“Wait.” He placed a hand above it, but didn’t touch the pages. “Look. I know what went wrong with your muffins. I can help you, if you’ll let me.”
“No, thank you.” Her guards were back up, charged to full power. “I’d rather eat those little black things I just made than spend the next hour hearing about how unqualified I am to exist, let alone run a space station.”
“Fair.” He closed the cookbook with care. “How about we don’t talk about any of that and just talk about baking?”
“Are you capable of such a feat?”
“Yes.” He smiled, flashing white teeth. “I am. And I do not think you’re unqualified to run a space station.” He said that as he surveyed the mess scattered over the counter. “Or exist.”
She went still and took a deep, balancing breath. This was not working. Not for her and not for Moone’s Landing. Lashingout at him was accomplishing two things: making it clear that he could get under her skin and causing her blood pressure to rise. The way she saw it, she could keep sniping with Rasker or stop and try to reason with him. Only one of those options had even a chance of convincing him that she wasn’t going to sell the station.
“Fine.” Holly was wary, but still determined to make food. “Where did I go wrong?”
Seventeen
Rasker looked relieved. “I see three primary causes for…this.” He nodded to the muffin disaster and placed the cookbook on the counter, far from any ingredients. “First, you cannot make any of the recipes in this book. They use Earth ingredients, and we are not on Earth. Substitutions just won’t work. For example, there are no eggs here…” He looked confused as he tapped the device on his temple. The mini screen disappeared and he plucked the device off his skin and secured it back on his wrist. “It doesn’t even specify what kind of eggs you’re supposed to use. Bird? Fish? Reptile? Surely there’s more than one egg-laying species on Earth.”
Holly’s lips twitched. “There are thousands, but chickens produced the eggs typically used in cooking. Youcanstill buy them, but most people use synthesized ones.”
“Okay.” He shook his head, as if baffled by the human system. “You also had technique issues. Overmixing makes muffins tough and dense.”
“I see.” She cocked her head. “I thought smooth was better.”
“Not with muffins. You want the batter a little lumpy,” he explained. “Third, I’m guessing the measurements are off.Unless you were able to convert these old units to the current standard.”
“I didn’t.” Holly felt foolish. “I thought they’d be close enough.”
He paused and tapped his chin. “What number are we on?”
“Four,” she replied dryly. “In my list of mistakes.”
“Ah, yes. Fourth is temperature.” He examined the oven controls. “The recipe uses the old Celsius system. The oven uses the Galvan system. If you set it to the temperature in the recipe, it was actually way too hot.”
“So everything was wrong,” Holly said flatly.
“Everything was a learning opportunity. Hold on—I’ll be right back.” He jogged out of the lounge, but returned moments later holding a d-pad. He set it up on the counter and opened it to a new recipe for muffins. Rasker straightened and looked at her with something that might have been amusement, or might have been warmth. “This is a muffin recipe that uses ingredients youdohave. Would you like to try again?”
Holly blinked. “You want to help me make muffins?”
“I enjoy cooking.” He shrugged, a surprisingly casual gesture from someone usually so polished. “I have a nice kitchen setup at my home on Nakri. I don’t get to use it very often, though.”
“Why not?”
“Work.” The word came out flat. “I travel constantly. Negotiations, acquisitions, consultations. I’m rarely home for more than a few days at a time.”
Holly understood that better than she wanted to admit. “It’s the same at Sol-Arc Industries. Twelve years and I never took a real vacation. There was always another project, another client, another deadline.”
“But did the work make you happy?”
She considered the question. “I thought it did. But looking back, I’m not sure. Maybe I was mistaking happiness for…something else.” She dusted some powder from her sleeve. “What about you?”
Rasker was quiet for a moment. “I’m very good at my job,” he said finally. “That has to count for something.”
It wasn’t an answer. Holly noticed that, but she didn’t push.
“All right,” she said instead. “Teach me how to make muffins that don’t look like they survived a plasma fire.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Let’s get fresh ingredients. We’re starting over using what wedohave.”
