“Freezer’s full,” Banks said, tossing his hat onto the hat rack. “Don’t you touch it!” he added.

Clancey and Tad stared at him.

“She can burn water,” he said, giving his sister a glare. “No way I’m turning her loose with the contents of my freezer!”

“I can cook a steak,” Brenda protested. “Anybody can cook a steak!”

“It has to be defrosted first...”

“You just use the auto defrost on the microwave,” Clancey said gently.

“You don’t own a microwave, so how do you know?” Banks asked.

“When Ben...my stepfather, was alive, he had one. I had to cook after Mama died. If I hadn’t, we’d all have starved to death. Ben and Morris couldn’t cook.”

“You can cook?” Brenda asked her, and her eyes lit up.

Banks glowered at her. “I can cook, too,” he reminded her.

“You can cook steak and potatoes. I’m sick to death of steak and potatoes. It’s steak for breakfast, steak sandwiches for lunch, steak and potatoes for supper...!”

“Steak is good for you, and besides that, I’ve got two sides of beef in the freezer that will go bad if we don’t eat it!”

“Chicken is very nice,” Brenda began.

“I’d rather eat feathers!” Banks shot back.

“Where’s the freezer?” Clancey asked.

Brenda walked around her brother and led Clancey to it.

In less than an hour, Clancey had made fresh biscuits and herbed chicken with mashed potatoes and seasoned green beans.

Banks was almost moaning with pleasure as he ate. Brenda watched him covertly, grinning at Clancey when he wasn’t watching.

“Who taught you to cook?” Brenda asked.

“My grandmother,” she said with a smile. “She was a wonderful cook. I have one of her cookbooks in the backpack I keep my things in.” She grimaced. “We don’t have a lot of our stuff left. Ben got really mad at me for testifying against Morris, so he threw out most of the things I had left of my grandparents.”

Banks grimaced. “That’s petty,” he said harshly.

“That was Ben,” she replied. “He wasn’t really a bad man. He just loved Morris more than anybody else.”

“I don’t remember him much,” Tad said as he finished a mouthful of buttered biscuit. “I remember Morris, though.” He shivered.

“How old were you?” Banks asked him.

“Almost four, Sis said,” he replied. “I don’t remember much else about when I was little, but I remember Morris hitting me.”

“He has nightmares,” Clancey said, without adding that she had them, as well.

“I’m not surprised,” Banks replied. He finished cleaning his plate and sat back to sip coffee. “Clancey, you’re in a class of your own as a cook,” he said flatly. “You could open a restaurant.”

“Oh, not me,” she said, flushing. “I love to cook, but there’s lots of people who cook better than I can.”