Harvest Moon (Virgin River #15)(57)

There was a big butcher block work island in the kitchen that was probably as old as she was, and she stood there, her hands in a bowl full of dough. Courtney stood opposite her. “What kind of bread?” she asked.

“Just my basic sweet dough. Nothing so fancy. I’ll make some rolls, couple of loaves, maybe put some aside for cinnamon rolls for breakfast…”

“Did you ever make a twisted French loaf?” Courtney asked.

Gram looked up. “Don’t know that I have, Courtney.”

“Want me to show you how?”

Surprised quiet hung in the air. Finally Gram said, “That would be so nice.”

“Well, I can’t remember how long to bake it,” Courtney said, dipping into the flour canister to sprinkle some flour on her work space. “And I’ll need a beaten egg for the glaze.”

Gram pushed the dough toward Courtney and went to the refrigerator. “We can figure out the baking time,” she said, getting out an egg. She cracked it in a bowl and beat it with a fork.

“And do you have a brush? It’s best to brush it on.”

“Course,” she said. “Let me watch how you do that.”

So Courtney kneaded and rolled out her three strips, like three fat snakes, then carefully braided them while Gram watched. She sealed the ends and had a perfect braided loaf.

“I declare, you’re gonna make yourself into a baker!” she said. Then she pushed the beaten egg and a brush toward her.

“We have to put on a cookie sheet first, and that’s the hard part. Sometimes it wants to fall apart.”

“Greased sheet?” Gram asked.

And Courtney remembered how Kelly had done it. “Yes,” she said. And a moment later she slipped her small hands under the loaf and transferred it. Then she brushed the top with the egg glaze. “There we go.”

“As I live,” Gram said. “Aren’t you the clever one. That’s so pretty. Should we make us one more?”

“Sure,” Courtney said.

“Then we best get on the cookies.”

“I don’t actually know how to make cookies. Just the kind you buy in the tube, already made, and put on the cookie sheet or in the microwave.”

“Pah, we want the real thing,” Gram said. “Let me get my file out. If you can read, you can cook. I didn’t know you had an interest in baking.”

Courtney shrugged. “I really don’t. I just picked up a few things, that’s all. Besides, there’s nothing on TV anyway.”

“That’s a fact,” she said. “Nothing on that box worth watching day or night. Not unless you like those asinine real-life things.”

“You mean reality shows?” Courtney asked.

“Asinine, if you ask me. People shouldn’t be watching other people while they’re just living their lives or trying to solve their problems. And the very idea you choose a husband or a wife on the television! The very idea! What happened to acting? If there isn’t acting in it, I can’t be bothered.”

Courtney laughed at her.

“Now, let me see—I think peanut butter and chocolate chip,” Gram said. “Does that work for you?”

“Works for me. But there’s rolls to do.”

“We’ll do ’em first. Let’s make another one of them French things.”

“You got it, Gram,” Courtney said. “I shouldn’t have gotten myself into this. We’re going to be busy all day.”

“Well, kiddo, that’s the way I like it. Busy all day. Now you tell me when you get hungry and we’ll take a break and eat something.”

“I’m kind of looking forward to the cookie dough,” she said. “Besides, don’t you and Gramp eat at about four o’clock?”

“Not quite that early,” she said. “That’s for the old folks. I’d say more like four-thirty.”

Courtney laughed. “You can make it all the way to four-thirty?”

“You wait till you’re eighty, young lady. You won’t be able to keep awake for those late meals like you used to.”

“I guess that is just around the corner,” Courtney teased.

And so they baked all afternoon. Then at exactly four-thirty they had a macaroni-and-cheese casserole with ham along with some sliced tomatoes and asparagus. Then after dishes, Aunt Carol, Lief’s sister, dropped by without her husband, just to say hello, and right behind her came Uncle Rob and Aunt Joyce. They didn’t stay long, just long enough for some pound cake and coffee. And sure enough, by eight o’clock, Gramp was nodding off in his chair with his newspaper in his lap and Gram was still banging around in the kitchen. Courtney and Lief were watching TV. Sort of.

“I think I might be able to stuff down another piece of that pound cake,” Lief said, heading for the kitchen.

Courtney thought maybe she’d eaten more today than she’d eaten in a month, but she stood up and followed him anyway. Before she got to the kitchen she heard him say, “Mom, Mom, what’s the matter?”

Courtney just waited outside the door. “Old women,” Gram said with a self-recriminating sniff. “Sentimental old fools…”

“What happened?” he asked. “Did you get your feelings hurt or something?”