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“What? For a critique? No, I’ve dealt with lots of male egos in my time. His is nothing special.”

“You think I have one?”

“I would hope so. You’re just more discriminating on how you display it. An ego is a healthy thing. But there are limits to its power.”

“You have anyone in mind when you say that?”

“Oh, I can name a few.” Her father. Her brother… “Take… for instance… that hawk up there.” She pointed to the red-shouldered hawk sailing on an air current about the ruffling water. “He knows he’s well equipped for catching those fish in the river. It means his survival. He’s got the claws and eyes, the wings, and even his mastery of the air. He doesn’t really doubt any of that. It just is. But put another hawk in his airspace, and all that confidence turns into something else. Possessiveness. He’s suddenly irrational, defending his territory. His hunting prowess. And when two hawks collide, they often get locked into a death spiral, unable to disentangle themselves from one another. Maybe they fall in the river and drown. Or die hitting the ground. Mr. Nevers was merely protecting his territory. Mistakenly, since I have no intention to invade.”

“You could probably cook circles around him.”

She laughed. “We are two very different sorts of cooks. My food has always been more about love than… achievement.”

“Yeah? Love?” He rubbed his fingers against her shoulder.

She tipped her head against his. “It really was my only motivation. Love for my friends. Love of food and making it. It was never about competing, which was a very nice break from what the rest of my life looked like.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Wall Street? I suppose I do. Not at this moment. But I was good at what I did there. And it made me a lot of money. But it’s mostly the people I’ll miss.”

He got quiet then and stared out over the water. “I wish…”

She nudged him. “What?”

“I wish we had more time.”

“I know.” She wished there was more time as well. But the clock was already ticking away.

He got to his feet and pulled her up beside him. He kissed her with the sun sinking slowly behind the mountains and she felt her heart sink along with it.

It was then she noticed the truck parked up on the road a quarter of a mile away with a man sitting inside, watching them. She could have sworn she saw him pointing something out the window before tucking it back inside when she saw him. A gun? A… long-lensed camera? But then, she probably just imagined it, because the truck pulled away a moment later.

“Did you see that?” she asked Liam.

“What?”

She stared after the retreating truck. “Nothing.”

“We’d better get back before dark.”

She nodded and they got back on the horses and headed home.

“Cookery is not chemistry. It’s an art. It requires instinct and taste rather than exact measurements.”

–Marcel Boulestin–

Chapter Ten

The next day,Emily spent the morning puttering around the cabin after Liam had gone, enjoying the quiet time with a book she’d been saving for a time like this. The family was all occupied with last-minute preparations for the ceremony and reception, and Liam was busy with the BLM horses up in the west pasture.

She had just curled up on the sofa and cuddled up with the yummy throw there when she heard a knock on the cabin door. Hoping it was Liam, she jumped up to answer it.

It was Shay—with a panicked look on her face. “It’s bad,” she said.

Emily’s heart dropped. “What? Is it Liam? Is he all right? Has he been hurt—”

“Oh, no, he’s fine. It’s Nevers. It’s a disaster, Emily.”