Page 20 of Fix Me Up, Cowboy
“Oh,sugar,” I say at my lack of success. Apparently, flour combined with water creates a goopy paste.
Which is now tangled in Charlie’s fur.
Wow, who knew?
In my defense, high school chemistry wasn’t my strong point. I swear, my junior year science teacher aged ten years every time we did a lab experiment. All right, I’ll admit I wasn’t paying attention to the recipe that day when I accidentally created the wrong chemical reaction. No humans or animals were hurt in the making of it.
But the smell? That was something else.
It takes a while, but I eventually get the paste out of Charlie’s fur. I remove my soggy dog from the bathtub and wrap him in a pink towel.
He gives me an indignant look as if to say,Really? Pink?
“Sorry, this is the best I can do for now.” All of Charlotte’s towels are that color.
I dry him off and carry him downstairs. My apron and dress are wet and covered in flour, but since I still have to finish the strudel, there’s no point changing my dress just yet. I switch the apron to a clean one.
With a lot of effort, a few frustrated sighs, and a string ofI can do this, I can do this, I can do this, I finally manage to lift the pastry with the filling onto the baking sheet. Some of it is still stuck to the counter, but there’s not much I can do about that.
I put the strudel in the preheated oven and start cleaning up my mess.
“I don’t remember Olga making this much mess when she cooks.” But then Olga wouldn’t have accidentally dumped flour on Charlie or the kitchen floor either.
By the time I’m finished cleaning, the yummy smell of baking pastry and apples fills the room.That’s always a good sign. My stomach growls in anticipation.
On the way to Charlotte’s home office, to sort through her desk drawers, I make a detour to the laundry room to put the clothes in the dryer.
The room now smells strongly of bleach. Is that a good thing? I don’t know. Hopefully it is.
I open the washing machine and pull out the clothes, one by one, to put in the dryer. “Oh, my,” I say, holding up Charlotte’s old bright-pink T-shirt. It now has some interesting white blotches and streaks on it. “That doesn’t seem right.”
I look skyward. “I’m really sorry. I obviously have no idea how to do laundry. Just like I don’t know how to clean stables and take care of horses. My skill sets lie more in the realm of shopping and clubbing and having fun.”
Once upon a time, they used to give my life meaning. But since the accident, I feel like I’m wandering around without any real direction—other than the volunteering I do with Charlie.
Maybe deep, deep,deepdown, that’s why I decided to come to Copper Creek—I need to throw myself into a project and determine my next steps.
Great idea…in theory. Now I just need to figure out a project to pursue.
And no, cleaning stables is not it.
I toss the clothes into the dryer—bleach stains and all—and start it. With luck, I’ll dry the clothes without burning down the house. I’m sure aunt Bertha will be happy to include that Fun Fact in her upcoming family newsletter.
Fun Fact: Kate is now domesticated.
Since the strudel still needs to bake for another twenty minutes, I sort through the desk drawers in the office. According to my great-aunt’s lawyer, he set up her estate so that all her bills, like the utilities and Internet, are automatically paid via her bank account. The same thing for the horse supplies.
The drawers don’t contain anything of interest. Most of the papers are outdated and can be thrown away as far as I can tell. I dump them into the box marked Recycling.
I remove the last of the papers from the drawer, revealing an old-fashioned-looking key. It’s not the house key—that much I know.
“What do you suppose this is for?” I ask Charlie. I haven’t found anything in the house so far where it might fit.
The timer on my iPad dings. I turn it off, but as I return to the kitchen, an alarm starts shrieking from there. I stride into the room, half prepared to find flames engulfing the place. Instead, smoke is pouring from around the closed oven door.
Unsure what to do first, I stand motionless, a deer caught in the headlights of a fire truck. It’s Charlie’s bark that snaps me out of my stupor. I grab the oversized, padded mittens and cautiously open the oven door. Dark smoke unfurls in a big gust.
Oops.
