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“Good girl,” he said. “Good job.”
And it made her melt.
“Gus,” she said when he turned like he was going to leave. And she couldn’t stand it.
“What do you need, mite?”
“Just... You didn’t forget. The doctor appointment. Tomorrow?”
“No. I’ll be there.”
“Tomorrow morning. So... And we can just go together.”
“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll go together. I’ve got some stuff to do.” He gestured back toward the door, letting her know he was about to leave.
“Okay.”
And then he left. But her heart didn’t settle down for a long time after.
ITCOULDN’TBEthat hard to make pancakes. It couldn’t bethathard. He built things with his bare hands. Repaired fences. Wrangled cattle. How hard could it be to make pancakes?
Well, he found out that making pancakes wasn’t as simple as he thought. Rubber disks, however, were pretty easy. And by the time Alaina came down for the appointment, he had a stack of them on a plate.
“I made breakfast,” he said, trying to smile and not quite managing it.
“You don’t cook,” she said, blinking at him.
“No. I am... I’m terrible at it. But it seemed...seemed kind of like the thing to do. Since it’s your doctor appointment day and all that.”
“Oh. That is... That is really...very nice.”
“Don’t say that until you take a bite.”
He started her a plate, putting a couple of the disks onto it and handing her a bottle of syrup. She poured some on, and took a bite. And she chewed. Very, very thoughtfully. And very, very thoroughly. “Thank you.”
“Let’s go to breakfast,” he said.
She pushed the plate away. “If you insist.”
Which was how they found themselves headed into Becky’s about ten minutes later.
The only diner in town, they had an all right breakfast, a halfway-decent burger, great chili and really terrible stir-fry.
They had added that to try to be a little bit more worldly. It was a very bad idea. But the breakfast was fine.
“Eggs and bacon,” she said. “Toast.”
“Same,” he said. And he looked at her. “Not pancakes?”
“For some reason I wasn’t really hungry for pancakes.”
“Great. I ruined pancakes for you.”
“You didn’t.” She laughed. “I mean, maybe for today.”
He chuckled.
“We can...we can work on cooking something together.”
