X'd in the Xeriscape by Dale Mayer

Author:Dale Mayer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Military, Romance
ISBN: 9781773369891
Publisher: Valley Publishing Ltd.
Published: 2024-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

At the mention of soup, Doreen brightened immediately. “You’re okay to make soup though?” she asked. “I don’t know that this is an easy one or a hard one.”

He shrugged. “The version I make isn’t hard, and it’s certainly tasty. I’m just warning you that it may not taste the same as your version did.”

“I haven’t had it for a long time. I just know I really enjoyed it.”

“Good enough,” he replied cheerfully. “Then I’ll take a chance, and we will make my version.” And, with that, he bounded to his feet, started with water in the big stock pot, as she hovered beside him.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

He looked over at her and replied, “Broth.”

“Right.” Then she frowned. “Don’t you need onions for broth?” He pointed out the bag that she had left on the counter. “Okay, I’ll be quiet, and I’ll just watch.”

At that, he burst out laughing. “It’s your insatiable curiosity that’s helped you to solve these problems,” he noted. “You get a hold of something, and you just won’t let go.”

“Yeah, that would be somewhere along a bulldog type of attitude,” she muttered.

“Nothing wrong with that.” He laughed at her growing irritation. “You could still go into law enforcement.”

“No, I can’t, but I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

He looked over at her and said, “I hate to see you despondent.”

“I’m not so much despondent as just frustrated because it seems that everybody hides secrets. If they would just be open and honest, the rest of this wouldn’t be necessary.”

He chuckled. “Wouldn’t be necessary absolutely, but, considering a lot of these people hide all this information because they’ve done something wrong, then it helps to understand what they’re up to.”

“Sure, but everybody’s up to something. That’s the bottom line here. Everybody I meet has some kind of a secret somewhere in their past.”

“Even you,” he said, turning to look at her, his grin flashing.

“I suppose. I mean, I wouldn’t want everybody to understand what my marriage was like,” she shared.

His smile fell away, and he nodded. “No, and you’re right. That is a secret that you are entitled to keep, and, of course, other people, if they knew, would be quite open about making sure the rest of the world knew.”

“Exactly, but I won’t kill somebody to keep it quiet.”

“No, and that’s a good thing,” he replied, with a laugh. “You’re right. I think everybody has secrets. Everybody has things that they have done that maybe they wish they hadn’t done or at least wish they could have had a chance to do in a different way. However, that doesn’t make them criminals.”

“No, I get that,” she agreed, watching him, as he worked efficiently as always in the kitchen. “You know that’s one of the things about you in the kitchen that I really like.” She came up behind him to study the growing pile of thinly sliced onions.

“What? I can cut onions without crying?”

She laughed. “No, just the fact that you can do it all so efficiently.

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