Texas Dad (Fatherhood) (5 page)

“Counting you and me, there’s only gonna be six of us. Seven if Erma wakes up.”

J.J. studied the mixture. “We’re short on time. The recipe suggests dividing the meat loaf into two pans for faster cooking.” She shook her loose watch around her wrist to read it. “Erma said you eat at six-thirty. If I put this in the oven in two pans, it’ll be done on time. So will the potatoes.”

“Are you gonna make gravy?”

“No. I saw butter and sour cream in the fridge. That’s better on baked potatoes.” J.J. divided the meat mixture into two glass loaf pans and slid them into the oven. She poured the remaining soup down the drain.

“The lettuce is ready to go. Want me to put the dressing and stuff on the table?” Zoey asked.

“Please. And salt and pepper. Men love to pepper everything on their plates black and then turn it all white with salt.”

“Benny does that. Daddy nags him.”

“Hmm. Your dad’s father died of a stroke. Salt drives up the blood pressure, and high blood pressure can lead to a stroke.”

“I forgot until Erma and Daddy were talking about it today that his mom died of cancer when he was eight. I wish people didn’t die.”

J.J. glanced up from rinsing utensils. “It’s hard for those left behind to make sense of death, Zoey. I lost a best girlfriend in high school. Gina Mahoney. She died in a water skiing accident. And in college a good friend, Tom Corbin, was killed on his motorcycle. We all had a hard time with his loss. He was your dad’s friend, too.”

“Erma said all living things have a season. And with people, some have short seasons and some have long ones. That doesn’t seem fair.”

J.J. didn’t want to get into a deep philosophical discussion with Mack’s daughter. She covered the salad. “The meat loaf is already starting to smell good. Listen, I’ll go check on Erma, then we can see if any of those cookbooks have tips on repairing unplanned holes in layer cakes.”

“It’s kinda funny when you think about it,” Zoey said, grinning.

“To you. But I was probably feeling too smug about how nice it turned out,” J.J. agreed, sounding wry. “My mom always says pride goes before a fall.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means don’t get too full of yourself. Be right back.” J.J. set the salad in the fridge as she headed for Erma’s room.

“Erma.” Bending down, J.J. shook the woman gently by the shoulder. “Supper will be ready in fifteen minutes. I doubt the doctor wants you to miss eating. Let me help you into the bathroom. You can wear your robe to supper.”

Erma roused minimally. “I feel wrung out,” she mumbled. “Give me ten more minutes to gather myself. Oh, mercy...did you cook?”

“With Zoey’s help. Will you promise not to go back to sleep if I give you ten minutes? I baked a cake, but a soup can fell out of the cupboard and landed in the middle of it. I’ll try to camouflage the damage, then I’ll come back for you.”

Erma eased up on one elbow. At the end of a long groan, she said, “The men like fruit. There are sliced strawberries in a green container in the fridge.”

“Perfect. See you soon,” J.J. said from the doorway.

“Is Erma okay?” Zoey asked.

“She needs ten minutes to pull herself together. She offered a solution for our cake problem.” J.J. explained about the berries. “There’s a lot you can learn from Erma, Zoey.”

“About cooking.” Zoey handed J.J. the berry container. “At school almost all the girls in my class have pierced ears,” she said out of the blue. “In seventh grade girls wear skirts or dresses...and makeup. Erma only ever buys me jeans and plaid shirts. I don’t want to hurt her feelings. That’s a big reason why I sent your magazine that letter. I want my dad to meet and marry somebody who’ll do mom stuff with me.”

While she mixed strawberries with some ready-whipped cream she found in the fridge, J.J. considered Zoey’s hazel eyes and reddish braids—totally unlike Mack’s nearly black hair and smoky eyes. As she’d done earlier at the library, J.J. tried to picture Faith, whom she hadn’t known well. She thought Faith had blue eyes and ash-toned hair. But either parent could certainly have had red hair in their backgrounds.

“What about your grandmother Adams?” J.J. asked. “Is she still around?”

“Yeah, but I don’t see them much. They don’t believe girls should ever cut their hair, or wear skirts that show their knees. I wore jeggings at Christmas, and Grandpa called them sinful.” Zoey licked the spoon J.J. had set aside. “All my friends at school wear jeggings. I don’t see what’s sinful about them.”

More memories came back to J.J. Faith’s dad was a preacher of a very conservative church. Faith had defied them to attend Tech on a scholarship. Her parents had ordered her to turn it down to attend a bible college. Her refusal caused a huge rift. J.J. knew Mack had encouraged Faith’s rebellion.
Maybe he’d had an ulterior motive.
But she couldn’t think about that when, clearly, Zoey was asking her advice.

“Zoey, some teen girls go overboard with makeup and inappropriate clothes, trying to look older.” She placed the repaired cake in the fridge. Turning, J.J. noticed the girl’s crestfallen expression. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with looking fashionable, but not overdoing it. Maybe we can pick up a couple of teen magazines and find some outfits that would suit you and Brandy.”

“Can we?” Zoey perked up. But the girl talk was cut short when the back door opened and the men tromped in.

“Zoey, I’ll set the hot food on the table if you’ll get the salad. Then I need to go help Erma.”

Zoey dashed off, darting around her father, who said, “What’s with the candles on the table? We haven’t had a power outage.”

“It’s ambience, Daddy,” Zoey said, brushing past him with the salad. “You’d better sit down. J.J.’s bringing the potatoes and meat loaf. And she has a surprise for dessert.”

“A surprise? Where’s Erma? Everything smells great, so I guess she’s up to supervising.”

J.J. transferred the baked potatoes to a basket and passed it across the island to Mack. “Here, make yourself useful as well as decorative.”

That brought a ripple of laughter from the cowboys and Benny, who’d seated themselves at the trestle table. Even Mack snorted and smiled.

J.J. carried in first one pan of meat loaf and set it on a hot pad. Then she brought the second and took off her oven mitts. “Dig in. I’ll go get Erma.” She put a carving knife beside the dish closest to Eldon, one of the ranch hands. The meat loaf looked crustier than the picture in the recipe book, but, oh, well.

J.J. rushed into Erma’s room in time to see the older woman trying to slide off the bed into the wheelchair. “Hold on, Erma, what are you doing? If you’re going to try to get into the wheelchair, you need to push these levers first so it won’t roll out from under you.”

“I’ve always done for myself. I hate being laid up.”

“I understand,” J.J. said gently, “but we all need care occasionally. I see you managed to get your robe off the bedpost and put it on.”

“I did, even though it hurt like the dickens.”

J.J. straightened Erma’s robe and helped her into the now-steady chair. “Do you need the bathroom before we go to the table?”

“Nope. Whatever you fixed smells delicious, but I’m afraid I’m not very hungry. Still, it’s not often I get treated to a meal I didn’t have to cook. Much as I nag Mackenzie to find a wife who’ll share cooking and other household chores, he ignores me. Maybe now that you’re back...”

J.J. broke in. “Not happening, Erma. I have a job on the other side of the country.”

“Hmph. Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

As she wheeled Erma to the table, J.J. was aware that everyone suddenly fell silent, and the men all glanced down at their meals. Instead of slices of meat loaf, there were dark, unappetizing clumps on their plates.

“If nobody else is gonna tell Jill this meat’s so dry we can’t swallow it without ketchup, I will,” Benny said, waving his fork. “Where’s the ketchup?”

Aghast, J.J. left Erma at the table and she ran to get the large bottle of ketchup she’d seen in the fridge. “I’m s-sorry,” she stammered, giving the bottle to Benny. “I’ve never made a meat loaf. There were two different recipes in Erma’s books, and...” She broke off and sat down. With a pointed stare at Mack, she unfurled her napkin and said, “Since I hobnob with skinny models, you’re all lucky I didn’t serve you plain salad without dressing, or steamed tofu.” Mack and Benny both had the grace to look guilty.

Then Mack’s eyes crinkled at the corners and he laughed. “I deserve that, Jill. I thought you were out of hearing range when I made that comment to Benny. It was uncalled for and I’m sorry. And this meal is fine, considering the guys and I will be eating cold beans and dry biscuits for the next couple of days while we move the herd.”

“Dang right, so pass the ketchup,” Trevor said, after which the men’s talk turned to the gear they’d need to assemble for the trail drive.

The food disappeared and Erma began to nod off. Jerking awake, she cleared her throat. “Save the cow talk until after dessert. I want some of Jill’s cake before I head back to bed.”

“You baked a cake?” Mack sounded pleased.

Sliding out of her chair, J.J. said, “Mack, you pour coffee all around. Zoey, I’ll cut the cake if you’ll carry the slices from the kitchen.”

The girl jumped up at once. Jill cut generous slices of cake, taking care to spoon berries and cream over the ragged inner edges.

“Chocolate,” Mack exclaimed. “Erma, did you tell her that was my favorite?”

“I didn’t tell her anything. I intended to get up and oversee things, but I’m afraid those painkillers left poor Jill and Zoey on their own.”

This time when Mack looked at Jill, his smile glowed warmly.

She nodded to his daughter. “Zoey deserves more than half the credit. Without her valuable input I would’ve been sunk. My meat loaf wasn’t the only disaster. This two-in-one dessert is because―”

“Shh.” Zoey waved a hand in front of J.J.’s face. “The way you fixed it, nobody has to know.”

“Now they really have to know,” J.J. said, looping her arm over Zoey’s shoulders. “A can of soup fell out of the cupboard and dive-bombed dead center in my freshly frosted cake.”

After his first bite, Mack said, “I agree with Zoey, you didn’t need to tell us. It tastes great.”

Erma motioned J.J. and Zoey back to the table. “The number-one cook’s rule―what happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen.”

Everyone laughed at that, and J.J. finally felt her stomach relax. Until the men finished and trooped out, and Erma asked to go back to her room and Zoey bounded past saying, “I need to call Brandy.”

J.J. settled Erma. She wrote her cell number on a piece of paper and tucked it beneath Erma’s bedside phone. “I’m in the room directly across the patio. If you need me for anything at all during the night, holler out and I’ll be there.”

The older woman squeezed J.J.’s hand. “Say all you want that your place is in New York. Tonight this family felt whole for the first time in years. Mackenzie and Zoey felt it, too. Yessireebob.” Smiling softly, Erma sank down on her pillow.

The very idea sent squiggles of tension through J.J. As she returned to an empty kitchen and faced cleanup alone, Erma’s words stoked old yearnings J.J. tried to deny. Ignoring the melancholy feelings, she dived in, rinsed plates, stored a few leftovers and fed what remained of the very dry meat loaf to Jiggs. The dog lapped it up without ketchup or complaint.

It was after nine by the time she set the last pan in the dishwasher. The house had grown quiet. J.J. assumed Zoey had a nightly routine. Mack, she supposed, subscribed to the early-to-bed-early-to-rise custom of most ranchers. For someone who still ought to be on East Coast time, she wasn’t sleepy. She recalled seeing a bottle of white wine in the fridge. Getting out a glass, she poured some and retired to her room.

J.J. wandered to the open French doors, where the balmy night drew her onto the patio. A few small lanterns around the perimeter of the swimming pool added to the burnished glow from a golden moon. The faint light outlined a lawn swing that beckoned her. Sitting, she started it swinging, then tucked her legs up on the seat. J.J. sipped her wine as she searched for constellations in the star-studded night sky that she rarely saw in New York.

The sound of footsteps on the flagstones caused her to jump, almost spilling her wine.

“Sit,” Mack said. “I saw you from my room.” He pointed to another door that opened onto the pool. “I wanted to apologize.”

J.J.’s heart sped up and her breath caught in her throat as Mack came closer. Was he finally going to tell her he was sorry for the shabby way he and Faith had treated her? Her fingers tightened around the cool glass. She was ready to hear it and act magnanimous.

“I do my best to set a good example for Zoey. Today when I criticized you to Benny for no reason I wasn’t a good role model. So, forgive me, Jilly.”

It took her a moment to realize she and Mack were on different wavelengths. “You already said you were sorry at supper. Anyway, it was no big deal.”

“Tonight you cooked, entertained Zoey and looked after Erma. I’m grateful.”

She wrapped her free arm around her waist. J.J. didn’t want Mack seeing any sign of nerves. “I feel bad for Erma. For all of you.”

He reached out as if to touch her, then dropped his hand. “I think I’m still in shock from seeing you in town, and then working in my kitchen. You haven’t changed.” His voice fell to a husky whisper. “It’s as if those years since college didn’t happen.” He moved closer and J.J. felt each word travel up her spine as she set her wine glass on the wooden arm of the swing. She loosened her other hand from around her waist and held it out to maintain a distance, but it was too late. Her hand collided with his chest, her icy fingers welcoming the warmth.

“Jilly...” Mack bent his head.

Her brain screamed a warning, telling her to retreat. But she was held prisoner by his smoky gaze. She licked her lips and tasted the oak from the chardonnay. Then he crushed her against his hard lean body and kissed her, and kissed her and kept kissing her until Mack was all she tasted.

Her arms―in fact, her entire body―went pliant.