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“Nope.”
She nodded, not quite sure why she expected life at the Texas Longhorn Ranch to stall just because she’d left. It hadn’t. Days went by and became months, and hair grew grayer and bodies got older. People changed, as she’d seen so keenly in her mother—and herself.
“What else do I need to know about your family?” Gina asked. “When is your mama going to come into the kitchen and insist I come over for dinner?”
“Oh, you mean she hasn’t yet?” Blake asked, clearly teasing.
She cocked her head at him. “Seriously.”
“I don’t know,” he said, finishing his brownie. “I’d probably expect that any day if I were you.”
“Great,” she muttered, deciding she couldn’t spend all of her dessert calories on just the brownie. “I’m going in for a cream puff. Do you want one?”
“Is the sky blue?”
* * *
Gina left the kitchen,but it wasn’t any cooler outside than in. The door slammed closed behind her, shutting out the chatter, the hissing steam, the arguing, and the banging of pots and pans.
She exhaled, wiped her bangs out of her face, looked up into the far-too-bright sky, and screamed.
Only a breath of time later, the door opened and another person crowded onto the small landing outside the kitchen entrance to the lodge. “Oh,” Starla said. “You’re right here.”
“I haven’t had a chance to run yet,” Gina said, her throat still a bit raw from that primal yell.
“Was that you screaming?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gina said, and she wasn’t going to apologize for it. She went down the steps to the gravel lot where the chefs parked, but she wasn’t headed for her car. Her feet crunched over the rocks, but she still heard Starla call her name.
“Wait,” she said. “Don’t go.”
“I’m not leaving,” Gina called over her shoulder. “I just need five minutes.” She’d yelled that inside too, but she doubted highly that anyone had heard her. With the mess going on in there, she’d be surprised if the guests hadn’t been evacuated by Nash.
Starla’s footsteps ran through the gravel to catch her, and they walked side-by-side to the shade of the bald cypress. Gina climbed up on the table and sighed. “If I drank, I’d need something stiff right now.”
“Same,” Starla said.
Gina looked at her, noting the lines around her eyes and the exhaustion weighing down her shoulders. “Aren’t you supposed to be the boss? Shouldn’t you be in there breaking up that squabble?”
Starla leveled her gaze at Gina, and she almost cowered. “They’re grown adults. I gave them their directions. If they choose not to follow them, that’s on them.”
Gina looked back to the lodge. It sure didn’t seem like pandemonium had broken out over that night’s menu from her perch on the picnic table. Things could be deceiving sometimes, she supposed.
“I think you leaving was the smartest course of action,” Starla said. “So I followed you.” She nodded toward the back door, which hadn’t opened again. “Give them another five minutes. Then Mindie will come out, and she’ll have a truce ready.”
“She will?”
“They’ll elect her to come speak to me, because they think I like her the best.”
Gina looked at Starla, and she didn’t seem concerned that her chefs thought she didn’t like them. “Do you?”
“I like all of them the same,” Gina said, blinking her gaze away from the door and back to Gina. “Except for you. You’re the sanest of them all.”
Gina scoffed, sure that wasn’t true. “I’ve only been here for a couple of months. They’ll hate me if they think we’re such great friends now.”
“You’re never late,” Starla said. “Who else can you name who’s never been late in the two months you’ve been here?”
Gina could only stare at her. The heat in her face started to rise again, but not from frustration that she’d been baking all the wrong desserts for two hours.
