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“I know, but then you’d try to run with Gray.” She gave him a knowing look.
“Fair point.” Dad grinned and turned toward Mike. “Where’s Gerty?”
Mike finished his sip of coffee. “I haven’t seen her yet this morning.” They’d driven to Coral Canyon yesterday, had dinner with her parents and his, and she was leaving with Boone and Cosette to continue the trip to Montana today without him.
She hadn’t told him when they were leaving, but surely she wouldn’t go without saying goodbye. Even as he thought it, he doubted, because Gerty could be spontaneous and hot-headed sometimes.
You’ve given her no reason to jump from the truck and stomp away, he told himself. When he thought of her reaction to his birthday present for her now, it made him smile. Her reaction had been so Gerty.
“Smells good in here,” Boone said, and Mike turned toward him.
“Coffee?” he asked, already reaching to get down two more mugs, as Boone’s wife came down the hall right after him. She carried her overnight bag with her and set it by the corner of the wall that led into the foyer.
The house here in Coral Canyon was enormous, and Mike kept expecting his parents to tell him they were selling it and moving into something smaller. Fifty-five-plus communities and condos had been built in the center of town, and he held the opinion that they should move in there.
They’d said nothing about it to him, though, and he didn’t want to bring it up while the Whettsteins were here. Not only that, but his parents had plenty of money to pay gardeners, housekeepers, chefs, and any number of people to help them maintain the house. Momma was also quite a bit younger than Daddy, but she’d never done much around the grounds. Inside the house, yes. Outside, no.
“Where’s Gerty?” Boone asked.
“Haven’t seen her,” Mike said.
“It’s not like her to sleep late.” Boone poured in almost as much cream as he had coffee and looked up at Mike. They’d left their other two children with Matt, and Gerty had asked everyone at Pony Power to take care of Dusty, her rescue horse, and Max, her German shepherd.
Mike looked down the hall that branched to the right, where her parents had come from. He’d slept in his old bedroom, upstairs, furthest room down the hall. Gerty and her parents had been put up in the guest bedrooms on this level, his parents to the left off the main area of the house.
“I’ll check on her,” Cosette said, exchanging a glance with Boone and then Mike. She started back down the hall as Momma put the platter of blueberry muffins on the island.
“They’re hot,” she said. “Butter’s soft.”
“Thank you,” Mike said, but his attention suddenly wasn’t on blueberry muffins. He’d just heard the front door open, and he started toward the foyer. He had further to go, and Gerty appeared in the doorway leading into the living room and kitchen before he could go investigate.
“Hey,” he said, only mildly surprised to see her fully dressed, right down to her cowgirl boots.
She lifted a brown paper bag. “I got the bacon.”
His eyebrows went up. “Bacon?”
“To go with the muffins.” She smiled as she came toward him. He leaned down and kissed her quickly while she held the bag out to the side. Gerty kept going into the kitchen. “They sent two orders of the plain brown sugar kind,” she said. “And two of the spicy-sugary kind.”
She put the bag on the counter and started to open it. Mike watched as she pulled out two large to-go containers and popped the tops. Her father crowded in, as did Daddy. “I love the spicy-sweet kind,” he said.
“You got bacon?” Mike asked.
“She’s not in her room,” Cosette said. “Oh. She’s right here.”
“She got bacon,” Mike said.
Gerty looked at him then, and he wondered what she heard in his tone this time that she hadn’t before. “I thought it sounded good,” she said. “Your momma was talkin’ about it last night, and I texted her when I got there, but she said she was making muffins. So I just got this instead of a full breakfast.”
“You didn’t need to get breakfast at all,” Momma said with a smile.
“You barely eat breakfast.” Mike met Gerty’s eyes with plenty of questions streaming between them.
“I know.” She stepped away from the countertop and to his side. “But my daddy loves breakfast.” She nodded over to him. “And apparently, so does yours.”
“You’re trying to butter him up,” Mike whispered.
“Of course I am,” she whispered back.
