As she pulled up to her cabin, she saw Sawyer’s Range Rover across the creek, parked at Cash and Aubrey’s house. She felt a tickle in her stomach and blamed it on indigestion. Inside the cabin, she unpacked her two purchases and sorted through her pantry to see if she had the required ingredients to make a pie. On one of her walks to Charlie and Aubrey’s barn, she’d noticed a wild blackberry bush near the creek, brimming with fruit.
She changed into a pair of jeans and tennis shoes. The tick warning had scared the bejesus out of her. All she needed was Lyme disease to cap off the shit storm that had become her life.
It had cooled considerably since the first time she’d left the house. According to her phone, the temperature was a balmy ninety degrees. But if she walked in the shade it wasn’t too bad. The day was so clear she could see the mountain peaks of the Sierra. Maybe all the way to Nevada.
She’d done a cookbook signing in Tahoe a few years back. Other than that, though, she’d never spent much time in this part of California. Except for promotional junkets and the obligatory trip to New York for the annual James Beard Awards, she rarely left LA. And even then, it was a series of airports and hotels.
She found the berry bush, which was thick as a forest, covered in plump, ripe fruit. Gina plucked one off an overgrown vine and popped it in her mouth. It was a tasty blend of sweet and tart. Perfect for pies.
While her culinary focus had always been on savory dishes, she was a fine baker. She was also a fine eater of her baked goods. When the pie was done, she’d bring it to Sawyer. It would look better on him than on her. But not before she had a taste of her labor.
She filled her pie dish with berries, wishing she’d brought a bigger container. There was enough fruit to bake dozens of desserts. If things got any more dire, she might just open a bakery and give Laney a run for her money.
Sawyer’s Range Rover pulled up alongside her and his passenger window slid down. “What are you doing?”
“Picking berries. I assumed it was okay.” They were just going to waste, feeding the birds and rotting on the bush.
He shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”
She wanted to ask him where he’d been yesterday when she’d borrowed his kitchen to make a cassoulet, but bit her tongue. Perhaps he’d been trying to avoid her. She didn’t fool herself that their creek-side truce had suddenly made them BFFs.
“Did you eat any of that cassoulet I left in your refrigerator?” she asked instead.
“I had three helpings. Hope you didn’t have other plans for it,” he said, but didn’t seem terribly concerned that she might’ve.
“Nope, just testing recipes.”
He shut off his engine and leaned across the seat. “How come you never take anything home?”
“The mice and rats.” As far as she could tell the cabin was rodent-free, but she liked reminding him that he was a cad for dumping her there.
“They don’t eat much.” Both sides of his mouth hitched up. “Just be careful of the bears and mountain lions. You go out today?”
Aha, he was keeping tabs on her comings and goings? Don’t be delusional, she told herself. He just happened to notice that her car was gone while he was at Cash’s. “To that kitchen store you told me about.”
He rubbed his hands over his scruff. Apparently, he no longer shaved. “That wise?”
“Probably not, but I needed a few things and it was a nice store.”
He didn’t say anything, just seemed to study her for a few minutes. “Well, I better get home.”
“You mind if I use your oven to bake a pie?” She knew she was becoming an imposition but asked anyway. Why? She didn’t know. She’d been perfectly prepared to bake in the cabin. The walls were closing in her, that’s why.
“Uh…I guess.” He didn’t sound thrilled about it, so she decided to do it just to antagonize him.
“Great. I just have to go home and grab my ingredients and the new pie dish I bought. See you in a little while.”
She rushed to the cabin and gathered up her supplies, including her freshly picked berries. Despite the danger of facing more negativity on the World Wide Web, she opened her laptop to research crusts. The best ones were made with lard and she didn’t have any, or even Crisco. She could do all-butter, but it tended to make the crust puffier than she liked. Cream cheese, though, made a fantastic substitute for Crisco. And she had a package she’d bought to smear on the crappy frozen bagels she’d gotten at the Dry Creek Market.
She did a Google search for Rose Levy Beranbaum’s cream cheese–to–butter ratio. As far as Gina was concerned, Beranbaum’sPie and Pastry Biblewas the definitive manual on crust or anything having to do with pie.
When she was a girl, cooking in her parents’ Beverly Hills kitchen, she had attempted to make every recipe in the book. Sadie had complained that it was making her fat and demanded that Gina stop. Until her mother had issued the no-more-baking edict, Gina had gotten two-thirds through the tome, which was thicker than the Old and New Testament combined.
She searched for the recipe, trying to stay focused and not peek at the day’s news or YouTube videos of the late-night shows, or TMZ. How she loathed TMZ. It took all her willpower not to take a quick look at her fan email, which would just be masochistic. Unfortunately, though, she was one of those people who slowed down to look at car accidents. The pull to search her name was like a magnetic force.
Nope, not going to do it.
Yet, she deliberated when it came time to power down. Then her phone rang and she was saved by the bell.
