Page 70 of Whiskey Chase
I heard footsteps and watched with pleasure as Scarlett hurried to the door. She wore a long dress with blue watercolor blossoms that swished around her ankles. Her feet were bare.
“Hi,” she said. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hair hung loose down her back.
She’d spent the day at the spa with her friends, and I’d expected her to look more relaxed than she did.
I leaned in for a kiss, intending to just brush my mouth against hers. But she shoved her hands into my hair and held on for dear life as she kissed the hell out of me. She pulled back just as abruptly, leaving me stunned and breathless.
“What was that for?” I asked.
She smiled up at me. There was something a little shy and a lot unusual for Scarlett in that smile. “Just an appetizer,” she said. “Come on in. Dinner’s almost ready.”
Uh-oh. Scarlett Bodine was many things. Many wonderful, good, wild things. A cook was not one of those things. Even her sandwiches were borderline terrible. I wasn’t much better in the kitchen, but at least I didn’t try to kid myself about it.
Something smelled burnt. Something else smelled just plain bad.
“I hope you like chicken. I roasted one,” she announced.
“Um. That sounds great.” I needed to find a meat thermometer stat. I was sure that chicken was one of those meats that could kill you if it was undercooked. “I didn’t know you cooked.”
She shrugged, looking slightly ill. I wondered if she’d sampled something she cooked.
“I wanted to try something new,” Scarlett said, sticking her chin out. “Just because it’s not something I’ve done before doesn’t mean I won’t be good at it.”
“What can I do to help?” I offered.
“How about you put the potatoes in the microwave while I check the asparagus?”
I glanced in the pot on the stovetop. Dear god, she’d boiled asparagus… from a can.
At least we’d have baked potatoes. I unwrapped them and dumped them onto the microwave tray, hitting the potato button. Idiot proof.
“What’s the special occasion?” I asked. She was up to something. That much was clear, but as with everything Scarlett did, I couldn’t even begin to predict what it would be.
“Hang on, let me go find the wine opener,” she said, hurrying out to the porch. Scarlett’s screened-in porch served as a bar of sorts during bonfires. She kept her bottle openers and corkscrew out there.
I yanked open a couple of drawers before finding a rusty meat thermometer. Glancing over my shoulder, I opened the oven and shoved the thermometer in the smoking bird. Two hundred and forty degrees. I hoped that was hot enough to cook off bacteria. I heard her at the door and yanked the thermometer out and tossed it behind a roll of paper towels on the counter.
“Looks great,” I said as if I’d been admiring the blackened bird and closed the oven.
She brightened. “Thanks! My mama always used to say there was nothin’ easier than roasting a chicken.”
Scarlett’s mama was a liar.
Casually, I pulled my phone out as if to check my messages. I opened the browser and did a quick search for chicken temperatures. At least we didn’t have to worry about salmonella now.
“There’s pie for dessert,” she said, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
Oh, hell.
“I didn’t have time to bake one so I bought it at the Pop In.”
I bit back my sigh of relief.
“Could Johanna cook?” Scarlett asked.
I was unsettled by the quick turn of conversation. Especially since Johanna had recently reared her head in my life with that text message this afternoon. “Uh. I suppose she could. She just generally chose not to. We ate out a lot and had a part-time chef prepare meals for the week for us.”
Scarlett looked relieved. I was just about to ask her what this was all about when something exploded. We both ducked behind her tiny kitchen island. When no shrapnel rained down upon us, I realized it was the microwave.
