Chapter 30 Whole Wheat Spaghetti
THIRTY
Whole Wheat Spaghetti
Mabel
That night, I was at the stove heating the red sauce we were going to put on our whole wheat spaghetti and add turkey meatballs, when Hutch moved from making the salad to press to my back, round me with his arms and put his chin on my shoulder.
Okay.
Yeah.
Now that Abigail had planted the seed, I had no idea how I’d missed it.
Then again, maybe I hadn’t missed it.
I just hadn’t believed in it.
I felt my heart pounding and the wave of hope I always kept at bay crashing against the levee I’d erected to keep it from screwing up my life.
I also melted back into him (obviously).
“We close? I’m starved,” he said.
“Salad done?” I asked.
He was about to answer when both Tonks and Hannibal started barking.
Tonks could make noise.
But Hannibal’s bark was terrifying.
I froze.
Hutch did not.
He grabbed my hand, dragged me from the stove, pulled me into the doorway between the kitchen and living room, and shoved me against the wall.
He then pointed in my face. “Don’t move.”
I nodded.
He went to the front window and peered around the curtain.
His alert body relaxed at whatever he saw, therefore I relaxed, and he ordered, “Hannibal! Tonks! Quiet!”
Hannibal immediately shut up.
Tonks gave a soft roo-roo then she shut up.
Hutch looked to me. “Mrs. Matthews.”
Oh man.
There came an imperious knock on the door, I moved into the room, and Hutch unlocked and opened it.
More imperious came when she demanded, “Kindly get out of my way and make sure your dogs don’t bite me.”
I watched with curiosity as to what Hutch was going to do in this situation, considering the woman not only didn’t offer a greeting, she didn’t ask for an invite over the threshold, or even to his house.
But Hutch just stepped aside and ordered, “Hannibal. Tonks. Friend.”
Tonks didn’t know “friend,” but then again, everyone was Tonks’s friend.
I saw Mark, Mrs. Matthews’s son, standing out on the porch, back to the door, keeping an eye on the darkness like he was guarding the door that led to a mafia madam.
Mrs. Matthews swept in, this time in a full-length, black fur coat with a matching fur hat, which she probably bought from an auction with authentication papers that stated it came from the wardrobe of the movie Doctor Zhivago.
Except it dwarfed her, so she looked like a human coat hanger.
Hutch shut the door.
Mrs. Matthews only had eyes for me.
She lifted a black kid-gloved hand, with all five fingers extended.
She grabbed her thumb. “Saturday, local law enforcement with the aid of federal and other local officers raided The Lion and The Lamb.”
She grabbed her pointer finger.
“Sunday, I hear word that this whole thing began because one of the women on that compound escaped and got far enough to ask someone for help, thus 911 was called. Considering I have a brain in my head and know the property to the south would not be where she was heading because it’s a good mile and a half away from that compound, I put two and two together and came up with the certainty that Mabel called 911.
I reckon that was quite a fright for you, so I decided to give you the day to get over it. ”
She grabbed her middle finger.
“And now it’s Monday.” Her eyes screwed up when she added, “Evening.”
She then went back to her thumb, to her index and again to the middle finger.
“One, two, three days you could have phoned me, and you did not.” She dropped her hand. “I clearly recall I instructed you, if you had any more problems with those people, you call.”
Tonks yodeled after this, and I didn’t know if my dog was agreeing with her or telling her off for telling me off.
Before I could say anything, Mrs. Matthews went on.
“I thought your man would do this.” She looked between Hutch and me.
“Like I ever believed that ‘he’s just my dog trainer’ hogwash.
” She returned her focus to me. “But since he clearly hasn’t, I will.
You’re new to this area, and you lived in the nameless, faceless city before you got here.
Allow me to educate you, we look after our own.
” She threw up both hands and let loose. “I’ve been worried sick!”
Oh my God.
How sweet.
Weirdly confrontationally sweet.
But sweet.
“I wasn’t ever in any real danger, Mrs. Matthews,” I told her.
Her voice went up two octaves when she asked, “How was I supposed to know that, unless you called?”
Wait up.
Did she…
Like me?
We barely knew each other.
“You can see now she’s fine,” Hutch told her, coming to sling his arm around my shoulders. “And we’re making dinner. We got enough to stretch. You and your son wanna join us?”
Wait up.
Was he…
Inviting her to dinner?
Mrs. Matthews sniffed. “What are you having?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs,” Hutch told her.
“Garlic bread?” she asked.
“Salad,” he answered.
She curled her lip.
Then she shouted, “Mark! We’re staying for dinner!”
Hutch went to open the door.
Mrs. Matthews swept off her hat and gloves and gave them to me like I was the butler, then turned her back to me so I’d help her with her coat.
Oh yeah.
She liked me.
And I liked her.
Hutch was welcoming Mark in as I took her coat and was beckoning her into the kitchen where the only coat hooks were, seeing as Hutch usually went in and out the back door.
“Wait until you see Hutch’s kitchen,” I told her.
“A kitchen’s a kitchen,” she repeated Hutch’s words.
Then she stopped dead when we hit the kitchen.
“Now do you see what I’m saying?” I asked.
“I feel like I’ve stepped back in time,” she replied, gazing around in what I estimated was Mrs. Matthews’s wonder, that being appearing mildly interested.
“Exactly,” I said as I hung up her coat.
“Beer, Mark?” Hutch asked as he took Mark’s coat to the hooks.
“Good for me,” Mark answered, giving me a chin-dip dude hello.
“I’ll have wine,” Mrs. Matthews announced.
“Sorry. We don’t have any wine,” Hutch told her.
“You don’t have any wine?” She sounded incensed.
Unh-hunh.
So totally liked her.
Hutch looked like he was about to bust out laughing.
He liked her too.
But this was good.
Far better than the Mr. Overprotective vibe he’d been exuding, a vibe that gave me Ms. Worried About Her Guy’s State of Mind vibes.
“No,” he replied about the wine.
“Not even for your woman?” she demanded.
Hutch raised his brows to me.
I told Mrs. Matthews. “I drink wine, but I also drink beer.”
“I have bourbon,” Hutch offered before she could say anything.
“Dash of water, rocks,” she stated instantly.
Now I was in danger of busting out laughing.
She sat. Mark sat.
While I got the meatballs out of the oven, slid them into the sauce and dealt with the spaghetti, Hutch got the drinks and set the table.
Hutch and I served up family style, and after plates were filled, Mrs. Matthews speared a meatball and held it pointed up to the ceiling.
“Can you please explain why this meat is white and my spaghetti is brown?” she requested.
I couldn’t hold it anymore.
I started laughing.
“I eat clean, Mrs. Matthews,” Hutch shared, his deep voice sounding subdued, but it was only because he was again trying not to laugh.
“That’s whole wheat pasta and those are turkey meatballs, and I’m just gonna say, Mabel does not eat clean, so she doesn’t mess around with flavor even though she’s making something I’ll eat. ”
Mrs. Matthews bopped the meatball my way as she spoke.
“Mark my words, young woman, do not acquiesce to the silly demands of some man. I do not care how tall or fine looking he is. Or how broad his shoulders. Or how thick his hair. Or how full his mustache.”
She seemed to have lost her train of thought (I didn’t blame her), then she brought it back.
“It starts small like”—she whirled her meatball fork in the air—“turkey meatballs,” she said with distaste. “And then you never know what he’s going to be expecting.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” I replied solemnly.
She brought the meatball to her nose, sniffed it like Moxie would do, then took a tentative bite.
She tipped her head in a mm gesture and ate the whole meatball.
Mark was snarfing it down like he hadn’t eaten in a week.
I glanced at Hutch to see the lines by his eyes were very deep and his shoulders were shaking, but he was bent over his bowl shoving spaghetti in too.
“I have an armoire I want you to look over, Mabel,” Mrs. Matthews stated. “It was my great-great grandmother’s. I would like you to assess it. I think it needs refinishing.”
“Oh my God, Mrs. Matthews, I’d love that.”
“Obviously, if you agree with me, you’ll be doing the refinishing,” she said like she was doing me a favor.
“I’d love that too.”
“You can give me a quote after you look at it,” she decreed, spearing her salad.
“I’ll call. We’ll set a time for me to come over.”
“I’m sitting right here,” she pointed out. “Would tomorrow do for you?”
I looked to Hutch.
“Does the man also hold your schedule?” Mrs. Matthews demanded.
“No, but he isn’t allowing me to go anywhere without him until he gets over me shrieking in his living room after I saw a woman screaming for help in the woods.”
She turned to Hutch. “Good man.”
“Thanks,” Hutch said to his bowl and shoved more spaghetti in.
“Will you bring her to me tomorrow at two?” Mrs. Matthews requested.
Hutch sat back, swallowed, and said, “Sure.”
She put her hand to the side of her mouth, leaned toward me, and then did not lower her voice at all when she asked, “This clean eating thing. Is he a liberal?”
I put my hand the same way, leaned to her and answered, “I don’t know. We haven’t talked politics. But I am.”
She sat back in shock. “I’m breaking bread with a liberal?”
“No, you’re eating the food she cooked,” Hutch said, all growly.
“Calm down, son,” she retorted. “It’s only on those phone app thingies where strangers seem fascinated by other strangers’ lives and opinions where people don’t get along. I was just surprised. Mabel doesn’t live like a liberal.”
“How do liberals live?” I asked curiously.
“I have no earthly clue,” she replied immediately. “You’re the only liberal of my acquaintance.”
With that, there was no hope for it.
I burst out laughing.
However, since she’d broken the seal…
“Mrs. Matthews,” I began. “Fur? Really?”
“I know, dear,” she said. “But those coats were my mother’s. And those animals gave their lives. I don’t have the heart not to put them to use.”
Oh.
Well then.
I smiled at her.
She didn’t smile back, but I could swear there was a twinkle in her eyes.
And then we all ate spaghetti.
Something to know.
Goons liked puppies.
I learned this by watching Mark sit on the floor in the romper room and letting all of Hutch’s babies crawl all over him.
But Mrs. Matthews pointed.
“I’ll take that one,” she announced like the puppies were donuts in a case.
They all looked a lot alike. All black. At this juncture, it was the color of their collars you had to use to tell them apart.
“That’s Nike and you picked well, Mrs. Matthews,” Hutch told her. “She’s one of two not already claimed.”
“You named that darling after a shoe?” Mrs. Matthews asked, horrified.
“No. I named her after the Greek goddess of victory, strength and speed.”
“Well, that makes sense,” she muttered. “I suppose they cost an arm and a leg.”
“If you want her protection trained, she does,” Hutch replied. “But gotta tell you, if you don’t, I’ll have to give you some breeder names. She won’t go wanting for long for an owner who needs her for what I’ll be training her for.”
“I want it all,” Mrs. Matthews informed him. “The boys can use the assistance, and they’ll love her.”
Her boys didn’t need assistance.
She might be a modern land baron (as such), but she didn’t need a guard dog.
She saw her son falling in love, and she loved her son, so that was that.
“Mark. We’re going,” she called.
Mark didn’t move.
He was busy tickling Remo’s belly.
Mrs. Matthews sighed.
Hutch gave her an out at the same time giving Mark more tickle time. “How about I get you a contract. You can take it with you, look it over and give me a call?”
“Let’s do that,” she said.
They took off to go to Hutch’s office, and I dropped down by Mark to get some tickles in too.
Very quietly, he said, “Dad died when she was pregnant with me.”
Stunned he was giving it to me and saddened at this knowledge, I turned to him.
“Car accident.”
“Oh God, Mark. I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too. She practically worshiped him. But they were young, and him dying that early put her in a bad spot. She worked her ass off to keep us fed and in the house she and Dad picked to start a family. And she just kept working. She had it rough. She had to be tough. She never wanted to be in that place again, and she wanted to leave me and mine so we wouldn’t ever be there either.
Eventually, I took it over, my wife does the books, my boys got on board.
But Ma has to be the face of things. It’s habit.
The tough cookie who doesn’t get screwed over.
Love her, and it really doesn’t matter that me and my boys do all the work and look like lackeys.
She’s not going to be here forever, and this connects us daily. ”
“You don’t really have to explain this to me.” I smiled at him. “I didn’t think you were a lackey. I thought you were a bodyguard.”
He chuckled.
Then he said, “She really likes you. She says you remind her of her. Striking out and taking risks to make your mark. She says, no matter how small that mark is, it’s still a mark.”
“Your name?” I guessed.
He looked sad. “My name is my dad’s name.”
I bumped shoulders with him. “And he made his mark.”
For a moment, Mark stilled.
Then he winked at me.
He decided tickle time was over before I did, but I expected this was so he could get his mom home and get home to his wife.
Eventually, Hutch and I stood on his porch with Tonks out nosing the ground to find her evening bathroom spot and Hannibal sitting next to Hutch, while I (not Hutch) waved them away.
After their taillights went out of sight, he called, “Come!” to Tonks (who’d taken care of her business, and by the way, she now had “come,” “drop it” (which she mostly had before from the fetch sessions) and “leave it” down, so she came right away).
We went inside, and as Hutch locked the door, I said, “It was kind of you to invite them to stay for dinner.”
He looked at me. “She’s like me. She needed to be sure you’re okay.”
God, this guy.
I went to him, put my hands on his chest and said, “Honey, seriously. I’m fine.”
“Talked to Rus today. They still haven’t apprehended Enstrom or Buress.”
I frowned.
Then I said, “They’ll get them.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m gonna make hot chocolate,” I informed him. “You want anything?”
He shook his head.
I rolled up to my toes and gave him a quick kiss.
Then I walked into his fantastic kitchen to warm up some milk on a century-old-plus stove.