The Great Escape (Wynette, Texas #7)(93)

“Got a better one?”

He watched glumly as she mixed up a light dressing from a splash of olive oil and a fruity balsamic. “Why did I ever take this job?”

“Because you owed her.” She handed him the platter of stuffed trout. “The grill’s outside. Don’t overcook it.”

He gazed at the trout, his expression vaguely dumbfounded. “Do I look like a guy who knows how to grill?”

“Just don’t poke at the pieces until they’re ready to flip. You’ll figure it out. It’s in your male genes.”

He stalked outside, muttering under his breath. She checked the water she’d set to boil the corn. Instead of sabotaging Temple’s diet, she wanted to awaken her senses to something other than deprivation.

Temple wandered into the kitchen, her hair scraggly and eyes red, looking more like the scullery maid than the Evil Queen. Lucy poured her half a glass of wine from the bottle of sauvignon blanc she’d just bought and handed it over without speaking. Temple brought it to her nose, inhaled, then took a small sip. She closed her eyes and savored.

“We’re eating outside tonight, and I want flowers on the table.” Lucy gave her a lumpy blue pottery vase that looked like a grade-school art project. “Scrounge around and find something.”

Temple was too drained to protest.

Her effort consisted of hosta leaves, Queen Anne’s lace, and a few black-eyed Susans. Predictably, the end result didn’t fit her definition of perfection, so she hated it, but Lucy couldn’t imagine an arrangement more suited to the faded red-rooster tablecloth and unmatched dishes.

The picnic table, turned for a lake view, sat under the oak. Panda took the bench across from Lucy and Temple. Lucy set an ear of corn on Temple’s plate and her own, but gave him two. “I forgot to buy butter,” she lied. “Try that instead.” She pointed to the lime wedges lying on a child’s plastic Sesame Street plate.

As she’d hoped, the explosive sweetness of the corn combined with the tang of fresh lime juice and a sprinkle of sea salt made up for the lack of butter. She wanted to feed Temple’s soul but not sabotage her body. Despite a few charred places, Panda had done a good job grilling the fish, and the interior was moist and flavorful.

“God, this is so good.” Temple uttered the words like a prayer.

“Amen.” Panda moved on to his second ear of corn, eating far more tidily than either Temple or Lucy.

Temple examined her cob for a kernel she might have missed. “How did you learn to cook like this?”

Lucy didn’t feel like bringing up the subject of White House chefs. “Trial and error.”

After Temple had chased the last remaining pine nut around her empty plate with a moistened fingertip, she studied Lucy with genuine curiosity. “What’s in this for you? We all know I’m crazy. Why do you care what happens to me?”

“Because I’ve grown weirdly fond of you.” Besides, trying to fix other people was a great distraction from trying to fix herself. With her deadline less than a month away, she hadn’t written even a page of the material her father wanted, she wouldn’t let herself think about going back to work, and she barely talked to her family. All she’d accomplished was to bake a lot of bread, perfect her honey caramels, and have a dead-end affair with a man she was using as a sexual convenience.

“Lucy’s been taking care of people all her life,” Panda said. “It’s in her DNA.” He studied her in a way that made her uncomfortable. “She saved her kid sister. She got her parents together. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Lucy, it’s doubtful her mother would have become president.” He brushed a fly away. “You could say that by the time Lucy was fifteen, she’d changed the course of American history.”

His vision of her made her uncomfortable, and she got up from the table. “How about dessert?”

“There’s dessert?” Temple sounded as if she’d just heard that the Easter Bunny was real.

“Life is meant to be lived.”

Lucy returned from the kitchen with a square of dark chocolate that she broke into three small pieces. “You gave him more,” Temple grumbled. And then, “Forget I said that.”

But as Lucy and Temple nibbled at their own chocolate, Panda’s square remained untouched. He crushed his napkin and dropped it on his plate. “I’m handing in my resignation.”

The chocolate stuck in Lucy’s throat. Temple’s breakdown … The meal Lucy had just fixed … He’d found the excuse he’d been looking for to leave the island and, in the process, get away from her.

“Like hell you will.” Temple sucked a chocolate smear from her finger.

“You hired me to stop exactly this sort of thing,” he said calmly. “Cheese, chocolate, corn on the cob … I didn’t do my job.”

“Your job’s changed.”

His calmness evaporated. “Exactly how has it changed?”

She made a vague gesture. “I’ll figure that out.”

“Forget it!” He pushed himself up from the table and stormed across the yard toward his brooding place.

As he disappeared up the rocky slope, Temple looked at Lucy. “If you want to land this guy, you’ll have to work faster. Your time’s running out.”