Page 32 of Tying Little Tay (Littles of Rawhide Ranch #13)

Guilia

The Italian restaurant was empty when Guilia entered. She and Sadie had returned the picnic basket to Chef Connor’s kitchen with thanks for the lovely treats, and then Sadie had hugged Guilia again and skipped off back to class, leaving her with the book.

Where was everyone?

“Hello?” she called out, and Miriam and Paulo came hurrying out to greet her.

“Chef Guilia!”

“What brings you here?”

The two of them had suspiciously innocent expressions on their faces.

“What brings me here? I work here. I run this restaurant .”

They looked at each other and burst into giggles, before running back into the kitchen, leaving a very perplexed Guilia behind them.

What on earth was going on? This was not the professional behavior that she expected of her staff, and she was about to follow them back to the kitchen to demand to know what was going on when the kitchen door swung open, and Tay came out.

There was a bit of a commotion, and Guilia saw that the rest of the team were staring out through the open window that connected the dining area to the kitchen. They all looked remarkably excited, and she wasn’t sure whether to be nervous or excited herself.

“I finished the ice cream,” said Tay. “Would you like to try it?”

“Absolutely,” said Guilia. “I’m really proud of you. You’ve worked really hard on this.”

Tay grinned, but it was shy, as if they weren’t sure what would happen next. They led Guilia to a table, sat her down, and then headed back over to the kitchen.

Guilia watched as Hannah handed a plate and a bowl through the window, only for Tay to inspect them closely and use a cloth to clean the edge of one of the plates.

Then, a determined look on their face, they walked back to where Guilia was sitting, balancing a dish in each hand.

When they placed them down in front of Guilia, she had a moment of confusion. Here was cake and ice cream, and here figs and ice cream. She looked up and glanced over to the kitchen where Hannah was beaming.

“Tay.”

“Yes, Daddy?”

“Did you… no. You couldn’t have.”

“I couldn’t have what?”

“You couldn’t have made the… but I only spoke to Hannah yesterday.”

Tay looked more smug than they ever had even after the cheekiest prank. “I spoke to Hannah too, and snuck pictures of your recipe ideas. I wanted you to see that they were great ideas.”

Guilia went to pick up a spoon, but her hand trembled and she placed it back down. While she’d been running around, trying to get the book sorted, Tay had been working on perfecting her Daddy’s own ice-cream recipe. The two of them had spent the day doing something for the other.

The Littles of Rawhide Ranch didn’t need sophisticated or fancy food; they wanted food that made them feel good, and often that meant food that evoked childhood memories. Guilia hadn’t dared hope that they’d like these ideas, and yet her team had clearly helped Tay make her dream come true.

“This is very special, tesore,” she said. “I—” She stopped speaking, choked up, and picked up the spoon instead. “Let me taste it.”

She started with the rosemary cake with olive-oil ice cream.

The two paired together beautifully, the olive-oil ice cream richer than she would have expected.

It was delicious, and the ice cream itself was smooth.

There wasn’t even a hint of graininess, which was very impressive.

Guilia’s own first attempts at making ice cream had resulted in more than a few grainy batches.

“ Que buono .”

“Yeah?” Tay’s eyes were fixed on her face. “You really like it?”

“I really like it. I don’t know how you got the texture so good your first time. I’m very impressed, mi tesore.”

“Try the goat cheese next; that one’s my favorite.”

The figs were rich and luxurious, the goat cheese creamy and salty simultaneously. And the cold of the ice cream with the warmth of the hot figs was heaven. That tasted even better than she’d planned.

“This was a wonderful present, tesore,” she said. “You are such a wonderful person. How did you turn a punishment into this?”

“I wanted to do something nice for you,” they said, slipping into the chair next to them. “You always do such nice things for me, and I wanted to return some of that at least.”

Guilia looked over their shoulder to the team in the kitchen window, all of them beaming. Then she looked back to her Little and pressed her lips to theirs. “You did amazing. I’m so damn proud of you.”