Ever since Garrett had started giving cooking classes at Mann Cakes, women from Beach Pointe and even two counties beyond flocked to learn some culinary skills and gawk at the twin brothers who’d caused such a stir ever since they came back to town. Every class had been booked for months out, so it had taken a bit of groveling and a nice bribe on Jesse’s part to fit him and Marge in tonight’s class.
As the class began, Marge’s face lit up when she slipped on an apron. That alone was worth the effort. The store’s expansion had allowed room for a bigger kitchen area complete with a huge stainless steel work station and a couple extra range tops, perfect for cooking classes that usually accommodated ten people. Tonight, they had twelve, and Jesse was the only man in the class. His white apron barely hung past his shirt. He suspected Garrett had given him a woman’s size on purpose. Oh well, at least Marge was happy.
Garrett stood at the end of the work station and cleared his throat. Most of the women stared at him like they wanted to jump his bones. He shifted his feet and ruffled through some papers in a file. “Welcome to our cooking class. Tonight, we’re preparing foods that don’t need cooking, which is good when it’s midsummer and you don’t want to heat up the kitchen, or if you’re on a raw food diet, or if your cooking class is a little overcrowded.”
He grinned at Jesse.
Marge giggled. “This is going to be so fun,” she whispered.
Garrett continued. “The first thing we’ll make is no-bake muffins, followed by creamed red pepper soup, and veggie sushi rolls. Here are the recipes. Pass them around, please.” He handed them to the first woman on his right, who winked at him then pouted when he didn’t seem to notice. “In front of you, you’ll see all the ingredients you’ll need, along with the tools to do the job. We’ll be practicing our chopping skills in tonight’s lesson.”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to get better at that,” Marge whispered.
“Let’s get started with the no-bake muffins,” Garrett said, picking up a chef’s knife. “First we’ll chop some walnuts. They’re pretty easy. You just pour the walnuts onto your cutting board. Then take your knife firmly by the handle, and place your other hand over the tip. Then you rock the knife back and forth, chopping the nuts until they’re the size you want. I suggest about pea size.”
Garrett made it look plumb easy. Marge followed right along, chopping her walnuts like a pro. Jesse tried, but they stuck to his knife and ended up a random assortment of sizes.
Marge smiled at him. "You'll get better with practice." When they moved on to chopping strawberries, she whispered, “Does your wife cook for you?”
“I’m not married.”
“Really? Eat out a lot?”
“No, I do cook, just not like a chef. If it's not bacon, frozen pizzas, or fried bologna, I'm pretty useless.”
Next came bananas, easy to chop, thankfully. They mashed them in the mixing bowl and added the chopped walnuts. With each step of the recipe, the ladies focused more on the food and less on Garrett. They’d probably realized he wasn’t available and decided muffins were the easier option. They struck up conversations with one another when Garrett wasn’t instructing.
“How’d you get us in here?” Marge asked. “This place is usually booked solid.”
“I offered to wash dishes and mop the floor after the next few cooking classes.”
She blinked up at him with wide eyes. “Really? You did that just to get me in here?”
“Yeah.” He’d been making a lot of deals lately. But she didn’t need to know that or the fact that she was part of his therapy.
“I honestly never thought you’d do something like this. I’m just amazed at how much you’ve changed.”
His cheeks warmed at her admission. “Thanks.”
They added instant oatmeal, strawberry jam, coconuts, and raisins to the mixing bowl. When they had them all smashed together, they scooped the mixture into muffin pans. Marge’s looked uniform and tasty. Jesse had either too much or too little in each of his cups. Nuts and coconut stuck out of them like a bad hair day. And then he ran out of dough, ending up with only eleven muffins. Marge offered a sympathetic smile as they set the muffin tins in a huge stainless steel refrigerator to firm up.
Next came red pepper soup, which went smoothly until they had to puree it in the blender. Jesse forgot to put on the lid and turned it to the wrong speed. It erupted like a soup volcano, sending a shower of reddish liquid all over his station. His cheeks burned as he wiped up his mess. Some of the other ladies whispered to one another and laughed. He hadn’t planned on being the night’s entertainment. What else could go wrong?
When the soup was done and chilling in the refrigerator, Garrett showed them how to prepare the veggie sushi rolls. “The important thing here is to keep your fingers out of the way, with your knuckles bent like this. Practice technique first before you worry about speed. Eventually, you’ll be able to do this.” He went through all the chopping like a TV chef, moving the knife in a blur, turning the peppers, onions, and carrots into perfect little slices.
Marge did well, concentrating closely on her cutting technique, while Jesse did his best just to chop everything the same size. His thoughts turned to Leigh, and he wondered if he could get any information from Marge. She could have been one of Leigh’s clients, after all.
“Do you know much about Leigh Meriwether?” he asked as nonchalantly as possible.
She paused her chopping and glanced at him. “Yeah, she’s my counselor. Why?”
Time for a little white lie. “I met her at a speed dating thing. I’d like to ask her out, but I’m kind of nervous.”
“Aw, that’s so sweet. She’s a really nice woman. Very smart and pretty, which I’m sure you’ve seen for yourself.”
“Yeah. Sheriff said she and her family have lived here a long time, but I don’t remember seeing her in school.”
“I think she was homeschooled.”
Now he had to figure out how to ask why without asking why. “Sheriff said her folks had some trouble from being an interracial couple and that maybe they kept her home because of that.”
“No, I don’t think so. I think it was because she was really sick when she was a kid.”
Leigh had told him that much. He had to delve a little deeper. “Sick how?”
“I don’t know for sure. She doesn’t really talk about herself very much. I do think you should ask her out, though. She seems lonely.”
He nodded, but didn’t want to keep interrupting Marge when she was concentrating so hard on her chopping technique. He tried to focus on the vegetables again, but couldn’t get what Marge said out of his head. She seems lonely. Poor Leigh. He wondered what her childhood must have been like, if she was so sick she had to be homeschooled. She probably hadn’t had many friends, much less boyfriends. Maybe she was just scared to date anyone because she'd been shut away that long and had no experience with guys. But she’d gone to college. Surely, she’d dated someone there.
A terrible thought hit him. He gripped his knife tighter and wielded it more like a cleaver as he whacked at a carrot. What if a college date had hurt her? Had she been raped? His heart thumped harder, raising his blood pressure until it pounded in his ears. If it took finding the son of a bitch that hurt her and beating him to a bloody pulp before he locked him away, he’d do it for her.
Unfortunately, the carrot he’d been slaughtering got tired of his assault and slipped out from under the knife and rolled right onto the floor. He started to bend over and pick it up, wondering if the five second rule would apply here, but Marge gasped. He stood up straight again and saw what made her gasp. Blood dripped from his thumb onto his cutting board. He’d been so worked up he hadn’t even felt it until now. It stung like crazy.
“Wrap it up in a paper towel,” Garrett said. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
Marge watched in horror, her face turning paler by the second.
Jesse tore off a paper towel from the roll between them and wound it tightly around his thumb. “It’s not that bad. I don’t think it’ll need any st—”
Marge let out a little groan and went limp. Jesse caught her under her arms before she hit the floor. Great. Now his number three had fainted as the result of his horrible knife skills and lack of concentration.
On the drive back to Marge’s house, she was quiet for a while before breaking the silence. “I’m so sorry I fainted. I’ve never been good with the sight of blood.”
“I’m sorry I ruined your night.”
“Oh no, not at all! This was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time. I had forgotten how much I love to cook. Ever since I left culinary school, I’ve stuck to frozen dinners and microwave meals. It just hurt too much to think about what I’d been missing. But now…you’ve rekindled it for me. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
The tension in Jesse’s shoulders eased. He exhaled a long, relieved breath. “Don’t thank me. Just enjoy your classes. I’ll stick to my dishwashing deal and hopefully keep my fingers intact.”