Chapters (43)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Epilogue
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- Readers Guide
- QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“Wouldn’t taste right. You’ve got to brown it right at the edge of burning to get it nice and dark, but if you let up whisking, you might as well throw it in the trash.” Rose tucked the blanket higher up on her legs, glancing over at the Cubs game playing on the tiny TV in the corner of the kitchen. The sweatshirt she wore puffed around her whole upper half, the words on it so faded that all Andra could make out were the words “Middle School.” She couldn’t decide what was more adorable: that LJ had been so tall by middle school, or that his mom still wore his sweatshirt.
Adorable or not, Andra had no idea how Rose could be wearing a sweatshirt in August. The AC was on the highest setting, and she was still sweating in cutoff shorts and a tank top. The only nice thing about the heat was that LJ always wore shirts that exposed the thick muscles of his arms. Or no shirt at all.
“Quit your daydreaming, girl. Whisk!”
LJ chuckled, swiping diced bell peppers to the side of the cutting board with his knife. “Dang, it’s kind of fun to watch her yell at somebody else in the kitchen.”
Rose gave him a half-fond, half-aggrieved look. “LJ was seven before I could get him to come out with a decent roux. But it took Mona’s girls until they were twelve.”
Andra laughed. She never got tired of Rose’s stories about LJ, though the older woman rarely bragged about her son in front of him. “You had him cooking when he was seven?”
“Well, I had to! I didn’t figure any woman was going to put up with that attitude of his, and I didn’t want him to starve. Besides, he didn’t grow that tall on only three meals a day. Took more like six or seven when he was in high school.”
He turned halfway around, grinning. “If you’d known I was going to turn out so pretty, you wouldn’t have had to bother.”
“See?” Rose said to Andra. “Manners like that, of course I thought he’d starve.”
“Y’all just don’t want to admit my cake got snatched up before yours at the last barbecue ’fore I moved.”
“Why do you insist on talking like you just slogged out of the swamp?” Rose demanded. “You have a four-year degree, LJ Delisle, and I’ll thank you to do it justice.”