Read Online Forget Me Not by Stef Ann Holm - Free Book Online

the Dolly Varden cretonne suit last Easter on Fifth Avenue, she’d demonstrated the epitome of refined taste and character. J.D. McCall called her attire “fancy duds.” She shouldn’t have been so affected by his comment. What did he know about fashion? All she’d seen him wear were denim pants, vests, and cotton shirts.
    Josephine pensively stared inside the pot at the tomatoes, then shook herself out of her thoughts to read the recipe. After sprinkling two teaspoons of baking powder over the whole tomatoes, she slid the pot onto the foremost hot plate of the stove.
    Afterward, she scanned the ingredients list for cornmeal rolls since she didn’t have the necessary time involved to prepare bread.
    Exploring the larder’s shelves once more, she brought down three stoneware canisters: flour, cornmeal, and sugar. It took her a good fifteen minutes to find the needed utensils. She hadn’t been sure what a sifter was, so she’d had to refer to the chapter on kitchen economy. At length, she found the round gadget with the screen on the bottom. She was to sift the dry ingredients.
    Ready to begin, she dove a teacup into the flour. A fine dusting of white puffed up. She blinked her lashesto get rid of what was in her eyes. Resuming her measurement of the flour until she had four teacups, she then lifted the crockery lid to the cornmeal.
    She needed one pint of cornmeal. Was she supposed to add that to the flour sifter as well? What did dry ingredients mean? How many teacups in one pint? She wasn’t very good at mathematics. Hugh used to drink his brandy from a pint. She closed her eyes and conjured the size of that pint. Opening them, she dipped the teacup once, twice, three—
    â€œY’all don’t do it like that.”
    Josephine turned toward the sound of Boots’s condemning voice. He stood in the doorway that went to the dining room. “I beg your pardon?”
    â€œBeg my pardon all you want, but y’all aren’t going to get it. I’m old, and I don’t remember who I’ve pardoned and who I haven’t, so I don’t pardon anyone anymore.” He shuffled to her and stared down his nose at the mess she was making on the counter. “Y’all don’t sift the cornmeal in with the flour.”
    Trying to save herself, Josephine set about cranking the handle on the sifter, spreading a cloud of white and yellow powder into a bowl. She replied, “Where I come from, we do it this way.”
    â€œWhere do you come from?”
    â€œNew York.”
    â€œGood gawd,” Boots cried. “Y’all should meet Eugenia.”
    Josephine’s eyes met his. “She’s here?”
    â€œNo, but you should meet her.” Angling a stool next to the counter, Boots sat down and made himself at home. “The infernal woman deserted me.”
    Josephine could probably guess why, though she gave no more than a second of pondering to the marital problems of Boots McCall. How could she manage to continue with him watching her every move?
    â€œDo you intend to sit there?”
    He looked at her as if she were daft; she returnedthe open stare. His face was a cobweb of lines, aged and tanned by sun. “I don’t intend to, I am.” His arm rose, and he pointed with a knobby finger. “Watch what you’re doing. Y’all’re making a hell of a mess.”
    She quickly averted her eyes and repositioned the sifter over the bowl instead of the counter where she’d deposited a small pile of the flour mixture—half of which had fallen onto the floor.
    With a healthy crank of the sifter that sent flour spraying, Josephine worked herself into a diminutive fit of temper. The McCall men were draining. They had no deportment when it came to a lady’s presence. Both freely spoke their minds, not caring a whit for delicacy, and using swear words to boot. Not that she’d never heard an oath or peppered curse. Andrew