Ultimate Courage (True Heroes #2)(58)

“I can believe that, actually.” Elisa found herself smiling again. “It’s nice to meet you both. Do you all live here?”

Lyn grinned and jerked her head toward David. “The two of us are in the guest cabin right now, but we’ll be moving back into our cabin as soon as the expansion is done. I needed an office and a bigger bathroom.”

“With a tub,” Sophie sighed.

“A wonderful, deep soaking tub,” Lyn affirmed.

“Ooh.” Elisa sighed, too. How long had it been since she’d taken a real bath? The chance to soak and let all the stress go as the heat from the water seeped into her muscles would be so good.

Boom wrinkled her nose.

Elisa chuckled and looked at Sophie. “I actually have no idea where Brandon sleeps.”

Brandon banged a pan on the stove. David barked out a laugh and almost choked. Lyn slapped a hand over her mouth, and Boom outright laughed.

Sophie turned a bright red.

“Sophie is a good friend,” Alex said from behind Elisa.

As she turned to look up at him, he dropped a kiss on her temple in a seemingly absent-minded gesture and ruffled Boom’s hair.

It was Elisa’s turn to blush as Boom stared at her with a thoughtful expression.

“A friend who brings sweets and pastries to get us fat,” Alex continued as he nabbed something from a dish.

Sophie slapped at his hand. “Elisa hasn’t had a chance to get anything yet, and I use you guys as guinea pigs for my new recipes.”

Alex stuffed his prize into his mouth unrepentantly.

A flustered Sophie handed a plate to Elisa. “Come help yourself. There’s scrapple and hash browns. Brandon’s making eggs to order.”

Elisa paused. “I’m sorry if I—”

Sophie shook her head. “Oh, no. It’s no big deal. Honest mistake meeting us all in the kitchen like this. I’m just a friend from forever ago and come over all the time. Is scrapple okay or do you prefer bacon?”

Elisa studied the crisp fried slices of…something. “I’ve never had scrapple before. What is it?”

“Never ask what scrapple is.” Boom leaned toward her and whispered loudly, “None of us talk about what’s in scrapple.”

“It’s delicious,” Alex said as he took up a plate of his own. “It’s pork-based. And that probably is all you want to know about it.”

Elisa smiled and took a slice. “I guess I can try something without knowing everything about it.”

In short order, she was seated at the table with a plate of scrapple, eggs over easy, and hash browns, pondering whether she could eat her sweets first. There were sweet rolls baked a perfect light gold with some sort of gorgeous red berry filling and topped with rich vanilla icing. “Whatever these are, Sophie, they look amazing.”

Sophie smiled. “Vanilla glazed strawberry rolls. Strawberries aren’t in season locally right now. We’re a couple of months late for that, but you can generally still find enough for this recipe at a decent price at most grocery stores. It’s a Boom favorite, so I figured I’d bake a batch.”

Elisa smiled.

“They’re so good.” Boom was happily gobbling up everything on her plate with the abandon of a young girl with a high metabolism and no worries about the need to do cardio later.

“They’re sweet.” Alex agreed. “And you like just about anything sweet.”

“Mmm. I like other stuff.” Boom sucked on the tips of each finger with exaggerated care. Then she looked directly at Elisa. “Pachamanca is super good for dinner when we go to Dad’s favorite restaurant. I’m going to try it the way Dad had it as a kid when we go visit my abuelo in Peru someday. Papa rellena, too. They’re these balls of mashed potatoes stuffed with super delicious meat filling. So good! And then I get dessert. Dad tries to make sure my sweet stuff is mostly fruit. He says sugar and candy should be treats and are even better when I don’t have them all the time. He’s kind of right, but some days I want sugar so much I’d take baths in sugar if I could.”

Chuckles all around the table.

“Well, you could.” Elisa ventured as she took a bite of her own strawberry roll. She lost her train of thought for a minute as the strawberry sweetness mingled with vanilla spread over her tongue and combined with the wonderfully soft texture of the roll. So. Good. When she came back to her senses Boom, Alex, David, and Brandon were staring at her. “Oh. Well, taking a bath with sugar. You could make homemade sugar scrubs. You don’t eat them, but they can be really good for your skin.”

“True,” Sophie chimed in. “I never thought about it before, but Boom had dry skin so bad last winter she was itching a lot. A sugar scrub could help with that, and it’s totally natural. It’s also a great natural way to get the grime out of your hands instead of those nasty industrial soaps you guys use. They used to have a shop in New Hope that made all their scrubs and soaps themselves. They ended up moving to the West Coast and shutting down the store.”

“That’s too bad.” Elisa pondered the details of a business making scrubs and soaps. Her brain automatically started going through the probable logistics, and she noted additional topics for research. It was a fun mental exercise. “I used to make my own scrubs back in college. And soaps in small batches. It’s a calming hobby.”