Return To Sender (The Hart Brothers #2) - J. S. Cooper Page 0,39
my friend gratefully. “Though, I’m not going to lie. I’m so grateful to you for helping. This is really going to be a delicious dinner. Wade is going to be shocked.”
“I bet.” Lucy laughed. “I guess he must actually like you a little bit because you’re still employed and we both know that you can’t cook for shit.”
“Yes, I can. I made the best cheese on toast made to man.”
“Ha ha, but man cannot live on cheese alone.”
“You wanna bet?” I grinned and then picked up the grater. “Do you want me to grate this entire block of cheese?”
“Yup, we’re going to make potatoes au gratin.” Lucy nodded. “You can either grate the cheese or scallop these potatoes.”
“I don’t even know what it means to scallop potatoes.” I laughed. “I’ll stick to grating the cheese.”
“You took the steaks out of the freezer right? They’re defrosting.”
“Yup.” I nodded. “We can season them next.”
“Awesome. I’ll season them and you can make the salad.”
“I do make a mean salad.”
“Sure.” Lucy laughed. “So what time is Henry arriving?”
“He’s going to be here at about 6pm, I think. That’s what Wade said?”
“And Wade is still out right?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “He’s been out all day.”
“How was last night when you went to bed?”
“He slept and I slept.” I sighed. “He was pretending to be asleep when I went back to the room after our chat.”
“How do you know he was pretending?”
“He was snoring loudly.” I made a face. “And he never snores. He’s such a bad actor.”
“You didn’t shake him and call him out on it?”
“Girl, if he wanted to pretend he was sleeping, let him pretend. I don’t even care. I’m over him and his lies.”
“Aww, man.” Lucy rubbed me on the back, trying to comfort him. “Hopefully tonight leads to some answers.”
“Do you really think it will?”
“No, but one can always hope.”
“You really don’t have to seduce Henry by the way, I was just joking last night.”
“I know you were joking and honestly, it doesn’t even matter if you weren’t. There’s no way in hell that I’d seduce someone just to get information.”
“You say that now…” I laughed and then yelped as I cut myself on the grater. “Ugh, this sucks. Did you say you also needed me to cut some yellow onions?”
“Yes, please.” Lucy nodded and then started singing a Rosemary Clooney song that she loved called “Mambo Italiano.” I found myself singing along with her and I was pleased to find that some of my anxiety was dissipating. I had no idea why Wade wanted to have this dinner with Henry tonight. And I had no idea where he’d been all day. All I knew was that enough was enough. I needed answers. I was going to demand answers. Something was up and I wasn’t going to let it go until I knew what was going on.
“Oh yeah, have you heard from Gordon yet?”
“Still nothing.”
“Hmm, that’s so suspicious man.” Lucy put the sliced potatoes into a large bowl. “Well, hopefully we’ll have some information soon. I have the request in with the library to get access to some newspaper articles I couldn’t find online.”
“What articles?” I stared at her. “You didn’t tell me about any articles.”
“I went online and used JSTOR and some other library searches. I found a slew of articles featuring Joseph Hart, Wade Hart, Henry Hart, and Louisa Hart. Many of them have been archived, but the great thing about the library is that they have microfiche. I’m having everything sent to me. I’ll be able to go through the articles and check them and find out more about these Hart men that have so entangled our lives.”
“Our lives?”
“Well, at first it was just your life, but now I’m invested and I also want to know what’s going on.”
“Yeah, me too. When will you get the articles? I can help you read through them.”
“I’m not sure.” She poured some heavy cream into the bowl and then salt and pepper. “Hopefully soon.”
“Those are some weird ingredients.” I raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Savannah, are you seriously questioning my culinary skills? You, who thinks making Pillsbury doughboy rolls makes you a baker?”
“That was only once and they turned out pretty good.” I laughed and she just shook her head at me. I stared at the clock on the wall and realized we only had an hour left to finish the meal and get changed and I wondered where Wade was and when would he be back?