Page 121 of Roping Her In

“And you can help Aunt Hailey with anything else she needs,” Savannah said. “She’s making all the raspberry filling, and that’s like jam.”

“I am so good at jam,” Gal said.

“I am going to need some help,” Hailey said in almost a sing-song.

Once they had the lemon custard, they’d put a dollop of it on the bottom of half the tart shells, then cover that with her raspberry filling, and add a puff of lemon curd on top.

Hailey loved lemon-raspberry tarts, and hoped she’d be able to control herself while making them. After all, she, Clover, and Savannah had been tasked with making five hundred of them for tonight’s nuptials.

“I need to make a lot of filling,” she said, and she booped Gal’s nose. They were doing lemon meringue tarts, the lemon-raspberry, and a plain raspberry, with only filling and plenty of whipped cream on top.

“That should do it,” Wilder said.

Hailey took in the enormity of the raspberries on the island in her mother’s house. She blinked to avoid getting overwhelmed.

“Wilder, we’ve got tart shells out in the freezer,” she said. “Can you bring those in so they can start to thaw?” Hailey indicated the large dining room table in the back corner of the house. “You can just set them there.”

“Sure thing,” he said. “Out here in the garage?”

“Yes,” she said. “They’ll be right on top in the chest freezer with a two on the top. You can’t miss them.”

“You got it.” Wilder left to do that, and Hailey moved over to the stove where she’d already set out her mother’s twenty-quart pot.

“All right,” she said to Gal as she picked it up. She put it right down on the floor in front of the little girl. “All but ten of those raspberry containers are going in here. Start opening them up and dumping them out.”

Gal cheered and actually galloped around the pot once before she reached for the first clamshell of raspberries. Oh, to have that much joy over making tarts, Hailey thought, her heart full of sunshine.

“What are you and Jake thinking for your wedding?” Clover asked, and she glanced over to Hailey from where she’d set out a cutting board and was halving lemons before Sequoia squeezed their juice into an oversized measuring cup.

The glow that had been with Hailey since her engagement returned. “I don’t really know,” she said. “Maybe we could go to lunch soon, and you guys can help me with some ideas.”

She wasn’t nearly as feminine and girly as Clover, who now wore an excited edge in her eyes. “I can totally help you with that,” she said.

Savannah laughed with Hailey. “I can help you go over some things, too, if you want.”

“I do,” Hailey said.

“It’s too early for the I-do,” Savannah teased, and they dissolved into giggles again.

Hailey hurried away from the dessert table, glad she found Jake on the edge of the dance floor right where she’d left him. He stood with Smiles and Bev, who’d come to the wedding together. More than one text had been sent about the two of them, as Smiles had wanted everyone to know that they weren’t dating.

No one say anything to her about it. We’re not dating. In fact, I asked her to accompany me to all the Glover weddings for the foreseeable future, since I’m not interested in dating but I also don’t want to attend these events alone.

That’s it.

Let me repeat for those of you in the back—and my momma. We’re not dating. We’re friends, and she’s taking over for Boone, and it’ll be a good opportunity to meet a lot of townspeople and all that.

Nothing more to see here.

He’d legit sent that text, and Hailey hadn’t spoken to him about it. No, she’d left that to Aunt Sammy, thank you very much.

“All right,” she said, slightly out of breath. “There’s still plenty of tarts.” She linked her arm through Jake’s and smiled up at him.

“Smiles thinks it’s a good idea for me to do some advertising on TwoCents,” Jake said.

Hailey swung her attention to him. “Oh, that’s great. Does he just need to talk to Uncle Ranger?”

Smiles nodded. “Yeah, but I actually think Ollie’s taking over the app for him, so he might be a better choice.”