Apparently, Gavin and Dakota were both in the doghouse.
Rachel would say Dakota wasn’t so bad, but she had clearly been part of Operation Puppy 2.0, so she was not on the list of Rachel’s favorite people at the moment. Actually, she wasn’t even on the list of people Rachel would tolerate today, and after one puppy peed in the hall for the fourth time, Dakota was very close to being put on the list of people who were not getting a Christmas present.
She’d already decided that Gavin wasn’t on the gift list. Rachel gave excellent presents. Everyone said so.
Sometimes, she even helped others shop for presents—she was that good.
“Dakota, Gavin, so glad you could make it.” Rachel slashed the watermelon, cutting it clean in two with one quick slice of the butcher knife.
“Rach, hi,” Gavin said as he and Dakota moseyed into the kitchen holding two giant gift boxes.
Travis came through the back door and tipped his paper cup toward the boxes the two lugged into the kitchen. She got co-ed Travis today with a black and gold University of Colorado T-shirt and twill cargo shorts. He seemed to have been wrestling with the kids in the grass, given the bits of her lawn falling from his hair and the grin attached to his mouth.
“There better not be anything alive in there.” He gestured to the box in Gavin’s hands.
If whatever was in those boxes was alive, Rachel might have to lock herself in her room to scream.
“Mom said you need help,” Travis said, turning to Rachel, more of her lawn falling to the floor. “Somethin’ about taking the dogs out?”
Rachel nodded, giving a chin jerk to indicate the dining room. Travis went to spring the puppies from where they were sequestered away from the chaos of the children and the science experiments Rachel wasn’t entirely sure were puppy safe.
“What else can I do?” Evelyn asked, and you know what? Rachel decided right then that she liked the woman after all. Two presents this year for her holiday season.
Sure, Evelyn may have had unhinged hopes of a Rachel-and-Gavin-kiss-and-make-up fiesta, but she also offered to freaking help and didn’t offer to just hire someone to do it.
Rachel gestured to the fruit and vegetable baskets she kept near the fridge. “Would you?—”
“Puppies!” Molly shrieked, cutting straight through Rachel’s request. Apparently, she’d caught sight of Travis with a puppy under each arm.
The sight of Travis with two puppies? Whooo boy, it nearly dissolved the solid mad Rachel had been nursing since the canine arrival. Nearly. And she was definitely not going to evaluate that further.
“Evelyn, would you hand me that zucchini?” Rachel pointed at the zucchini on the counter next to Gavin. The zucchini looked mighty comfortable nestled in a brown wicker basket filled with other produce. Rachel didn’t need a produce aisle to make her point on this one. She had her ex-husband, a girthy vegetable, and a knife.
Without a question, Evelyn extracted the zucchini and handed it over to her. If she didn’t know better, Rachel would’ve thought that Evelyn knew what she planned to do with the vegetable. Knew and approved.
Huh.
Travis handed one of the dogs over to Molly. “Let’s take these guys outside and let the weird vibe of the kitchen continue on without our presence.”
Rachel held the zucchini in her hand, inspected it, set it carefully on the cutting board next to the watermelon, and made eye contact with Gavin.
He looked to the produce, then back to her. “What’s going?—”
She slashed through the zucchini with the knife, quick and with precision.
For the first time in a long time, Rachel felt a little better. Not quite so wound up. Maybe she should take up zucchini chopping as a stress reliever.
Oh, or there was that place where she could go and throw axes. That could be fun, too.
Already feeling lighter, she deftly continued chopping until the entire vegetable was well and truly diced.
Gavin stood unmoving, totally pale. He did break their locked gaze, his moving to the sliced zucchini before sliding it back to her.
Bless her heart, even Dakota’s mouth opened the tiniest of inches.
Good. Rachel had made her point.
“You and I are going to chat.” Rachel hung on to Gavin’s gaze a moment longer.
