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She laughed. “Deal.” She picked up one of the babies and held her cheek to his. “I need to go to the grocery store,” she said without looking at him.
“Right now?”
“No, but before tomorrow’s supper. I feel bad asking you for money, but I haven’t launched my goat yoga business yet, and my boss doesn’t pay me much.”
Gunner laughed and pulled out his wallet. “I forgot to tell you ...”
“You don’t need to hand me cash right now,” she said, sounding like she felt bad.
“No, I’m not.” He stepped into the pasture and held his hand out to her, a shiny new debit card sticking out between two fingers. “I forgot to tell you that I added you to the bank account, so you don’t have to ask me for money anymore. I keep the checkbook on that cluttered table I call a desk, if you ever need to see how much money we have in there.”
She looked surprised, which hurt him a little. She slowly took the card from his hands.
“What, did you think that you weren’t going to have any access to the family finances?”
She looked down at the card. “I hadn’t thought much about it, but yes, I guess that’s how I would’ve thought this would go.”
Gunner shook his head, wishing that he had talked to her about this sooner. “No way. You’re not a servant. You’re my wife. We’re partners in this now. But if you decide to clean me out, just don’t take more than what’s in there because I really hate overdraft fees.”
She looked up at him from her spot on the ground, and he winked at her. Yep, with each passing moment it was clearer. This was love. He was the luckiest man on earth. He had tried to do a good thing, but he had ended up marrying the woman he loved.
Chapter 44
Days ago Gunner had mentioned that he enjoyed barbecue; since then Nova had been trying to figure out how to make that happen. She had no idea how to barbecue anything though and she thought it had to be quite a production. She pictured a giant hog on a giant stick over a giant fire and thought that Gunner would have to go the rest of his life without barbecue.
But then, as God would have it, she saw a prepackaged version of Jack Daniel’s barbecue pulled pork in the grocery store. She snatched it off the shelf so fast that two little old ladies turned to stare at her, wondering what was wrong. She waited until they looked away, which took a while, before grabbing two more packages. The packages looked so small and both Bull and Conley ate more than any reasonable person should. But once she had the packages in her cart she stood there staring at them. Now she had barbecue meat. What was she going to do that? She could serve it in a pile beside some store-bought potato salad or she could buy some buns, but that felt so basic. It was bad enough that she was buying premade barbecue; she had to do something more exciting than slap it on a premade bun.
Gunner was being very generous with her grocery budget, but she didn’t want to take advantage. She whipped out her phone and leaned on her cart to type “what to do with pulled pork” into the search bar, but all that popped up were fancy sandwiches. There was one picture of pulled pork mixed with mac and cheese, and that made her stomach rumble with hungerand excitement, but she wanted something a little healthier for the kids, so she kept scrolling.
And then something nearly took her breath away. Barbecue pork and penne skillet.
She eagerly scrolled through the ingredients list as this usually disqualified recipes from an attempt. So often, online recipes included ingredients she had never heard of or that she couldn’t find in their small local grocery store. She had already embarrassed herself asking a clerk where they kept the red palm oil and miso paste, but this list looked like it was actually written in English. It contained her pork, some simple pasta, and some vegetables. This was almost too good to be true. She nearly ran around the store adding the ingredients to her cart, so excited to try something Gunner might not have to drink a quart of water to wash down.
WHEN GUNNER SAW NOVAchopping onions, his face fell. “Are you okay?”
Only then did she realize there were tears streaming down her face. She wiped some of them away with the back of her hand. “Absolutely.” She pointed her knife at the onion on the cutting board.
“Oh, of course. Sorry, I didn’t notice that’s what you were doing.” Not only had he not noticed, but he was obviously surprised. He kissed her on the cheek. “Something smells good.”
The only thing that could possibly smell good, unless he could smell the barbecue through the plastic, were the red peppers sizzling in the pan. She had put them in before she’d realized that she still needed to cut the onion, so now she was hurrying to catch up or she was going to have burnt peppers and raw onions.
The peppers did look a little extra done, but by the time she had all of the vegetables sautéed, they looked far better than most things she had cooked.
She had to use two different skillets to make enough for everyone, and she thought it funny how dramatic that looked on the stove, as if she was really a ranch cook with a dozen hands to feed. Conley certainly ate like a hand, so she hoped that he would prove to be helpful to Gunner as he got bigger and stronger. He certainly had the interest. He followed Gunner around like a shadow, wanting to do everything. Of course, this might slow down when the snow started to fly, but she hoped it wouldn’t slow down much.
She sent Gabby to tell everyone that supper was ready, and the girl took off. This was her favorite chore so far. She liked bossing people around.
Nova was so excited that she was nervous. She didn’t know if this was going to be delicious, but she knew that it wasn’t burned or raw, so she was going to take it as a win.
People spilled into her kitchen from both directions, and Conley rushed for the stove. She gently slapped his reaching hand. “We wait for Bull,” she said.
As if summoned, their sole wrangler wandered through the back door, and she made his plate up first. Despite repeated invitations to join them in the kitchen, he liked to eat in the living room in front of the TV. She couldn’t blame him.
Then she started serving her little family. She usually served Gunner first, but she didn’t tonight because she wanted to be able to see his reaction when he tasted the food.
She set his plate in front of him just before she sat across from him at the table, and then she tried to play it cool as she kept one eye on him.
He thanked her for making supper as he always did, and then he studied his plate for a moment. She couldn’t read hisexpression. Was he afraid? If so, she had given him cause, so she couldn’t be upset. Then, without looking for her, he put a few noodles on his fork and into his mouth. He chewed for a few seconds and then looked up at her in surprise before swallowing. She fought to keep the smile off her face. He went for another forkful, this time getting some meat.
