“Ah, she’s…” He searched for a way to make it sound as if he wasn’t betraying Marge or her deceased daughter. “She’s…”
“She’s Ellie’s mom,” Paige chimed in. “She spent the night here last night.”
“What?” Marge’s eyes widened to the size of round platters.
“No. Paige meant Ellie. Ellie spent the night here.” His face felt on fire from embarrassment and Marge’s searing gaze.
Silence descended for a long moment, broken by the sound of footsteps on the front porch and a loud knock at the door. Caught red-handed. He would never hear the end of this.
“They’re here.” Paige clapped and raced to the entrance before Evan could move or think of a way of getting out of the awkward situation.
Chapter Three
T he large woman who stood directly behind Paige as the child opened the front door caused Julia to take a step back. Irritation puckered the lady’s thin lips into a frown, its full force directed at her.
Evan appeared and moved around his daughter, blocking Julia’s view of the unhappy woman. “Come in, y’all.” He took the grocery sack she held and hurried toward the kitchen, hiding the sack against his chest.
Julia advanced inside with Ellie next to her. Immediately, Paige dragged Ellie off toward her bedroom, leaving Julia to face the lady who was still frowning at her.
Evan came back into the room, minus the items she had picked up for their cooking lesson. “Marge, this is Julia Saunders. Ellie’s mother.”
Julia held out her hand to shake, but Marge just looked at her, ignoring the greeting. Julia dropped her arm back to her side and said, “It’s nice meeting you.”
“Marge is Paige’s grandmother.”
Evan’s mother? But there was no way Julia would ask that question out loud.
The large woman turned toward Evan. “May I have a word with you in private?”
“Sure.” Then to Julia he said, “I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.” After the last sentence, he cringed and darted a glance at Marge.
As the two left, Julia sagged back against the wall near the front door. She felt as though she had interrupted something. Julia wanted to leave.
Instead—because she knew it would upset her daughter if they left early—Julia made her way back to Paige’s room. She didn’t want to overhear any comments between Evan and Marge. The two girls sat on a white-canopy bed with a cotton candy–pink coverlet over it.
Julia leaned against the doorjamb. “Are you ready for your second lesson?”
Ellie peered at her. “Yes! I dreamed about riding last night. I can’t remember what happened, but I woke up happy.”
The slamming of a door rattled Julia. She stiffened, then tried to relax so the two children didn’t think anything was wrong. But they heard the same sound, and both of their foreheads crinkled in question.
Before either of them said anything, Evan came down the hall, arranging his features in a calm expression when he stepped into the girls’ view. “Are you two ready to go ride?”
“Yes!” they shouted in unison.
Ellie leaped from the bed and hurried toward the hallway. Paige moved at a slower pace and paused by her father.
“Is Grandma all right? I thought she might stay and see us ride.”
“She needed to go home to Uncle Bert, so she couldn’t.”
“I wish she would watch me ride sometime.”
“She will, princess.”
Smiling now, Paige rushed after Ellie.
“Obviously, I came at a bad time,” Julia said, trailing after the two girls.
Evan asked, “Did they hear Marge leaving?”
“’Fraid so.”
He winced. “That’s what I thought. My mother-in-law didn’t understand why I wanted to learn to cook. She is perfectly content to fix our meals forever and she made that crystal clear to me.”
“So, that wasn’t your mother?”
“No! My mother died when I was a child. My father now lives in Dallas.”
“Why wouldn’t she want you to learn to cook?”
“Because she enjoys preparing our meals, but especially coming out here and showing me just how lacking I am in housekeeping skills. She’s angling to be our housekeeper, although she would hate ranch life.”
Julia surveyed the kitchen with its clean counters and lack of dirty dishes in the sink. “I’d say you do a good job.”
“Not according to my mother-in-law. She believes her granddaughter lives in a pigsty.”
Julia stopped next to the oak table with two yellow place mats on it. “You’re kidding! I was considering hiring you to come over to my apartment and clean it.”
Julia liked the sound of his laughter that suddenly warmed the small space between them. Any lingering tension from Marge dissipated as his gaze captured hers. Her heartbeat picked up speed.
He broke eye contact with her, focusing on the bag on the counter. “What are we cooking today?”
“Spaghetti.”
“The kind in a can?”
She shook her head. “I think you’ve probably mastered that. Let’s move on to something more challenging.”
“Are you sure that’s wise? I once boiled an egg that exploded in the pan because I forgot about it.”
“I’m sure. But I like to live dangerously.”
“You might regret saying that before this is over.” He looked beyond her to the back door. “We’d better get to the barn before my daughter has Bessie saddled and decides to give her own lesson.”
“She’s good for her age. How long has she been riding?”
“Almost two years. Since I’ve had the ranch. She was so enthralled with the horses that I was afraid she would try to ride on her own if I didn’t teach her.” He grabbed his cowboy hat from a peg near the door.
“Paige sounds more and more like my Ellie. No wonder they like each other.” Julia left the house first, conscious of Evan’s gaze on her as she descended the steps on the back stoop.
“I’m not sure if I’m glad or scared. Paige can be a whirlwind.”
Julia slanted her glance toward him as they strolled to the barn. She could easily picture him riding over his land, saving a calf that had fallen into a hole, mending his fences, breaking a wild horse—everything but being a cook.
“Why didn’t you just say cook the onions?” Evan crunched up his mouth, his eyebrows beetling, as he stood at the stove brandishing a wooden spoon in his hand as though it were a weapon.
“Because a recipe will say sauté. If you’re going to cook, you need to learn the terms, too. Words like whisk, brown, fold, caramelize.”
“Why would I caramelize anything? I don’t even like caramel.”
Julia pressed her lips together to keep from laughing out loud, but a chuckle or two escaped. “When you caramelize something like diced onions, you cook them until they are a caramel color.”
He pushed his hand through his hair. “All I want to learn are a few dishes so Paige and I won’t starve. Today has confirmed that I can’t continue to be so reliant