the day?"
Chloe laughed. "Besides moving? I thought I'd drive into Waco and scout out the employment possibilities. There're a couple of day spas I've heard of, so I thought I'd check them out."
"Let me walk you out to your car."
Carrie was conscious of being under scrutiny - at the moment Henry Kendall and Ryder Magee were sitting at a table, sipping on coffee, nibbling on some of Tracy's pastries - well, Ryder was nibbling. Henry had already devoured his and was eyeing Ryder's with a look of avarice. She nodded toward the sidewalk, and Ryder nodded in turn.
Carrie hugged her sister, told her to drive carefully, and watched as she pulled away from the curb. Then she returned to the kitchen, wrinkled her nose at Adam Kendall, and headed over to the fridge.
"Is Chloe feeling any better about our, um, interference of last night?"
Carrie wondered if Adam was being snarky, but one look at his face and she knew he wasn't.
"Maybe a little. Apparently she'd been burning to do something ever since she figured out what had happened all those years ago."
"It can't have been easy for her," Adam said.
Carrie looked at him, not certain what he meant. "In what way?"
He shrugged. "I'm not the oldest, but I always had a sense of looking out for my brothers - Jake and Jordan, in particular. A few of my cousins, the ones who were the oldest in their families - Rick and Matt and Robert - they were always the ones their siblings would turn to when they needed help, or were having a hard time."
Ginny came into the kitchen, swooped in for a kiss from her husband, and then set about putting in her orders.
"Kind of quiet, pre-lunch crowd today," she said. "I don't know as I really like this new computer system, or not."
Kelsey looked up from where she was reading what Ginny had just entered. "It does take the coziness out of things," she agreed. "But I don't have to worry about losing a slip of paper or forgetting what I'm supposed to make."
Ginny grabbed a tray and headed out to the drink station, which was in the dining room. Carrie read over Kelsey's shoulder and helped to get the two orders ready.
A few minutes later she returned to the task of carving the chickens that had just come out of the oven. These would be used for most of the chicken items on the menu.
Carrie looked over at Adam. "Before mom and dad died, Chloe looked after me - sometimes not all that willingly, as I recall." In fact a time or two she'd had to cancel plans to stay home and babysit. "That's only natural. She was a teenage girl with a social life of her own. But she was always there for me whenever I needed her."
Adam nodded. "Think of how hard it must have been for her, then, when you were taken away and she didn't even know where you were."
Carrie felt just a little bit ashamed of herself, because she'd never really given a lot of thought as to what their family tragedy had meant to Chloe.
For the rest of the afternoon, she focused on the food that had to be prepped and then cooked, and the other myriad tasks involved in helping Lusty Appetites function.
Matt arrived to replace Adam. They had a bit of a whispered conversation, and for once, Carrie didn't try to overhear them. Her thoughts were on her sister.
She recalled how jubilant Chloe had been, that day she'd come to the high school and hugged her for the first time in years.
Chloe had cried, and that was a detail Carrie had forgotten, until now. When their parents had died, Chloe had only been seventeen - not much more than a kid, herself.
Carrie began to watch the clock - not something she did usually - because she wanted to go to her sister and tell her how very much she loved her, and appreciated her.
With just a half hour until the end of her shift, the cell phone in her pocket belted out "Breakaway." Carrie grinned and grabbed the device.
There was no need to wait until she saw her face-to-face. "Hey, big sister. I love you."
"Now isn't that touching? I'll be sure to tell her that - if she ever opens her eyes. Right now, it's looking doubtful, Carolyn."
Carrie could have sworn she turned to ice right then and there. She didn't have to ask who was on the other