Page 90 of Dragon Her Heels

“Hey,” Yuless complained.

Darlene hissed. “You can’t talk, asshole. You can’t even combine canned pie filling and a premade crust without creating a disaster. Don’t you even try me.”

My groom scowled.

If I didn’t rescue the tall, dark, and handsome, he would perish at the hands of the Queen of Hell. “How about this, Yuless? To spare your pride for one evening, I’ll try to make a pie when we get to my place. It can be my turn to terrify us all.”

My mother shook her head and made slicing motions across her throat.

My father stared at the table and pretended he didn’t exist.

I sighed.

“I feel like I’m about to make a mistake, but after your mother’s reaction, I need to know,” Yuless confessed. “And it seems fair since I’ve been torturing you with bad pie. Why do you keep eating it? That’s what I want to know.”

I pointed at my mother. “She made me this way. It’s only polite, and I will be hung from the tallest tree if I’m not polite.”

“I was not aware Florida was part of the actual South,” he admitted.

“It’s not. I just can’t stand rude children,” my mother replied. “But why are you feeding my daughter bad pie?”

“Only men who bring her good pies win dates,” Yuless stated. “So far, she has been offered pie from at least ten single men, and we have all failed, rather spectacularly, to bake a pie worthy of a date.”

That challenge was going to be the death of me, and I put some serious thought into crawling under the table. “I thought it was a good idea at the time, but honestly, it’s hilarious watching a bunch of people, some of which are dragons, attempt to make pie and fail at it spectacularly. I do not understand how you keep messing up pies so badly, Yuless. You’re using canned filling and premade crusts!”

“Let’s see you do better,” the tall, dark, and handsome challenged. “I’m sure Lucifer can provide ingredients so you can show us all up.”

Crap. The last time I’d made a pie, I’d been little, hadn’t been the greatest at reading, and hadn’t realized I was using salt instead of sugar, creating a monstrosity capable of felling any adult foolish enough to attempt eating it. Careful to keep from dumping my new rooster on the floor, I got out my phone and began searching for a pie recipe, settling on one that seemed simple enough, had a bazillion positive reviews, and was marked as suitable for a beginner to make. I held the device out to Lucifer. “Can you get me these ingredients, please? I can’t just allow this to stand.”

The Devil took my phone, chuckled, and after tapping on the screen, he offered it back, showing me a peach pie recipe. “Try this one instead.”

I reviewed the directions, and as it made use of a premade crust while everything else was done from scratch, I nodded my approval and gave him the phone so he could make the ingredients appear. “That one also works. We’re going to need milk and ice cream to choke the results down. And as there are so many of us, I’ll make three of them. Everyone suffers tonight.”

Following a low chuckle, Lucifer vanished in a flash of golden light.

I raised a brow at Yuless. “Your move, sir.”

“Should you make a pie everyone thinks is good, I will take you to a livestock sale and purchase a new friend for you.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you get if the pie is just as bad as yours?”

“An upset stomach comes to mind, but I will accept you taking me to a livestock sale and purchasing a new friend for me, which you will house at your property free of charge.”

“Wager made.” Either way, we’d have a good time at the livestock sale, and unbeknownst to him, I would consider the venture a date. “Darlene, when we regret this, show some mercy, please.”

“I keep a fully stocked medicine cabinet that can handle a crowd of upset stomachs. We’ll be fine. We might have to live with our regrets, but we’ll be fine.”

* * *

As Yuless made his pies trying to learn from his mistakes, I aimed to outdo him. I thanked Isaac for his offer of assistance, cracked my knuckles, and began reading through the recipe, identifying which ingredients needed to be room temperature versus warm or cold, and set everything aside based on those requirements. Once I had a sea of ingredients surrounding me, I watched a tutorial on every aspect of baking I didn’t understand, which ultimately involved everything.

As I doubted my ability to measure, I even checked how I was supposed to measure everything correctly, astonished to discover I’d gotten the basics on that wrong as well.

No wonder my first—and last—attempt at baking a pie had failed.

I hadn’t done anything right. At all.

Armed with the tutorial videos, I organized everything so I could move from one ingredient to the next, measuring it out in advance when I could and triple checking my work. Once satisfied with my preparations, I dove in, giggling that the Devil had brought me enough to bake ten pies—and that he promised they would be baked precisely to my specifications, as one human had no real hope of simultaneously attending to ten different ovens at one time.