“She’s sure got them. An investment, sure. And a getaway for them. But he—they—open it up. Seems to me they could’ve said, ‘Okay, vacation time. See you in a couple weeks.’ But that’s not what they did.”

“No, they didn’t.” Her opinion of him rose several notches. He understood, and he appreciated.

“So we’ve got this houseful of people. I felt a little weird about tagging along, but that’s on me. For Del, it’s, ‘We’ve got this place, let’s use it.’ No weight, no strings.”

“You’re right. Damn it.”

Those sharp green eyes met hers again, with an understanding that nearly made her “water up.”

“But he doesn’t get we bring our own weight, our own strings. He doesn’t feel them or see them. If he did—”

“He’d be irritated or insulted,” she finished.

“Yeah. But sometimes a girl needs to buy her own lemons, so he’s got to deal with the irritation and insult.”

She finished the other piecrust, placed it in the second pan. “I should be able to explain it to him. I guess that’s on me.”

“I guess it is.”

“Just when I was starting to like you,” she said, but smiled.

When Emma wandered in, Laurel was demonstrating the proper way to create meringue.

“Tournament in the game room, in about an hour.”

“Poker?” Mal asked, brightening up.

“It’s being discussed. Jack and Del are putting together some sort of game decathlon, and poker is an element. They’re arguing point system. Ooh, pie.”

“I have to finish this, then I’m going to start some bread while Mal makes red sauce.”

“You cook?”

“I’d rather play poker.”

“Oh, well, I could—”

“Uh-uh.” Laurel pointed a finger at Mal. “We have an arrangement.”

“Fine. But the tournament doesn’t start until I’m done here. And I don’t do dishes.”

“Reasonable,” Laurel allowed. “We need ninety minutes,” she told Emma. “If the rest of the entrants want to eat tonight, they’ll wait for us.”

Laurel brought a timer with her, set for the end of the bread’s second rising. Her pies cooled on their racks, and Mal’s sauce simmered low on the range.

It seemed a damn good deal for a rainy day.

When she stepped into the game room, she realized Del and Jack had made their version of pie out of lemons.

They’d set up stations, even had them numbered. The poker table, the Xbox, the mat for Dance Dance Revolution, the dreaded foosball.

She sucked at foosball.

Any number of people had been in and out of the kitchen in the last hour, grabbing snacks, drinks. The bar held bowls of chips, salsa, cheese, fruit, crackers.

Sometime over the last hour or so, they’d fashioned a scoreboard, listed the names.

“This looks pretty serious.”