“It’s like you knew,” she said quietly to Mal.
“I always bring extra,” Mal said, shrugging. “Sometimes people are hungrier than you expect. But we can just serve dinner sooner if that happens now.”
“Oh, look at this,” Betty Ann Eustace said as she stepped onto the patio. “It’s beautiful, dear.”
“Thank you so much for coming,” Hailey said, floating over to greet her newest guest.
She was so poised and confident that Ransom didn’t think there was any way that Betty Ann would sense that anything had gone wrong at all.
She’s an actress,he reminded himself.Looking cool under pressure is what she’s best at.
Mae came out of the house a few minutes later, looking a little worried.
“Hey,” Ransom said softly, moving to greet her and feeling grateful to have something to do besides stare at Hailey and wonder how mad she was at him. “Would you like to get some food?”
She looked around for a moment.
“It looks like no one else is eating,” she said softly.
“Good job paying attention,” he told her. “Do you think Hailey might like it if we showed everyone that it’s okay to have some food?”
Mae smiled and nodded.
“Where’s your brother?” he asked her.
She shrugged and headed to one of the tables and he followed, helping her find a plate and napkin, and using the tongs to grab her a few items.
Everything looked delicious, but Ransom didn’t really feel like eating. He wished he knew what was going through Hailey’s mind right now.
He fixed himself a plate anyway, and got Mae settled at one of the little café tables.
“I’m just going to find your brother,” he told her, setting his plate beside hers.
More people were arriving, and it seemed like he and Mae had broken the ice at the buffet. Lots of people were there now, piling their plates.
At least I did something right,he told himself, but it wasn’t much comfort.
Mal was in the kitchen as he came through, organizing more trays of food.
“This is incredible,” he told her. “Great job.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I think we got everything put back together just in time.”
He nearly winced at the reference to his pups destroying the first buffet.
“I’m happy to reimburse you for what we ruined,” he told her right away.
“No worries,” she said. “Besides, Hailey already paid for everything.”
“Right,” he said. “I’ll bring it up with her afterward. Have you seen Travis?”
“He’s such a love,” she replied. “Not sure where he got off to, but he seemed pretty stressed out.”
“I’m just going to see if he’s in here somewhere,” Ransom said, gesturing toward the rest of the house.
“Be my guest,” she said, turning back to the food.
Ransom headed into the living room, but Travis was no place to be found.
