A Cowboy in the Kitchen (Hurley's Homestyle Kitchen, 1, Band 2466) - Softcover

Buch 1 von 6: Hurley's Homestyle Kitchen

Maxwell, Meg

 
9780373659487: A Cowboy in the Kitchen (Hurley's Homestyle Kitchen, 1, Band 2466)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0373659482 ISBN 13: 9780373659487
Verlag: Harlequin Special Edition, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

COOKING UP AN INSTANT FAMILY 

Rancher West Montgomery thought he needed Annabel Hurley's help just with cooking lessons. But the widowed single dad required more than great culinary skills to secure custody of his young daughter. Her maternal grandparents wanted little Lucy in a more stable environment. What could be more perfect than West's loving home…with his new wife? 

Marry West Montgomery? That had once been Annabel's dream…until West had up and wed someone else. But now the cowboy needed her help—and was willing to save her family's business in return. She'd do anything to keep Hurley's Homestyle Kitchen open. Still, living in the same house with West, and adding his adorable daughter into the mix? This was surely a recipe for another broken heart.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Meg Maxwell lives on the coast of Maine with her teenaged son, their sweet beagle and newest addition to the family, a black and white cat named Cleo. When she's not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies, or thinking up new characters and plots on her favorite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose women's fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Barbecued catfish po'boy with Hurley's Homestyle Kitchen's famed spicy slaw would be tonight's special, Annabel Hurley decided—until all thought poofed from her head with a glance out the window. She ducked behind the industrial-sized silver mixing bowl, a glob of biscuit batter falling from the wooden spoon in her hand to her sneaker. She sighed at how ridiculous she was. Hiding behind a bowl because West Montgomery was coming up the path to the house? Heck yeah, she was. Annabel had been back in Blue Gulch less than twenty-four hours and already the one person she wanted to avoid was rapping on the door.

He had something in his hand, she noticed as she bolted up, another dollop of batter flying to the floor. Was that a checkbook? Maybe he wanted to wave his money around to secure a Saturday night reservation for Hurley's best table, the one that faced the Sweet Briar Mountain Range in the distance. Last night, Annabel's first at taking over as cook in the small restaurant's kitchen, Jillian Quisper, homecoming queen back in high school, had gotten engaged to PJ Renner right at that round table for two. Jillian had screamed for joy so loud that everyone in the kitchen had run out to make sure she wasn't choking on her plain green salad. It was no surprise that one of the wealthiest men in Blue Gulch would choose to propose in a small Western-style restaurant like Hurley's; most everyone in town had had their first date at Hurley's as teenagers. Parents knew Gram Hurley would keep an eye on kids. Plus, there was no better place to get country-fried steak, ribs or a pulled pork sandwich in the entire county. Hurley's Homestyle Kitchen meant something to just about everyone in town, homecoming queens included. Telling folks her intended had proposed on one knee at Hurley's over baby back ribs would get any gal "aws" from everyone, especially at the mountain-view table under the elegant little chandelier.

Annabel's experience with marriage proposals at that table was limited to old daydreams and nightly fantasies about West Montgomery on one knee—ha. As if West would propose the traditional way. He'd buy a plane and skywrite a proposal. He'd spell it out in rocks down by the clearing in front of the woods. He'd grab her hand, look her deeply in the eye, see everything she felt and whisk her away to Vegas for a quickie ceremony in the Elvis Presley wedding chapel, not that she'd ever get married without her gram or sisters in attendance.

And not that West Montgomery would ever propose to her.

Would anyone? Sometimes she thought her cooking skills were all she had going for her in the romance department. Way to a man's heart and all that. As if her ability to make a barbecue sauce to rival her gram's had gotten her anywhere but right where she was, standing in a kitchen.

West shielded his eyes from the bright April morning sunshine and squinted in the window. As he spotted her, surprise crossed his features; then he held up his hand with something of a nod.

Annabel gripped the wooden spoon, took a deep breath, ran her hands down the front of her apron, a mistake, since it was speckled with flour, and headed to the kitchen's back door. The restaurant was in the Hurley family home, an old apricot-colored Victorian that had seen better days.

He knocked again. What could he want?

Annabel Hurley, you are twenty-five years old. Open the door and find out!

So she did. The sight of him, six foot three, leanly muscular in worn jeans and a green chambray shirt, those intense brown eyes the color of driftwood, his thick, wavy hair so dark it was almost black, had her knees slightly buckling. He wore a black Stetson, which he tipped at her.

"Annabel," he said, unease clear. "I didn't know you were back in town." His gaze went to her sneaker, with the glob of batter, then to the spoon she held so tightly her knuckles were white.

She loosened her hold. And wondered if he even remembered their night—just a precious hour, if that—in the loft of the barn on his family's ranch. Given what he'd done the next day, she'd bet her meager savings he'd forgotten the minute she left that night. "Just got here yesterday."

He seemed distracted, as though there was something weighing on his mind. She knew that look of his well. She wanted to reach out and smooth the worry lines on his forehead the way she once had done, but she couldn't, of course. He took a deep breath, clearly bracing himself to make the expected conversation, to ask how long she was staying, if she was having a nice visit; West Montgomery wasn't one for small talk.

He glanced at his watch and said, "Is your grandmother here? I need to sign up for her cooking class that starts tomorrow." So much for pleasantries. For anything resembling regret for how he'd treated her.

Annabel couldn't help staring at him, her gaze going to the one dimple. The man was impossibly good-looking, so good-looking she almost missed what he said.

"You want to sign up for the cooking class?" she asked. West in a kitchen. She couldn't even imagine it. Her grandmother had been offering cooking classes every season in their big country kitchen for as long as Annabel could remember. When Annabel was in middle school, her older sister had pointed out that Gram had to start the cooking classes to make extra money because she'd taken in her three orphaned granddaughters. Annabel had started helping out in the kitchen from that day forward.

He glanced past her at the counter, where ingredients for Gram's Famed Country Biscuits and homemade apple butter were spread out. "Is there room in the class?" He held up the checkbook. "I'll pay double if it'll get me in."

Double? What was that about? "Actually we had to cancel the spring session. My gram's not well and is getting lots of tests done." At the thought of her beloved grandmother, Essie, collapsing in the kitchen, the weight of a pan of grits suddenly too heavy for the fit seventy-five year old, Annabel closed her eyes for a moment, worry and fear snaking their way inside. She should have been here. Instead she'd been hours away in Dallas, trying to make her life work—for seven years. She could feel the guilt flaming her cheeks and turned away.

He took off his hat and held it against his chest. "That's why you're back," he said quietly. "I'm sorry about your grandmother. A few months ago, I ran into her in the supermarket when I was buying a birthday cake for my daughter. I told her my attempt caved in on itself, and she told me to put the store cake back, that she'd bake one for me. I tried to tell her that wasn't necessary, but she insisted and asked what my daughter's favorite things were. The next morning she brought over a cake in the shape of a tree, decorated with green leaves, branches, crab apples and a climbing girl all set in icing. Lucy flipped. She still talks about her birthday cake."

That was Gram. Always helping, always going the extra mile. Annabel smiled at her grandmother's kindness, but at his little girl's name, her chest tightened. Though she'd only been back to Blue Gulch for holidays and birthdays, she'd once run into West's heavily pregnant wife at the grocery store and another time she'd seen West with a toddler on his shoulders at a parade, a little girl with huge hazel eyes and wisps of dark hair like her daddy's. Lucy must be six now.

She headed back to the counter and gave the biscuit batter a stir. "Why do you want to take a cooking class?" she asked to change the subject.

He...

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Verlag
Harlequin Special Edition
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0373659482
ISBN 13 
9780373659487
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Product Safety Manager
enquiries@harpercollins.ie

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Softcover