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She glanced at the other woman as she entered the kitchen, but Starla had her attention elsewhere. Three more pans of food waited for her, and Gina deposited her empty strawberry container in the huge sink in the corner and picked up two of the pans. One held sausage links, which had gotten low, and the other held perfectly circular four-inch Belgian waffles. The efficiency of this kitchen impressed her, and she shouldn’t have expected anything less from Starla.
The woman’s very presence demanded perfection, and Gina found herself wanting to provide it. That was the mark of a good leader, and Gina had worked for many diva-chefs. The good ones could bark orders and still laugh and drink coffee after a hectic service.
Back out in the busy dining hall, Gina couldn’t even imagine what a full lodge would look like. The Texas Longhorn Ranch was much bigger than she remembered, with fourteen rooms right here in the main lodge, and an additional fourteen cabins out on the ranch. Nash had told her that, and he’d said to let him know if she needed anything.
She had no intentions of going to Nash Stewart if she needed something. She’d handle it like an adult, even if that meant she had to ask Starla about the grab-and-go lunches here at the lodge. After the breakfast service, that was.
Eventually, the people stopped eating, and the staff in the kitchen came out and started cleaning the tables. The two waitresses that had done so during the service refilled salt and pepper shakers, the artificial sweetener packets, and the ketchup bottles. Everyone had a job to do, and they moved from one to the next as easily as breathing.
Impressed, Gina did what the kitchen assistant, Dale, told her to, and before she knew it, the breakfast prep cooks were headed out the back door. Her work had just started, and she moved over to the oven station, which had been busy that morning with pans of cinnamon rolls and keeping waffles and pancakes warm.
She took a deep breath in the moment of silence in the lodge kitchen, trying to decide what she could make in four and a half hours that would impress the mighty Starla. Her first thought was to make a jelly roll of some sort. She could flavor the cake with pumpkin, gingerbread spices, chocolate, or almond. Anything really.
The crème inside could also hold a variety of flavors, and she loved the autumnal ones the best. Cream cheese frosting with pumpkin. Mint crème with chocolate. Plenty of bark on the yule log.
She pulled herself out of the wrong season and said, “Spring.” It was almost March, and perhaps she should go with something a little brighter in flavor and appearance. She made a terrific sugar cookie, and she hadn’t met a human alive who didn’t love a buttery, flaky, soft sugar cookie with plenty of delicious frosting.
She turned to start getting out the ingredients she needed. Eighty desserts, and half could be bright yellow and pink daisy sugar cookies. She could have them in the oven in half an hour, and she let her mind work while she put together the dough.
She rolled and cut and bent to put sixteen cookies in the oven. Once, then twice, then three times. With everything baking, and a few minutes until the first batch of cookies came out, she realized how close to lunchtime the time had drifted.
“Shoot.” She stepped back to see Starla’s office, but the door sat closed. The message got through loud and clear, and Gina licked her lips nervously. “Cake.” Her only option was cake, if she wanted to have something in the oven before lunchtime, baking away while she snuck outside to enjoy lunch with Blake.
“Or a crispy treat,” she mused, realizing she didn’t have time for pecan tarts. She could put together a unique crispy treat, putting her flavorful twist on the marshmallows, adding in chips or candies, and then topping each square with a ganache.
“Spring, bright,” she said, her mind moving through possibilities as she walked into the pantry. It was well-stocked, and Gina landed on butterscotch chips as well as peanut butter. This was a Texas dude ranch, and they didn’t need fancy desserts. They should be beautiful and delicious, but she didn’t need to make an eight-layer cake. She couldn’t cut that into forty pieces anyway.
But she could whip up something more unique on the classic treat. Something that fit a ranch. Her eyes landed on a box of graham cracker crumbs, and a fully fledged dessert entered her mind.
She’d be rolling these crispy treats, and while she wasn’t making cake or flavoring it with pumpkin, she still felt like she was making a yule log. She smiled to herself as she stirred the melted butter and marshmallows together, then poured in the cereal and graham cracker crumbs. After pressing it into a thin layer in three cookie sheets, she spread marshmallow crème over it all.
She melted chocolate and spread that over the marshmallow and got rolling. She’d just secured the last log in tight plastic wrap when the sound of footsteps drew her attention. Starla stood there, a huge bin in her arms.
“Can you help me put out the grab-and-go lunches?” she asked. “There’s another bin in the walk-in.”
Gina grinned at her and closed the fridge. “Of course.” She only wanted to leave her crispy treats in the fridge for about five minutes, and then they could set fully on the counter, away from the ovens.
She went to grab the second bin of brown-bagged lunches. When she returned to the kitchen, Starla waited for her. “Do you do grab-and-go lunches every day?”
“In the summer, yes,” Starla said, leading the way out into the dining area. Across from it, more cowboys and cowgirls had arrived at work, and about two-thirds of the desks were full today. What they all did, Gina had no idea. She set her bin on the table beside Starla’s and watched as the woman turned and bent to get out a huge picnic basket full of plastic silverware. The lids had been removed, and the cutlery included a spork, knife, and napkin.
Starla sighed and looked at Gina. “That’s it. Guests come get a lunch if they signed up. Lowry handles that list.”
Gina didn’t know who Lowry was, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t have to check off people as they took their lunches. Starla turned to go back into the kitchen, and Gina’s pulse panicked. “Oh, uh, Starla?” She dashed after her boss. “Are there extra lunches?”
Starla paused with her palm pressed against the plastic door that led into the kitchen. “Usually,” she said. “If you want one every day, you should talk to Lowry. He’ll take a monthly payment.”
“Okay,” Gina said, her stomach still writhing from nerves. “Which one is Lowry?”
“You didn’t meet him at the front desk yesterday?”
“There wasn’t anyone at the front desk yesterday.”
“I’m not surprised,” Starla said with a roll of her eyes. She nodded toward the front of the lodge. “He’s the one in the purple plaid. Can’t miss ‘im.”
Gina turned, found the cowboy in question, and twisted back to tell Starla thanks. The woman had disappeared in the blink of an eye, and Gina took a steeling breath and headed for the front desk.
“Lowry?” she asked, and he looked up, his light green eyes somewhat startling. He did have sandy blond hair peeking out from underneath his cowboy hat, but still. His eyes looked made of ocean sea glass, and Gina had a sudden pang of missing for Corpus Christi, where she’d lived seaside for a few years.
