“It just got away from me, and there’s time to make another batch.”
Opal sighed and shook her head. “Are you holding Mari?”
“It’s fine,” Momma said. “I’ve made thousands of brownies in my life.”
Opal suppressed her sigh, suddenly wondering if she could survive having her parents living so close.
Of course you can, she thought. She loved her parents and wanted them here for as long as God would let her keep them.
If only her mother could take blondies out of the oven when the timer went off. But did it really matter? Opal had more butter, brown sugar, and yes, Mexican vanilla.
“The vanilla is that slim cupboard between the microwave and the fridge, Momma.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
Opal heard some scraping, but Mari once again made no noise. “
“Yep, here it is.”
“Remember, Momma, it’s stronger, and you don’t have to use as much.”
“Right,” her mom said, about the same way she’d promised to take the dessert out the first time. “Thanks, Opal.”
Mari squawked then, and Momma added, “Oh, she must finally be hungry. Gotta go.”
The line went dead, and Opal lowered the phone and looked at it. “Unbelievable,” she whispered.
“Everything okay, honey?” Tag looked at her phone and then her.
“Yeah.” Opal watched as Daddy pulled out a rolled-up rug and hoisted it onto his shoulder. “Baby, go help him with that.”
Tag looked over to her father, then took off at a jog, calling, “Wes, let me do that.”
Opal sighed and ran her hands through her hair. “Really, Lord? Is this what I’m dealing with now? A father who thinks he’s half his age, and a mother who’s so distracted by a baby she can’t pull blondies out of the oven?”
If so, Opal wouldn’t have it any other way—and she really couldn’t wait for her parents to be here permanently, and now, for Uncle Gray and Aunt Elise to join them.
After all, Momma and Elise had been best friends for decades, and surely that would soothe Momma a little bit.
thirty-seven
Hunter Hammond pulled up to The Burger Babe and killed the engine. “You ready?” He looked over to his son, who’d had his head bent over his device for the entire drive from the farm to the burger joint.
Ryder’s thumbs flew over the screen, and then he looked up. “Yeah.”
“Maybe we should leave your phone here.” A certain measure of weariness moved through Hunt,
Ryder frowned. “I’ll participate appropriately.” He opened the door and jumped down from the truck. “Besides, it’s lunch with your brothers and sister. I don’t know why I’m here at all.”
“You’re here, because your mother needs a break from babysitting an eighteen-year-old.” Hunt’s irritation with his son spiked, and he followed Ryder out of the truck. He slammed the door behind him and strode around the front of the vehicle. “I want the phone on silent, and I don’t want you to huff, sigh, or check it every fifteen seconds.”
He must’ve spoken with enough seriousness, because Ryder blinked, the fight in his shoulders deflating. “Okay,” he said, and he silenced the phone and stuck it in his back pocket. They facedthe burger joint together, and Hunter exhaled slowly to get his frustration in check too.
“Did Momma really say she needed a break from me?” Ryder asked as Hunter stepped up onto the curb.
He shot a look over to Ryder. “Buddy…yeah. Okay? Yeah. You stress her out with your insistence that you and Clementine aren’t going to break up, that you’re late all the time, and that you can’t seem to do the few simple chores she asks of you.”
Ryder wore a hint of worry in his expression. “I don’t mean to do that.”
