Chapter 22
twenty-two
T he scent of chicken broth surprised Mission as he opened his bedroom door and headed down the hall.
He and Kristie had been in the medical barn for about twenty minutes while the storm lashed rain over the farm.
It had still been drizzling as they’d made their way back to his house, and he’d analyzed the food in his fridge and freezer while she showered.
Then he’d jumped in to get clean, dry, and warm.
“You’re cooking?” he asked, coming to a complete stop next to the fridge.
Kristie stood in his small kitchen, taking up nearly the whole alleyway between the sink and the island. As she turned from the sink with a mug in her hand, she said, “I saw you had chicken broth, and I thought it would be okay if I made some.”
“Of course it’s okay.” He smiled at her. “But this from a woman who won’t eat hot desserts in the summer?”
She’d told him she was a seasonal eater and baker, and that her friends often teased her about it.
“It feels really cold and dark outside,” she said, turning back to the window.
“It’s July,” he reminded her. “And we’ve been really busy on the farm lately, so I don’t have much in the way of gourmet groceries.”
“Anything is fine,” Kristie said, as he pulled open the fridge to once again consider his options.
He did have a roll of breakfast sausage that he could fry up—after he thawed it. It had come from his freezer and one of the pigs that Travis and Poppy had raised last year. But he’d made breakfast sandwiches for Kristie before, and he didn’t want to be pigeonholed.
Ridiculous, maybe, but how Mission felt nonetheless.
“I have a few frozen meals,” he said. “Spaghetti and meatballs, meatloaf, a lasagna. And I’ve got bread, so I could toast up some garlic bread.”
Sometimes work on the farm simply wiped Mission out, and he didn’t feel like cooking when he got home.
To be honest, Mission felt like that most days.
But since he’d started dating Kristie, he’d been eating less out of his freezer and more at restaurants—or whatever she brought him when she came over in the evenings.
“Let’s just do that,” Kristie said. “It doesn’t have to be a big thing.”
Mission got out four or five freezer meals and set them on the island in front of her. “Pick the one you want, and I’ll get the broiler going.”
He turned back to the stove to do that, then pulled out his Texas toast and a stick of butter. He grabbed his jarlic, garlic salt, and garlic powder. Kristie picked up a couple of the boxes and actually turned them over to read the back, but in the end, she still picked the spaghetti and meatballs.
“What have you got going on there?” she asked as Mission used the back of a spoon to mash the pre-chopped garlic, a little bit of juice from the jar, garlic salt, and garlic powder all together into buttery deliciousness that he would spread onto the toast.
“Garlic butter,” he said.
She picked up the jarred garlic—jarlic—and looked from it to him, raising her eyebrows. “I’m surprised you use such a convenience item.”
“Oh, you are?” he teased. “Well, I haven’t been to culinary school, Miss Higgins, so you’ll pardon me if I use jarred garlic. It saves a lot of time, and it’s always good when you pull it out of the fridge.”
“I didn’t go to culinary school either,” she said, giving him a pointed look as she turned around.
Mission used the spoon to spread copious amounts of garlic butter on each piece of toast, then slid the tray into the oven. He ripped open her spaghetti and meatballs and stuck it in the microwave.
“What’s everyone else entering into the baking contest?” he asked.
Kristie sighed as she sank onto a barstool and lifted her chicken broth to her lips. “I don’t know…Lennie will do something eccentric—she likes to experiment in the kitchen.”
“Jocelyn’s will be a cake, I’m assuming,” Mission said. Kristie had told him that Jocelyn wanted to learn about and bake every type of cake there was and then enter a televised baking competition.
“Of course,” Kristie said, wrapping her fingers around her mug as if to warm them. “Harper sometimes surprises us,” she added. “But she’s busy and her desserts are definitely on the scaled up end of normal.”
She settled into silence, then got up and turned her back on him. “I’m just hoping I can keep up with them,” she said as she strolled over to the front window and looked out.
Mission sensed the vulnerability in her and heard the insecurity in her tone. “Let’s say you don’t,” he said, causing Kristie to whip back to him. “Just go with me.”
He prayed she would, for long enough to understand where he was coming from. “Let’s just say you don’t win anything. Let’s say we show up at the State Fair, and we’re wandering around the baked goods section…”
A small smile came to Kristie’s mouth, and Mission tilted his head. “Oh, is it not the baking section?”
“The Pantry has all kinds of things,” Kristie said. “Canned goods, jams, honeys, even homemade soaps and ointments. But the King Arthur Baking Company competition is in their own building.”
“Okay, great,” Mission said. “And let’s say we’re in that building, walking around, looking at all the desserts with ten words to describe them, and we get to yours….” He raised his eyebrows, just to check to make sure she’d come on this mental journey with him.
She folded her arms and cocked her hip, clearly with him.
“And let’s say there’s nothing there,” he said. “No blue ribbon. No yellow ribbon. No red ribbon. No ribbons of any color at all.” He smiled, because Mission had no idea what color the good ribbons would be. “What will happen?”
“You want me to imagine the worst thing possible?” she asked.
“Sometimes I like thinking of what the worst thing could be,” he said. “Then I’m prepared if it happens, and I’m pleasantly surprised if it doesn’t.”
“Maybe then you’re just worried about something you shouldn’t be,” she said.
“Maybe,” he said, and he turned back to the microwave as it beeped. “Maybe you could tell me how I’m supposed to act if the no-ribbon thing happens.”
“If I have to tell you,” she said. “That defeats the whole reaction.”
“Does it?” he asked. “Maybe it won’t bother you, and so if I go overboard, it’ll just be ridiculous. But if I don’t give you enough support, then you think I’m a total tool. So will you be disappointed?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Maybe I need to know for me,” he said. “So, will you be disappointed?” He stirred her spaghetti, her noodles and sauce, and put the tray back into the microwave.
“Yes, I’ll be disappointed,” Kristie said, a definite bite in her voice. “Is that what you want to hear?”
“Of course I don’t want you to be disappointed,” he said, turning to face her.
“I don’t want you faking anything either,” she said.
“I won’t fake anything,” Mission said. “Have I ever done that for you?”
“No,” she said grumpily. “And the overall winner gets a purple ribbon, Mish.” She turned her back on him again and walked away, something slow yet strained in her step. No matter what, Mission didn’t like it, but he didn’t know how to make it go away.
Mission suddenly smelled garlic and quickly pulled open the oven, a curse riding the back of his tongue.
He wasn’t great with the broiler and had burned more things than he cared to admit.
Thankfully, the back pieces had just started to sizzle and brown.
He quickly flipped the baking sheet around to put the front pieces in the hot spot of the oven.
He closed it and remembered to set a timer on the stove.
Then he opened the Salisbury steak meatballs and mashed potatoes, and got the tray ready to put in the microwave.
After Kristie’s spaghetti came out, steaming and hot, he arranged it into a perfect Italian pile on a plate, took out the garlic bread, wedged a piece on the side, and said, “Dinner’s ready, kitten. ”
She came toward him then, and Mission put his own frozen meal into the microwave. He pulled out the last little bit of parmesan cheese he had and sprinkled it over the top of her spaghetti as she sat down at the bar.
“Thank you, Mish,” she said. “This looks great.” Their eyes met. “Should we pray?” she asked.
Mission had never prayed with Kristie before, but he quickly folded his arms and said, “Sure, would you like me to do it?”
“Yes, please.” She’d softened, and Mission truly hoped that he hadn’t upset her with his talk about what she would do if she didn’t win the baking competition—or even get a ribbon.
“Dear Lord, we’re really grateful for this summer day, especially for the rain, as it’s been real dry lately, and our fields and animals need the moisture. We’re grateful that we got Lady back in time, and that she seems to be doing well.”
He took a breath, his mind stretching in too many directions.
“We’re grateful that we have warm shelters in the winter and cool ones in the summer, and we’re grateful for the bounty of food that we enjoy.
Please bless what’s been prepared tonight, that it will serve us in a way that will allow us to serve Thee. Amen.”
Mission wanted to stuff his cowboy hat back on his head. Normally when he prayed over a meal, it was in a large group—at Hunter’s house or in the backyard at the farmhouse. He wasn’t sure why, but his face heated as embarrassment squirreled through him.
“That was nice,” Kristie said. “Thank you.”
“Was it?” Mission asked.
She twirled up a bite of noodles as he turned to get a piece of garlic toast from the tray. “Yeah,” she said. “Simple. I liked it.”
Simple ran through his mind. Yes, Mission was a simple man in so many ways.
He frowned as he bit into his bread and watched her take her first bite of noodles and sauce. Her eyes sparkled as brightly as ever—until she noticed him glowering at her.
She swallowed quickly and wiped her mouth with a paper towel. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What did I say?”
“I am simple.” The words scraped his throat on the way out. “It’s probably best that you know that now. This is my life. This is all there is.”
Kristie looked like he’d flung ice water in her face. “I know who you are, Mission.”
“Do you?” he asked. “And you’re willing to live on this farm with me if we get married?”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at him, her food forgotten.
“I run this farm now,” he said, feeling combative for a reason he couldn’t name. “And I’ve worked here for eighteen years. I’ve never been on an airplane, and I have no desire to visit fancy places and see the world. I do want to get a dog, but that’s about as exciting as my life gets.”
The microwave beeped and he turned away from her to stir his freezer meal. “I can eat a sandwich for any meal,” he said, the words like poison as they streamed over his tongue. “And I eat out of the freezer sometimes, and I work a lot. Yes, my life is simple—because I’m simple.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Kristie said.
Mission slammed the microwave shut and put his meal back in for its final two minutes. He kept his back turned to her, even ignoring her when he heard the barstool scrape and her footsteps come closer to him.
She joined him in front of the stove and reached for another piece of garlic toast. “This is the most complicated garlic bread I’ve ever had,” she said.
Mission huffed and grunted, very much like a horse who was being asked to do something he didn’t want to do. He cut a look at Kristie out of the corner of his eye, and she offered him a bright smile.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” she said, her smile fading as her sincerity shone through. “It was a nice prayer, because it was simple. Sometimes people have a tendency to overcomplicate things, don’t you think?”
“Like the names of their apple crumble,” he said. For one horrifying moment, Mission thought he may have pressed his luck too far and said something he thought was witty, but was actually hurtful.
Then Kristie sent peals of laughter streaming through his cabin, and he knew his life would never be the same without that sound in his ears—and this woman in his life.
“Yeah,” she said, giggling as she went back to her plate. “Like the overcomplicated names of their apple crumble.” She pointed her fork at him. “But just for that, Mister, you won’t get to taste it until after the State Fair.”
“Oh, come on,” he said. “That’s not fair.”
But Kristie wouldn’t budge. Mission didn’t really mind, because if he couldn’t taste her apple crumble until after the State Fair…that meant they’d still be together in September.