Page 7 of Ever's Last
“Can you do a quiche?” They stare at him as if he’s just insulted their cooking skills. I want to laugh at the looks on everyone’s faces but I don’t.
“Yes, we can do that,” Austin offers, with a glare.
“Good. That day the girls will collect the eggs from the chickens. This will be so much fun.”
“I think so.” Ivy’s eyes sparkle with mischief.
“Carry on,” Uncle Sal says as he leaves.
“He’s weird. Okay, so we have four days of lunch,” Austin observes. Good job, captain obvious.
“We could do chicken sliders. Wait, what if some of these girls are like vegetarian or something?” Good question, Ivy.
“They’re not,” Uncle Sal states in passing, “and if they don’t want to starve, they’ll eat.” Alrighty then.
“Chicken sliders with baked beans,” Linc says and Ivy writes it down.
“Sloppy joes. I know it’s not original . . . ” Ivy starts.
“Put it down. We have to come up with a shitload of menus. Some things are going to be the same and that might be boring, but we will make do. And we don’t always have to do southern, like we could do cheeseburgers one day.”
“So, sub sandwiches, quiche, chicken sliders, sloppy joes, fish fry, cheeseburgers, and chicken and dumplings. How’s that for the week?” Austin looks around the table and we all agree.
“I think tomorrow we should plan out the next week,” Linc says. “That way, we are ahead of the game.”
“I agree,” I say with a nod. But we have a list. Nothing else to do on that end so Ivy helps me finish the laundry while Austin had to pick up his daughters from daycare. Linc goes and checks on the horses. He not only watched my horses but he also has his own. I should suggest to Uncle Sal that Linc helps with anything horse-related. It would get him out of his house more. His dad is a mean drunk, but he can’t leave the farm or it would go under. He loves that place, so he’s just biding his time until his dad messes up so bad that he can kick him off the family ranch. Technically, he could do that now since the ranch is in Linc’s name. He owns all of it, the house and property. But doing that would upset his mom and I doubt he wants to do that. I can’t blame him for wanting to, though. His dad is squatting, so to speak.
“Good job, guys. Thanks for the help. We are doing a BBQ tomorrow. I’m going to head to Atlanta to pick up some ribs and burgers, hot dogs, and such for it. I’ll be back later. First, I have to break some news to Anne.”
I smile and wave him off. I know that this will be hard for him, but in the long run he will be happier.
“What’s going on?” Ivy watches my dad pull out the driveway.
“I think my dad is letting Anne go. He’s not happy and she’s the cause of that,” I state.
“Oh shit,” she squeals.
“Yep. No more pageants.”
“I ordered a pizza,” Linc says as he runs up to us. “Have you seen the other horses that were brought in?”
I shake my head.
“Beautiful. Prize-worthy.” He’s excited. It doesn’t often happen with everything he has on his plate.
“I’m kind of excited about the hens and cows. Uncle Sal said something about one of the tasks will be milking a cow.” I smirk. These girls will all be city girls that probably have never even seen a cow.
“I think it will be funny to watch city folk try to milk a cow.” Linc laughs as the pizza guy shows up. He pays for it and we sit on a bench under one of the large oak trees in my yard.
So much activity. I can’t believe this will be my life, or rather our lives, for six weeks. It’s so surreal being back here.
“This will definitely be interesting.”
The others nod in agreement with my statement.
Chapter Six
Memphis
