Page 23

“No, I mean really love it.” I tuck my legs beneath me and turn toward him. “When I cook, everything makes sense. It calms me. Everything else just goes quiet for a while.”

“I don't know how to explain it.”

“Try.”

“It's like reading a good book. You start with a bunch of ingredients that don't look like much on their own and somehow they become something beautiful.”

He doesn't interrupt, so I keep going.

“I want to learn everything. Italian food. French food. Pastry. All of it.”

“That's a lot of food.”

I kick his leg.

“I'm serious.”

“So am I.”

A laugh escapes me.

“One day I'd love to write cookbooks.”

His eyebrows rise. “Cookbooks?”

I nod.

“Not just recipes though. I want to teach people.”

“Teach them what?”

“How to cook. How to stop being scared of food. How to make something from scratch. How to bring people together around a table.”

For a moment neither of us speaks.

“You'd be good at that.”

My chest squeezes.

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

The certainty in his voice steals my breath.

“What about you?”

“I want to open my own restaurant someday.”

I turn toward him. “You do?”

“A big one. And maybe I want to open it at Paradiso Ranch in Lander.”

He searches my face, and something inside me sinks.

Lander.

Of course.