Read Online The Bluebonnet Betrayal by Marty Wingate - Free Book Online Page A

delicious aroma emanating from the basket—hints of beef and wine and herbs—but first things first. She traced his brow with her finger and pretended to tidy his short dark hair, which never needed tidying. She stood on tiptoe and moved closer until they were almost nose to nose. He watched her, those deep brown eyes locked on hers, before burying his face in her hair. They were like elephants, Pru thought, needing to greet each other not only by sight, but also by touch and smell.
    Christopher moved a curl of hair from off her cheek—her hair always needed tidying—and kissed her. “I finished up paperwork at the station this afternoon, went home, and then I thought what am I waiting until tomorrow for? So I packed up and here I am.”
    Mmm,
she thought. He packed up clothes and more. But he did not acknowledge the basket on the table or its fragrance, and so she would play along.
    “Well,” she said, “I was just about to have cheese and crackers for my supper. Will you join me?” She kept her eyes on his and didn’t blink until she saw that ghost of a smile playing round his mouth.
    He nodded to the hamper. “Go on, then.”
    She attacked the leather straps, loosened the buckles, opened the lid on the treasure chest, and was hit full-on by such mouthwatering smells that she nearly swooned on the spot.
    Packages—round, square, and oblong—were neatly wrapped in foil and stacked like a two-level jigsaw puzzle. She smelled both savory and sweet, and couldn’t decide which was more enticing.
    “My God, what all do you have here?” She followed Christopher as he carried the hamper into the kitchen and set it on the counter.
    “Evelyn was afraid you were starving up here in foodless London. There’s a lasagna and cottage pie—those are packed in ice at the bottom—and a steak and ale pie. That one’s fresh, and she wouldn’t let me leave until it was out of the oven.”
    “Evelyn—what a sweetheart.” There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Pru would not have uttered the words “Evelyn” and “sweetheart” in the same sentence, but she and Greenoak’s housekeeper/cook had settled their differences. They’d actually become quite close. “I was supposed to start my cooking course this week,” Pru said with a stab of guilt.
    It had been Evelyn’s idea to teach Pru to cook, and she had spent weeks setting up the lessons—braising, steaming, how to make a roux. Second term would be baking. They would do it all there in the kitchen at Greenoak. Pru hated to postpone—although just the word “roux” made her nervous. She got the impression that Evelyn thought that the Chelsea Flower Show was some sort of dodge to avoid the entire thing, but Pru had made copious promises that they would begin in June.
    She poured Christopher a glass of wine as he set the table. “And the garden?” he asked.
    Pru spread her arms wide and smiled. “I’m free—Twyla has landed.”
    “At last. What’s she like?”
    “She’s…she’s great.” On the Tube journey back to the flat that evening, as she once again looked forward to the Chelsea Flower Show, Pru realized that Twyla—an American gardener in love with England—already felt like her sister, a comrade-in-arms. Pru cut generous wedges of the steak pie and set their food on the table. “We really hit it off,” she explained to Christopher. “She’s lived here before. I think it’s going to be fun working with her.”
    “I can imagine the rest of them were happy to see her.”
    “I don’t think they know yet. They’re at
The Mousetrap
tonight.”
    “Agatha Christie? Did the butler do it?”
    “I don’t think there is a butler in this one.”
    “And Twyla,” Christopher said. “Will she take control of everything—the crew, the plants, the designer?”
    “I think they were being a bit hard on her—all that ‘Frau Woodford’ business. She has a vision.” Twyla’s vision made sense to Pru, and she could understand the