Chapter 23
Vivi's fingers hovered over her phone like it was a ticking bomb, and she knew one wrong move could turn her peach-pie panic into full-blown disaster.
"Honey? Is everything okay? You sound like you're being chased," her mother said.
Vivi cupped her hand over the phone and whispered, "I am being chased. By responsibility. By pie. By the entire female population of this town. Mom, I need Grandma's peach pie recipe. Now."
"Oh! Her famous pie?" Her mom brightened instantly. "Aw, sweetheart, that makes my heart so happy. Is this for a boy?"
"No, Mom. It's for twelve old ladies who could snap me in half with a single look. The town drafted me into baking a dozen pies for some fair. I need the recipe or I'm going to die."
"Well, it's easy," her mom said, like she was sharing instructions for making toast. "You buy the frozen pie crusts, the deep-dish kind, not the cheap ones that buckle like bad knees. Then you get two cans of sliced peaches, drain them, toss with cinnamon and sugar—"
“Frozen pie crusts? Canned peaches? I’m so dead."
"Is that a problem?"
"Epic problem." Vivi slapped a hand to her forehead. "Mom, they basically swore on the bones of their ancestors that if I dared show my face with anything frozen or canned they'd banish me to the cornfields."
"Oh, don't be dramatic."
"I'm not! These women carry church-lady judgment like concealed weapons!"
"Your grandma did say the secret was love."
"Mom, love isn't going to save me from death-by-Midwestern-biddies."
"Do you still want me to text you the brand names?"
Vivi let out a strangled noise. "Yes. And also maybe start praying."
"Oh, sweetheart," her mom laughed. "I've been praying for you ever since you were five and made a dress for one of the pigeons that lived on our stoop."
Vivi groaned and thunked her head against the planter. "Send the recipe. If I die, bury me with a can of peaches so they know what took me down."
"You got it."
Vivi hung up, staring at her phone like it was the devil incarnate.
Frozen crust. Canned peaches. She was doomed.
Flour coated the countertop and Vivi's shirt.
She stared down at the peach pie carcass on the counter, which was a sagging, collapsing crime scene of fruit and tears.
"It should not be this hard," she muttered, shoving a sticky strand of hair out of her face. "People on the internet do this all the time. There are teenagers on YouTube who make this look like breathing."
The crust was either too wet. Or too dry. Or too cursed. The peaches had turned into something between soup and sadness. And the lattice she'd attempted looked like a drunk spider had lost a bet.
Her phone screen blinked beside her with the recipe titled: Peach Pie Perfection!
Lies. Absolute lies.
She leaned over the counter, knuckles sinking into flour, staring down her enemy. "Why won't you behave? I'm following the instructions. I'm doing everything right. Why are you melting?!"
That's when the door swung open.
“What in the bloody hell is going on in here?” Rea demanded, standing in the threshold like an offended deity, eyebrows lifted high enough to have its own zip code.
"I’m, uh, I’m baking."
Rea took one sweeping look around the kitchen—the flour drifts, the peach sludge, the crust that looked like it had survived a natural disaster—and clicked her tongue like she'd walked into a moral failure.
"Baking?" Rea repeated, stepping inside. " "Darling. You look as though you've been dragged through a hedge backwards."
Vivi threw her hands up, sending a cloud of powder into the air. "I have to make twelve pies! Twelve! And apparently using frozen crust and canned peaches is a capital offense!"
"So instead, you decided to sacrifice my kitchen to the pie gods in hopes they'd take mercy?"
"That was the plan," Vivi muttered.
Rea walked over, poked the crust with one finger, and recoiled like it bit her. “If you served this to the Bridlewood Regents, they'd exile you to the back pews for life."
Vivi groaned into her hands. "Lady Rea, please, I'm desperate. I don't know what I'm doing. The internet lied to me."
Rea's lips twitched, softening. "Of course it did, darling.
That's what the internet does." She rolled up her sleeves like she was preparing for battle.
"Step aside. If we're going to salvage this disaster, I need room to work—and you need to stop touching things before you hurt yourself or the fruit. "
Vivi sagged against the counter. "I'm trying. I just…pie is hard."
"Pie is not hard," Rea corrected, plucking the rolling pin out of Vivi's hands. "Men are hard. Taxes are hard. Pie is basic survival." She dusted her hands over the counter. "I learned how to do this the minute I became a ranch wife."
"You bake?"
"Of course I bake. I may have French tips sharp enough to slice open an envelope, but I fed that man of mine better than any woman in the county.
You want to keep a cowboy happy? You learn to speak fluent butter and sugar.
Taking care of his belly is taking care of his heart. Every good woman knows that."
She continued effortlessly, tying on an apron that read, Marry Rich, Season Well.
"Now stand back and stop looking like you're watching your own funeral. If you want to impress those brassy Midwestern matriarchs, you need more than determination. You need strategy."
She shot Vivi a pointed look—one Vivi recognized as former gold-digger wisdom loading.
"Never let them see you panic. Ever." Rea scooped Vivi's ruined crust into the trash.
"Smile pretty, speak with purpose, and pretend everything you do is exactly what you intended—even if the house is on fire and you're the one holding the matches.
" She reached for the peaches. "And when in doubt? Butter. Butter fixes everything."
"Even pie disasters?"
"Butter could fix the national debt. Now fetch me the sugar and try not to touch anything."
Vivi felt a flicker of hope that maybe she wouldn't die in a peach-pie avalanche after all.
"Now, tell me what’s on your mind," Rea said. "What's going on between you and Boone?"
Vivi laughed nervously, waving a hand like it was nothing. "Not much. Just ranch stuff."
Rea didn't even blink. "Oh, bollocks. I heard about your little sex trap from Dottie. And don't try to tell me it’s nonsense gossip."
Vivi's cheeks burned hotter than the oven. "I mean, I thought about it…I was going to but I chickened out."
Rea sighed, a deep, amused exhale that carried decades of sharp wisdom.
"Listen darling, you're a woman with womanly needs.
And Boone? He's a catch, no question. So don't be shy, that man is sought after in this town and if you fancy him then you need to go for it.
A woman's got to know what she wants and then take it.
Life's too short to sit around pining. My nan taught me that the fastest way to a man's heart is straight through his senses, and his ego.
Charm him, tease him, and never forget, you're worth the risk. "
Rea's words wrapping around her like a warm blanket and Vivi felt a spark of courage light inside her. "But he's so complicated."
"Every good man is. But puzzles are meant to be solved." She pointed the rolling pin at her. "Remember, while you play the game, don't lose yourself. Keep your wit sharp, your confidence sharper, and never let him forget you're the prize."