Lost and Found by Nicole Williams Read Free Book Online Page A

I made a quick stop over in the bathroom to apply a couple coats of mascara, slick on some dark lipstick, and pop in my dark contacts. Normally, I didn’t leave my bedroom without a full face of makeup, but I didn’t want to press my luck. It had been a while since my wake-up call, and I didn’t want Rose to have to come looking for me.
    As I clomped down the stairs in my staple combat boots, I already smelled breakfast, and not the poured-into-a-bowl-with-a-little-milk kind. It was the kind of breakfast that sizzled in skillets.
    Even though I hadn’t had the whole tour of the Walkers’ place, the kitchen was easy enough to find. If my nose couldn’t have found its way there, my ears could have. Voices that were way too perky for so early in the morning jabbered about something.
    I paused inside the doorway of the kitchen and waited. Rose and the three girls scurried around the large kitchen like someone was cracking a whip behind them. One dug around in the fridge, another scrambled a ginormous skillet of eggs, Rose filled a pitcher with orange juice, and Clementine set the longest table I’d ever seen. I did a quick count of the place settings. Twenty. They must be, literally, feeding the entire village.
    Everyone was so busy with their tasks no one noticed me right away. Toeing the linoleum, I cleared my throat.
    “Good morning,” I said, even though that time was generally more good night for me.
    “Rowen!” Rose called out as she handed the pitcher of juice off to Lily. “How did you sleep last night?”
    If I went with the truth, her next question might have to do with what had kept me up. Since admitting to Rose her son was responsible for keeping my mind reeling last night, I decided to answer with a simple, “Good.”
    “You got the dinner plate I sent Jesse up with?” she asked, making her way to me. Today she was wearing a sleeveless, button-down blouse, jeans, boots, and some ornate silver and turquoise jewelry.
    “Oh, I got it.” Along with a vexing little note with a vexing little question. “Looks like you’re about to feed an army. What can I do to help?” I was there to work, Rose and I both knew that, but maybe if I made it seem like I was offering, working would seem less like indentured servitude.
    “What, this little breakfast?” she replied, lifting a shoulder. “Around here, this is an everyday, three times a day, sort of thing. When it gets real interesting is when we host a meal with the hands and their families or significant others. Now that, that’s feeding an army. This is just a simple breakfast.”
    My mouth fell open a bit. “You do this every day?”
    “Six months out of the year, three meals a day,” Rose replied. “The other six months we only cook for our family and maybe a couple others.”
    Insane.
    “Every day as in Monday to Friday, right?” Fifteen meals for twenty people a week? There had to be some sort of international award for that.
    Rose laughed. “Honey, the day cattle only need tending to Monday to Friday is the day I’m booking a vacation to Hawaii.”
    Oh my God. They did it seven days a week. Every single day. Breakfast. Lunch. Dinner. My mouth dropped a bit further.
    “Do you have a magic wand or something?” I asked because, really. How could four women, well, one woman and three girls, prepare three hot meals a day, seven days a week, for twenty people if some kind of magic wasn’t involved?
    “I wish. I live by a philosophy that’s served me well for over two decades of ranch life—organized chaos,” she said with a wink. “That’s our marching theme around here.”
    Emphasis on the chaos part.
    “Got it,” I said, practically wincing as Hyacinth diced up a potato like she had mad ninja skills. I kept waiting for the bloody top of a finger to roll onto the floor. “I’m not the best cook in the world, and it’s better I don’t handle anything sharp, but I’m pretty sure I can set a table without breaking anything or pour