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“Really? You gonna ram her down our throats and give us a hard time if we complain because her food is burnt black?” Asher said, and he didn’t try to sugarcoat the fact that he wasn’t very happyonce the door had been opened and the smell had hit them all full force.
“Just pretend it’s you. If you’re capable of doing that.” Ezra didn’t mean to be so harsh on his brother. But Asher had to understand that he was going to marry Alaska, she was going to be part of their family, and that was the end of it.
The siblings filed in as he held the door. They stood in line silently at the sink as each one of them washed their hands, no one commenting again on the smell. But the jovial nature that had settled on their group after the work had been successfully completed had lifted, and a fog of foreboding took its place.
They piled into the kitchen, with Ezra washing his hands last and coming in after everyone else.
“You guys don’t look like you’re tired enough to have worked all morning. Maybe you need to get back out there and do some more work,” Nelda said from where she was breaking lettuce up into a bowl.
“I take it you’ve met Alaska,” Ezra commented, unsure whether he should be happy or upset. He didn’t want Alaska to have put Nelda to work, but it would be more like Nelda to want to help. And he couldn’t fault her for that. In fact, he appreciated it.
“I sure have. And we had quite the morning together, haven’t we?” Nelda said with a smile at Alaska.
Alaska had her lip pulled in and bit down on it the way she did when she was unsure. The sight made something stir in Ezra’s chest, and he wanted to walk over to her, touch her somehow, and...comfort her? He wasn’t sure. But he had to deliberately keep his feet from turning in her direction.
“We’re doing BLTs. I hope that’s okay.”
He nodded. “That’s fine.” He wasn’t sure where the burnt smell came from. Maybe they’d burned a pan of bacon. He’d done that before. But he didn’t ask. No one else asked about it either.
Lunch was rather subdued, with Alaska jumping up as soon as she saw that someone needed a refill in their glass, or to flip thebacon that she left in the frying pan, or to grab another jar of mayonnaise.
By the time everyone was done eating, her sandwich sat on her plate with only two bites taken out of it.
Ezra waited for his siblings to thank Alaska for the meal and then file out to the work that they had to do that afternoon before he pushed back away from the table and helped Alaska and Nelda clear off the table.
Eugene had sat at the table, eating with everyone else, and he now sat on the floor, playing with blocks.
Alice sat in her car seat, and when Ezra got up, he realized she’d fallen asleep.
“You did a good job on dinner,” he said casually as he carried the plates to the kitchen.
“Thanks.” She cast a glance at Nelda, who smiled encouragingly at her. There seemed to be some kind of conversation going on between the two of them before Alaska turned back to him. “I burned the chicken. It was...inedible.”
“I wondered what that smell was. I thought maybe you burned a pan of bacon.”
“No. The chicken was actually on fire in the oven. It was bad.” She took a breath. “I’m sorry.”
“It happens to everyone. You don’t have to apologize. I take it Nelda must have helped you pivot pretty fast.”
“Yeah. I probably would have been in a puddle on the floor crying if Nelda hadn’t come up with the idea of doing BLTs. She had bacon.”
“Always good to have a plan B. Especially if it includes bacon,” Nelda said with her brows lifted. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to see if Eugene wants to take a walk with me. We’ll go see the pigs.”
“You have pigs?” Eugene asked from where he’d been sitting on the floor. He jumped up and ran over, an eager look on his face.
“We sure do. Did anyone ever tell you pigs bite?”
Some of the eagerness faded from his face. “They bite?”
“They sure do. But we have a couple friendly ones who like to get scratched behind the ears. Just be careful with them. You want to come with me, and I can show you how?”
Nelda made it sound so appealing that the little boy was nodding his head before she was even done asking, and he grabbed her hand immediately when she held it out.
The door closed behind them, and Ezra found himself alone in the kitchen with the woman he was supposed to marry the next day.
She had a little smile on her face as she watched her son leave the room. He admired that but realized he had nothing in his head to say, and as her smile faded and she turned back toward him, the silence between them became awkward. He cleared his throat. All he could think of to say was to thank her for the meal, but he’d already done that.
“Nelda said you were engaged. I don’t want to come between you and—”
