like that as a mate!”
At this, Mattiedidburst out laughing—she couldn’t help herself.
“All right, well itwasnice to see her get a little of her own back,” she admitted at last. “But don’t do it again, okay? We need to concentrate if we’re going to win this thing.”
“I understand.” Grath nodded. “And I promise to leave her alone.” He frowned like a thundercloud. “Though she’dbetternot say anything else about your curves!”
“I don’t think she will,” Mattie said, lifting her chin. “Now that she knows the guy I’m with actually likes me the way I am.” She blushed. “Er, I mean—at least you’reactinglike my guy andpretendingyou like me the way I am.”
“I’m not acting or pretending,” Grath said simply. “Told you before, baby girl—I love your curves. We might be playing parts, but that’s for real.”
Mattie felt her cheeks getting warm again, but she told herself it was heat rising from the oven which was now preheating.
“All right,” she said, smiling. “Well, let’s get started on that dough. I need to finish creaming the butter and sugar and then I’m going to put my pecans in the food processor and blitz them down to meal.”
But when she and Grath walked back across to her table, she found that the neat little food processor her mother had brought for her to use was gone.
NINETEEN
GRATH
“Where is it? Where can it be?” Madeline was truly distressed as she looked for the missing piece of equipment. “It was just here a minute ago!” she exclaimed.
Grath shot a look at table number 10, where Amanda Hutchinson was working, but the blonde female had her head down and was doing something to what looked like a prepackaged roll of dough she had pulled out of a voluminous handbag. She had spread fine white flour all over her table and was industriously rolling it out with a long wooden instrument. The colorful wrappers from the dough, she had carefully deposited in the small trashcan beside her table.
Grath wanted to go look under the tablecloth of table ten, but he didn’t know if he would be allowed—though hestronglysuspected Amanda was the culprit in the case of the missing equipment.
The female at table eight, on the other side of Madeline, was also working on her cookie dough. She had curly black hair and smooth brown skin and wore a sympathetic look on her face.
“Did you see where my food processor went?” Madeline asked her.
The female shook her head.
“Sorry, I was concentrating on my own stuff. I’d loan you mine if I had one.” She shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
“Amanda?” Madeline asked, turning in the other direction. “Doyouknow where my food processor went?”
“You probably forgot to bring it,” Amanda said, not looking up from the prepackaged dough she was rolling out. “And how would I know where it went, anyway?”
Madeline had an expression of pure frustration on her face and Grath wanted desperately to wipe it away.
“What does the processor do again?” he asked. “Is it the equipment you use to grind the nuts into meal?”
“Exactly.” Madeline sighed in frustration. “Without it, there’s no way I can grind the nuts fine enough.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Do you have something I can grind them in?” he asked.
“Oh, uh…” Madeline looked around and then her face brightened. “Thank goodness Mom thinks of everything! Here we go—a rolling pin! Now just let me dump them into a Ziploc bag…”
