A Cowboy in the Kitchen by Meg Maxwell

Hurley’s?”
    â€œSomething must be going on,” Annabel said. She and Clementine had spent the past two nights trying to think of what that could be, but they were at a loss. The past few months, Georgia, a vice president of some fancy company, had been keeping to herself, checking in now and then with either Gram, Annabel or Clementine by phone or text and saying very little about her life. But not to come home now? Georgia was smart and strong, so Annabel had assured Clementine and their grandmother that Georgia must have a good reason for staying away and they’d just have to trust in her that she was doing the right thing for herself, even if it didn’t make sense to family back home.
    Trying to shift her worried thoughts from her older sister to the lunch recipes Annabel had made copies of and put in a folder for tonight’s cooking lesson, Annabel headed upstairs to the third floor where the huge attic had long ago been turned into a bedroom for the three orphaned granddaughters Gram had taken in. Back then Essie Hurley had had the sections of the room painted in their favorite colors: lavender for Annabel, lemon yellow for Georgia and periwinkle blue for Clementine. Annabel’s pale purple area with its white accents and fluffy pink blanket was just as she’d left it at eighteen. She picked up the photo of her parents, her beautiful mother and handsome, tall father, then another of the six Hurleys, Gram included, and took a deep breath. She stared at sixteen-year-old Georgia with her long sunlit brown hair and green eyes and hoped she was okay, wherever she was, whatever she was doing. Then she realized she had only twenty minutes to get to West’s house. She stripped off her kitchen clothes, pulled on her old terry robe and took a quick, hot shower, her mind going to being in West’s house, alone with him.
    * * *
    Annabel drove the ten miles out to West’s ranch, the long paved drive lined with trees. The house came into view, and Annabel was surprised at how different the place was now. Instead of the run-down small home with peeling gray shingles that she remembered, the sprawling house was gleaming white in perfect condition with glossy black shutters and a red door, a wrought-iron weather vane with a rooster on the roof. A herd of cattle grazed in a dark pasture and another bunch was lined up in corrals, eating hay. Two geese waddled around, not bothered in the slightest by a big orange barn cat chasing a leaf in the evening breeze. West’s silver pickup was along the side of the house, and by the front door was a red bike with training wheels and a three-wheeled silver scooter. The porch light illuminated the well-kept front yard and Annabel could see the long circular loop West had smoothed out for his daughter to ride. A tire swing with purple and white polka dots was tied on a big old oak, and nearby was a child-sized table and chairs, two big stuffed animals on the chairs and a tea set on the table.
    Annabel’s heart squeezed. She wondered if she’d ever have a little girl of her own. Over the past seven years she’d had only two relationships and both had failed miserably. Neither man had felt like...home, felt comfortable. But she’d tried, dating one for a month before he’d told her if they weren’t going to have sex he’d have to move on. He’d moved on. The next man, a fellow chef, had smooth-talked his way into Annabel finally losing her virginity, but it turned out he’d been working his way through the female staff at the restaurant they both worked at, and she’d been the one to move on, to a new workplace but not a new relationship. She’d decided to avoid relationships, hoping maybe one day the right guy would cross her path and she’d know it and not have to force it, not have to try so damned hard.
    Four years. Four years since she’d been kissed. Touched. Held. Four years of thinking back to that