“Is your skillet supposed to be smoking?”

He’d forgotten he’d turned the heat on. Usually, he worked in a smooth rhythm, getting the eggs into the pan at just the right moment, but he was definitely off his stride. “I think I’m a little jet-lagged,” he said, grabbing the handle of the pan to take it off the burner.

Ow! He silently screamed. That was one hot handle.

“Let me help,” his sister said, taking over, using a hot pad. “You’d better run some cold water on that hand.”

He knew that. He didn’t need a pediatrician telling him what to do with a minor burn.

An hour later, when he’d redeemed his reputation as a cook and hadn’t made another dumb mistake, the three of them sat in front of Beth’s muted TV. The girls had curled up on the sofa, and he sat in a comfortable chair with one bare foot casually crossed on a knee and one burned hand casually resting on an ice bag. He’d changed into a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms and settled in for the night, feeling happier than he’d been in a very long time.

“Ry, that was better than any breakfast Isabel could have made,” Beth vowed. “If you ever change professions, you should be a chef.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.