It would also give her an excuse not to have to go home for a while. Her mother would be getting up pretty soon, hungover as usual and driving Keely nuts. With a little luck, maybe Carly would come over and take Ella out partying, since it was Saturday. It would give Keely a lovely quiet night at home alone if she didn’t get called out; something she rarely experienced.
* * *
The three of them worked in a companionable silence while they whipped together a light lunch. Keely took a little of the dough she was using for rolls and added real butter, pecans, cinnamon and sugar and made cinnamon buns for dessert.
Winnie’s pasta salad had time to chill while the dough sat rising. Within an hour, Keely had fresh bread on the table and cinnamon buns cooking in the oven while they ate their way through pasta and fresh fruit.
In the middle of the impromptu feast, Boone walked in. He stopped in the doorway, his nostrils flaring.
“I smell fresh bread,” he remarked, scowling. “Where the hell did you get fresh bread? Is there a bakery in town that I don’t know about?”
“Keely made it,” Clark mumbled, working his way through a third yeast roll liberally spread with butter. “Mmmm!” he added, closing his eyes and groaning at the delicious taste.
“Did you get a ticket?” Winnie asked, trying to divert him from the penetrating glance he was aiming at Keely, who squirmed in her chair.
“Ticket for what?” Boone asked, digging in the china cabinet for a plate.
“Speeding,” she replied.
He put his plate on the table and fetched silverware and a napkin. He poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot and sat down with the other three. Keely’s heart was already doing overtime, and she had to work at acting normal while Boone was so close.
“I got a warning,” he said tautly.
“My friend Nora is the county deputy clerk of court,” she reminded him. “If you get a speeding ticket, it will go through her office and she’ll tell me.”
His mouth twitched. “I got a small ticket.”
“There’s only one size,” she said.
He ignored her. He reached for a roll, buttered it and took a bite. He wore the same expression that was dominating Clark’s face. Fresh rolls were a treat. Their cook, Mrs. Johnston, couldn’t make bread, although she was a great cook otherwise.
“There’s some salad left,” Winnie commented, pushing the bowl toward him.
“Where did you learn to make rolls?” he asked Keely, and seemed really interested in her answer.
“When I lived with my father, he ran a big game park. One of his temporary workers had been in the military and traveled all over the world,” she recalled. “He was a gourmet chef. He taught me to make bread and French pastries when I was twelve years old.”
“What sort of animals did your father have?” Boone persisted.
“The usual ones,” she said, without meeting his eyes. “Giraffe, lions, monkeys and one elephant.”
“African lions?”
She nodded. “And one mountain lion,” she added. No one noticed that her fingers, holding her fork, went white.
“They have mean tempers,” Boone said. “One of my ranch hands had to track one down and kill it when he worked over in Arizona some years ago. It was bringing down cattle. He said it killed one of his tracking dogs before he could get a clear shot at it.”
“They tend to be vicious, like most wild animals,” she agreed. “They’re not malicious, you know. They’re just wild animals. They do what they do.”
“What was your job at a wild game park?” Boone murmured.
“I fed the animals and watered them and made sure the gates were locked at night so they couldn’t get out,” she said.
He finished his roll and followed it with sips of black coffee. “Not a smart job for a twelve-year-old kid,” he remarked.
“It was just Dad and me,” she said, “except for old Barney, and he was crippled. He’d hunted a lion who became a man-killer in Africa and it fought back. He lost an arm and a foot to it.”
“Did he keep the pelt when he killed it?” Boone asked.
