by Amelia Adams
At noon exactly, she had the table set for five, all the prep dishes were washed and put away, and everything was ready to go.
Lillian entered the kitchen a few minutes later. “I thought it smelled done,” she said with a smile. “Are you ready for us?”
“I am.” The food was ready—Claire wasn’t sure if she was.
“Great. I think we’re all starving.” Lillian turned and called out to her husband, and a moment later, three men entered the kitchen.
The first was obviously the father. He was tall and looked fit, but he had some gray around the temples. He smiled and shook Claire’s hand. “I’m Peter,” he said. “Thank you for cooking for us today.”
“It was my pleasure,” Claire replied. He had the most interesting gray-blue eyes she’d ever seen. They almost looked like crystal balls in a way, like they could tell stories.
The next man who introduced himself had the same eyes—how cool. “I’m Adam, the oldest son,” he said. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Then the other man stepped forward. “And I’m Daniel.” When he reached out to take her hand, he dropped it as though it had burned him, and he stepped away. “It’s . . . um, thanks for lunch.” He sat down as though he couldn’t wait to get away from her. Thankfully he’d taken the last empty chair on the far side of the table so there was no chance they’d be stuck sitting next to each other.
“Oh, Claire, you even set the table. It looks so nice,” Lillian said.
“I just used what was in that cabinet,” Claire replied, not sure why it was such a big deal. It was just a cloth and some napkins and stuff.
“You put it together beautifully. So, what did you make for us? It smells wonderful.”
Claire felt a little self-conscious. “I made sloppy joes, using my own recipe for the sauce. I usually like making my own buns, too, but given the time constraints, I went ahead and used what was in the pantry. This is my special potato salad, which has mustard in the base, and I made molten lava cake for dessert. From scratch—I don’t use cake mixes.”
“Sounds great,” Peter said. “Shall we say grace?”
Claire’s gaze darted around the room. Grace? She hadn’t said grace in . . . well, she couldn’t even remember how long it had been. No one else in the room seemed to share her panic, though. They just bowed their heads and waited. She could do that too, she guessed.
Peter’s prayer was short and simple, thanking God for the food and for sending Claire to prepare it. Simple, and awkward . . . She didn’t think anyone had ever thanked God for her before.
They busied themselves with dishing up the food and passing plates around the table. Lillian took a bite of the potato salad and began humming. “Oh, Claire,” she said as soon as she swallowed, “this is excellent. I love potato salad, but the mustard and the bacon? You’ve elevated it to a whole new level.”
“That’s a serious compliment,” Adam said with a smile. “No one holds potato salad as sacred as our mother.”
“I’m glad you like it,” Claire mumbled, looking down at her plate. She appreciated their compliments, but Daniel was still acting like he couldn’t stand the sight of her, and that made her feel edgy. She knew she wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but most people were more careful to hide their loathing.
Everyone loved her sloppy joes, and when she brought out the cake, she received rave reviews. Daniel just sat there and ate. She had to assume he liked the food too—he’d eaten everything she’d made, and he’d gone back for seconds. But why wasn’t he talking? She wanted to grab him by the ears and shake him until he said something, but that probably wasn’t the way to get him to loosen up. It would sure make her feel better, though.
“Claire, this is one of the best lunches I’ve had in a long time,” Peter said at last, wiping his mouth on a napkin. “I don’t mean to offend you, of course, dear.”
“No offense taken,” Lillian said jovially. “I was about to say the same thing. You have a talent, young lady, and I think I speak for all of us when I say that I’d love to have you come work here.”
“You would?” Claire had hoped as much, seeing how much they enjoyed her cooking, but she hadn’t dared to let that hope bloom into certainty. “Don’t you have other people to interview before you decide?”
“No,” Lillian said matter-of-factly. “You were the only one I wanted to interview, and you passed with flying colors. We have a room here for you, which is attached to the bunkhouse. Of course I’ll show you the bunkhouse itself and the kitchen out there too, where you’ll be working. We’d love it if you could start tomorrow.”
“Maybe she already has a place to stay,” Peter said gently.
“I don’t,” Claire interjected. “I’m very glad for the offer.”
“Then it’s all settled,” Lillian said. She pushed up from the table. “Come on, my dear. We’ll let the men do the dishes while I show you around.”
“Are you sure? It’s no trouble for me to do it,” Claire began, but Lillian shushed her.
“It’s good for them,” she stage-whispered. “It’ll put hair on their chests.”
Claire wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Okay,” she said slowly, following Lillian outside and across the yard to the bunkhouse. This might be too good to be true and it might all evaporate tomorrow, but she intended to enjoy it while it lasted.
Chapter Three
As soon as Claire and Lillian walked out of the room, Daniel grabbed his glass of water and downed the whole thing. Peter and Adam were now totally focused on him, concern on their faces.
“Wow,” Adam said first. “I wasn’t expecting that at all. Dad?”
Peter shook his head. “I knew something was up, but I didn’t expect it to impact you like that. Are you all right, son?”
Daniel cleared his throat. “Um . . . I don’t know what’s going on. First Nick, and now this.” He’d already related everything that had happened between him and Nick that morning to his father and Adam, and they’d been talking it over when Lillian popped her head in and told them to stay for lunch. “Her pain goes deep, but it’s different from Nick’s. It’s all in her heart, like a raw wound.”
“She’s been betrayed and abandoned many times,” Adam said. “She’s built up walls to protect herself, and they’re thick. I’m not allowed to intrude.”
“Dad?” Daniel turned to his father.
Peter folded his napkin and tossed it on the table. “I see the future, not the past, so I have no way of knowing what’s going on with this young lady. What I do see is that Daniel will have a very important part to play in healing her.”
“But I’ve never seen anything like this,” Daniel protested. “It’s not heart disease, it’s not blood clots . . .”
Adam chuckled softly. “Stop thinking like a medical doctor for one minute,” he said. “What you’re seeing is her emotional heart, not her physical heart. Dad’s not talking about healing her through medicine, but with love.”
Daniel sat bolt upright. He wasn’t sure which surprising statement to address first. Finally, he chose one. “Love? Are you telling me she’s my future wife?”
“I am,” his father said calmly. “But it won’t be easy. She’ll need patience and understanding, son.”
“And what do you mean, I’m seeing her emotional heart? I don’t have that gift,” Daniel said, turning to Adam.
“You do in this case because she feels her emotions as physical pain,” Adam explained. “And maybe the powers that be have extended your gift a little bit because she’s going to be your wife. You never know.”
Daniel’s head swiveled to his father. “Dad? Does it work that way?”
Peter chuckled. “I have no idea. The gifts play by their own rules sometimes—that’s all I know.” The look on his face grew serious again. “This ranch will be a place of healing for her, though—you can count on that.”
“You’ll need to do a little bit of apologizing first,” Adam said as he stood and began gathering plate
s.
“Apologizing?”
“Yeah. She spent the whole meal watching you, wondering why you hate her so much.”
“I don’t hate her. I was just caught completely off guard by everything I sensed from her.” Daniel shook his head. “Dad, I’m losing it. I usually feel other people’s pain as slight twinges, nothing more. But Nick this morning, and then Claire? It’s like I’ve been electrocuted.”
“Daniel, I’ve never told you this, but now I feel the time is right,” Peter said. He paused, picking up the salt and pepper shakers that no one had needed. “When you were ten years old, I had a vision about your future. You were a well-known doctor specializing in emergency medicine. You had the ability to set bones no one thought could be set without surgery. You could stop bleeding that seemed impossible to stop. You could do all these things because your gift had advanced far beyond what it ever had before. Now, I don’t know exactly when that will come to pass. I will say that you looked a bit older than you are now. This might be a step in that direction—becoming more sensitive as your gift expands.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Daniel said. He’d thought the gift he had was more than sufficient—he already did quite a lot of good. But to do more? Wow. It sounded like he still wouldn’t be able to cure disease, but if he could heal injuries and more minor things even more effectively, maybe that would be worth these growing pains, or whatever they were.
***
“This is the bunkhouse,” Lillian said, holding up her arms as they approached a long, low building. “On this end are the bunks where the ranch hands sleep. They have their own bathroom and whatnot, a TV area, things like that. In the center of the building is the dining room. It’s pretty big and can seat forty, but like I said, we have six men right now, and that hardly ever changes. The kitchen is just off the dining room, and then here on this end is your room.”
She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the door she had just indicated. Then she stepped back and let Claire enter first.
Claire didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. The place looked like a nice hotel room with a private bath and kitchenette. She could almost fall into the bed right that minute, it looked so comfortable. “This is for me?”
“That’s right, included as part of your salary.”
Claire turned in a circle, taking it all in. “Wow.”
“I’m glad you like it. Now, let’s step into the kitchen. You can rearrange things if you want—if it’s easier to have the knives on the left or whatever. Make it work for your system.”
The bunkhouse kitchen wasn’t quite as new as the one up at the main house, but it was still pretty fantastic. The walls were hewn wood, but the appliances and counters were stainless steel, and everything was set up like a proper commercial kitchen with a handwashing sink, three sinks for washing, rinsing, and sterilization, plus a commercial dishwasher in the corner. There was a massive walk-in fridge and freezer, plus shelves upon shelves of canned goods.
“All this for six men?” she asked.
Lillian laughed. “Well, I confess that I use the back corner of the freezer when I fill up all the space up at the main house. You should know, Claire, that many of our boys have come from backgrounds of food insecurity. They’ve sometimes gone for days without knowing where their next real meal would come from. We keep food plentiful here on the ranch because we don’t ever want them wondering that again. We keep cookies in the cookie jars, fruit in the fruit baskets, and there are seconds and thirds at every meal. Of course, we end up donating a lot of leftovers to the soup kitchen in town, but that’s perfectly all right with us. We get to help twice as many people.”
“So . . . you don’t want me to cut corners?” That was a totally foreign concept. Everywhere Claire had worked before, she was expected to make incredible meals while spending as little as possible on them. It was all about profit and the bottom line.
“Well, I’m not encouraging outright kitchen waste, but don’t be skimpy, either. Everyone here works hard and they need nutrition. We go through a lot of protein here—teen boys need fuel to build their muscles.” Lillian smiled and put her hand on Claire’s shoulder. “You have excellent instincts, and you know how to pour love into your cooking. You’ll do wonderfully here.”
Claire nodded, unable to speak. She knew all too well what it was like to be hungry. She knew what it meant to have a full kitchen. She could get on board with this very easily. “Thank you,” she managed at last.
“Now, where are your things?” Lillian asked.
“I just have a suitcase back at the hotel.”
“Are you able to bring that on your motorcycle? Should I send one of my sons over with a truck?”
“I’m totally fine bringing it on the motorcycle,” Claire said. She didn’t want to point out that she’d brought it all the way from California without a problem. She also didn’t want Daniel assigned to the task of taking care of her. She didn’t know what was up with that guy, but she’d do her best to avoid him from here on out.
“Why don’t you go fetch that, then, and plan on eating dinner with us tonight? You can start all your official duties tomorrow. Oh, and as far as supplies go, each week when you’re deciding on your menu, just make a shopping list and we’ll see to it.”
“Thank you, Mrs. McClain,” Claire said. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”
“Well, for starters, it’s Lillian. And you’re very welcome. Here’s the key to your room, and I’ll leave you to wander around on your own for a bit. We’ll eat dinner at six.”
Lillian bustled away, leaving Claire standing in the kitchen. What an absolute whirlwind. Five days ago, she’d had no idea she’d be leaving California, and now, she was starting over again in a place that couldn’t possibly be real. She didn’t know what was happening to her life, but she had to admit, she liked it.
***
When she was done poking her nose into all the cupboards in the kitchen, Claire decided she’d go get her suitcase and settle in. It wouldn’t take her long to unpack—she didn’t have a lot of stuff.
She left the bunkhouse and walked across the grounds to the parking lot where she’d left her motorcycle. There was a teenage boy there fingering the jacket she’d left draped over the seat. Curious, she ducked behind the corner of a building to watch him and see what he’d do. He glanced around, then draped it over his arm and started to stroll away.
She stepped out of her hiding place. “If you can take me in a fair fight, the jacket’s yours.”
Startled, he backed up, lifting both hands in the air. Then he put the jacket back. “See? No harm, no foul.”
“But there’s a problem with that,” she said, continuing to walk toward him. “I think there was some harm. Right now, you and me—we’re the only ones who know about this. If I let you walk away, it’s our secret. But that means we’re not being honest, and I get the feeling that the people around here like honesty.”
He nodded and dug his toe into the dirt. “Yeah. So, whaddya gonna do? Tell on me?”
“I’d rather you tell on yourself, but my offer stands. I’ll give you the jacket if you can beat me in a fight.”
She noticed that Adam and Daniel had approached and were standing on the edge of the parking lot, watching. A couple other boys had gathered around too.
“Don’t you boys go to school?” she asked.
“We had the dentist this morning,” one of the others replied. “We’re heading back now.”
“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to teaching that one a lesson.” She jerked her head toward the would-be jacket thief.
Her words had the desired effect. He charged at her, and she took a step to the side in time for him to tumble to the ground. Daniel stepped forward like he was going to intervene, but Adam touched his arm, and he relaxed. Interesting. She didn’t have time to think about that brother-to-brother dynamic, though, because the kid on the ground got up and charged her again
, only to miss and land in the dirt a second time.
She bent down and offered him a hand up. “It’s all in your center of gravity,” she said.
He stared at her hand for a minute, then took it, and she pulled him up.
“When you charge, you’ve got to be prepared to shift at any time,” she said, demonstrating. “See? You throw your weight over here or over here, and you can turn with me. That’s different from staying rooted, like you would to tackle in football. Are you a football player?”
“Yeah,” he said, wiping his forehead with his arm. “How’d you know?”
“You’re really solid right here in the center, which is great for football. I’m Claire. What’s your name?”
“People call me Z,” he replied.
“It’s good to meet you, Z.” She stuck out her hand, and he shook it. While she still had a grip on his hand, she leaned in and said, “I’ve just gotta give you another tip, okay? I’m not the kind you steal from.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll tell Adam.”
She didn’t reply, but clapped him on the shoulder and then watched as he walked over to where the two brothers stood, his head low.
Time to get her stuff from the hotel and settle in. Fighting in a parking lot? Now it felt like home.
Chapter Four
“Honestly, Dad, she handled it like a pro. She got right on Z’s level, showed him she wasn’t a pushover, and then made friends with him. When he came over and talked to me, he was genuinely remorseful, and he exhibited a lot of respect for her. How’d we find her, anyway?” Adam shook his head. “She blew me away.”
“She answered our ad in the newspaper, but we all know it’s not that simple,” Peter replied.
Daniel nodded. He hadn’t said much since witnessing that little altercation twenty minutes ago. Adam was right—Claire had a touch with these boys, some kind of connection he never would have suspected. And it was more than that—she seemed to come alive in those few minutes too, like having that moment of interaction had revitalized her in some way. He needed to talk to her, to find out what made her tick. He was keeping an eye on the driveway for her to return with her suitcase. As soon as she got back, he’d go talk to her. He just hoped it was before the boys got home from school.
