hadn’t been going to ask him. Until he’d told her they had to find something to be excited about.
Lil, if you can hear me, now’s the time to jump in. What happens if I try and fail? Do I send our baby girl further into the dark hole she can’t seem to climb out of?
Will your recipes sustain me? Us?
“I was going to say I can’t force them to take me on.” He improvised while he waited for some kind of sign from above.
He’d take one from below or beside if it was clear enough.
Kelsey stared at him. And he could have sworn there was a glimmer of light in her blue eyes. His eyes.
“I took some classes, Kels. I do well enough here at home. I’m nowhere near the cook your mom was. TV? That’s for people like your mom. Real chefs. With real experience. And the auditions will be judged by people who are used to eating from the best of the best. All of which is completely out of my control.” He couldn’t make this happen for her.
“Like Mom always said, cooking is a lot about artistic talent, about knowing what foods go good together and stuff. She always said you had that talent, too.” Her tone wasn’t pushy. Or even persuasive. She sounded like a lost little girl. “Besides, this show is about the recipes. And Mom’s are the best.”
“And I might not be able to do them justice.” It wouldn’t be the first time he’d let Lil down. Or Kelsey, either, though he hoped she never knew just how badly he’d let them both down.
“You tell me that the important thing is to try.”
“I have no problem with trying, Kels. I’ll go to the audition.” He would?
Her mouth dropped open.
“But you have to understand that I might not win. And if I don’t, you have to be willing to find something else to get excited about.”
What was he doing, here?
“You’re going to do it?” She didn’t move. Just sat there. Staring at him. But the glisten in her eyes told him that he had to grant her request.
“And you’re going to help me,” he said, speaking the words that came to him as they presented themselves. “We have three days...” He’d have to cancel his appearance at a fund-raiser for the clinic Wednesday night. And dinner with the Montgomerys, friends of his and Lil’s who still continued to invite him and Kelsey over on a regular Friday-night basis. “You are in charge of choosing the recipe for the audition. I’ll make it each night this week, under your supervision, and you taste the finished results and give me feedback.”
“I’ll do all the dishes,” Kelsey said, still just watching him.
“Okay.”
“Okay? As in you’re really going to audition?”
“I’ll call tomorrow and get myself on the schedule.” There was a special slot for locals, he’d just read. And according to the website, which had been updated that day, there was still an opportunity to sign up. Which Kelsey must have known, too. Since she’d also read the website’s advertisement.
She was staring at him. “For real.”
“I said I would.” And he always did what he’d told her he’d do. Even if he was a few minutes late on rare occasions.
“Woooooo-hoooo!” Her scream hurt his ears. And warmed him up so much he laughed out loud as he caught her flying toward him. Her hug was heaven.
And Burke warned fate that it better not let him let her down.
Not this time.
Not again.
THE FAMILY SECRETS cooking show had been on for five years yet still received the highest ratings of any cooking show on television. But it wasn’t the program’s ratings that had prompted Janie to choose the best of the best in her attempt to give her son every shot at living a full and productive life. No, it had been desperation. And proximity. The show was local. And had run a contest before the Thanksgiving holiday that allowed people to just send in a recipe to compete.
She hadn’t had to audition to get a chance at being a contestant. She’d just had to print out her grandmother’s recipe for turkey dressing.
Even after she’d been notified she was a finalist, invited to be in the audience on Thanksgiving Day for the taping of the show, she hadn’t believed, that day in the studio, that she’d actually heard her name called.
It had been Dawson, sitting in her lap in the small, darkened studio, who’d recognized her name. His hoarse “Ma!” might have sounded like a very excitable grunt to everyone else there that day, but she’d heard her name. And his, too. “Me! Ma! Me!” Over and over again. As his butt bones dug into her thighs and his heels kicked new bruises into her shins.
Then she’d looked at the monitor, panning the audience for the day’s winner, and seen what Dawson had seen. His gargantuan grin, and her grimace of pain, splashed on national television.
Even now, six weeks later, she couldn’t believe she’d won. That in less than two hours she’d be in the studio, being filmed with the other candidates as they received a tour of their kitchens and instructions for the next four or five weeks of the competition. Four if none of her recipes won. Five if at least one did. Snippets of today’s pre-competition taping would be dubbed into shows in the weeks that followed.
So much had happened since she’d won the Thanksgiving competition.
She’d lost her job, but found another one making deliveries for a flower shop. She could work while Dawson was in preschool, and if there was an emergency, she could run by and pick him up. And she’d taken a second job with a political campaign, making cold calls to constituents from home. Neither paid very well. But both paid. And allowed her to attend every one of her son’s therapies.
A must if she was going to be able to repeat exercises at home.
Which was essential if any of it was going to be of benefit to her four-year-old son.
Pulling up in front of the house she’d felt more at home in than any other her entire life, Janie glanced at the car seat behind her. She hated to wake Dawson. He’d been fighting an ear infection and hadn’t been sleeping well.
But he loved Corrine and Joe Armstrong. And, by some miracle, they adored him back just as much. How she’d ever been blessed with such good friends, she had no idea, but...
The door to the ranch-style stucco home opened and Corrine came flying down the walk. “Hello, big boy,” she said, a huge grin on her face as she opened the back door. And then stopped when she saw Dawson asleep.
“You’re going to be late!” she said softly, but lacking none of the urgency, as she glanced at Janie.
“We had a rough night,” Janie told her friend quietly. “I hate to do this to you, Cor. You know if I had any other...”
“Shut your mouth right now,”
