Page 37 of Gumdrops and Garland

“Oh, I already know, and I already love it.”

“Maybe I’ll surprise you some day. You never know.”

“Now that I would bet on,” I said with a chuckle. “I can’t believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving already. Are you cooking for the dinner?”

“Do turkeys gobble?” he asked, his back to me.

“Not once they meet Kitchen Boy,” I teased and his shoulders shook as he put butter in a frying pan.

“Fair, but the answer is still yes. I’ll do all the prep work in the morning and then help out where needed. Are you serving?”

“I’m a floater this year. I’ll make sure food gets plated and sent out for the servers and that the pies are served and cleaned up.”

“I hear there’s a new tradition this year with the pies.”

I leaned my head against the wall as I chuckled. “You heard correctly. Since Holly is getting older, she wants more responsibility.”

“At nine,” he said with a shake of his head.

“Holly’s nine is like a normal kids’ twenty-nine.”

“Valid point. That’s what I love about her, though. She cuts right through the heart of things to get to the real matter.”

“I suppose that’s the way she grew up before Mel found her again. It must have been tough for Holly.” I closed my eyes and shook my head against the wall for a moment. When Holly’s grandparents kidnapped her, they raised her in all sorts of strange places until she started school. Then they shipped her off to live at school, and they tried to homestead a property while living in a camping trailer. Holly had been alone at the school for months when they learned her grandparents had been killed by wild animals. That was when she found her way back to Mel.

“I’m glad she’s got Mel and Mason now.”

“And don’t forget Noel!” I exclaimed in the same voice Holly always uses.

His laughter was good to hear when it filled the kitchen. “So how is Miss Holly changing things this year?”

“She’s managing the pie station and will train several of the school-to-work program kids on how it’s done. I figure by this time next year she’ll be running the whole show.”

“Probably as well as Mrs. Violet does.” He set a plate in front of me and winked. “Okay, that might be a stretch, but she could hold her own. That girl has had me wrapped around her little finger since the day Mason carried her into the diner. I love watching her grow up.”

“Same,” I said before I pointed at the plate. “What is this?”

“It’s a monster meatloaf sandwich. You eat it with a fork.”

He handed me one and I accepted it, cutting into the bread. “I have to say, if this tastes as good as it looks, you may have outdone yourself, Kitchen Boy.”

He’d piled meatloaf and mashed potatoes between two slices of bread, fried it and then poured warm gravy over the top of the whole thing. I took a bite and it melted in my mouth, the spicy gravy meeting the potatoes in perfect harmony. I think I ate half the plate before I took a breath. When I glanced up, he was sitting in a chair, his leg stretched out and his arms folded across his chest.

“You’re looking a bit smug, Mr. Garland.”

“When you’re good, you’re good,” he said on a shrug, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

I scarfed down the rest of the sandwich and took a drink of milk from the glass he’d set next to me. “You have the skills to back it up, so I’ll allow the ego trip. Seriously, that was great, thank you. I was starving.”

“You’re welcome.” He leaned his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his palm. “We had a visitor at the diner today.”

“Not so unusual,” I said with laughter, “it is a diner.”

“A visitor we don’t often see, that is. Your mom.”

I lowered the glass to the table slowly and swallowed down the instant heartburn. “Brenda? What did she want?”

“She was looking for you. She said she didn’t know where you were living now, but someone told her you were working at the diner.”

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