Page 6 of A Mustang River Christmas

Most of that stuff was niche culinary news, but if she was going to look specifically for him, then she was going to get niche culinary news.

Thinking about the kitchen still hurt. Eight years later.

But it hadn’t been good for him. Trying to recover while trying to keep his position, while trying not to miss a beat at his job, had driven him to the darkest place he had ever been in his life.

It was what had nearly cost him Chloe.

So yeah, getting back into the kitchen when Chloe had just arrived... it felt risky. It felt possibly foolish.

His phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket, and saw that he had a text from Laney.

Yeah, I’d like your help.

He smiled, his stomach going tight. Well, he was committed to this, whether he felt great about it or not.

“Just so you know, I’m getting roped into helping out with this gingerbread event.”

Chloe looked worried. “Oh?”

“Don’t worry about it, Chloe. I promise, it’s not going to be a big deal.”

“I hope not. I don’t want you to be all stressed out. Why do you do this job, anyway?”

“I do it because I need to have something to do.”

“You could just sit around and count your money.”

He laughed. “I don’t know about that. I made some good investments, but that shit doesn’t last forever. All the better that I actually work for a living, honestly. Idle hands and all that.”

And his body had been the devil’s workshop for far too long.

“What did you make?”

“Oh, it’s something that we were working on in the kitchen today. Venison with some cranberry succotash. Also some wilted greens and cheese grits.”

“Sounds great,” he said.

And it was, absolutely perfect. He was so proud of his daughter, he could burst. He honestly didn’t think that he could take credit for what a wonderful human being she had turned into. Gracious, kind, talented. Driven.

He was grateful to his ex-wife, even if Melinda was never going to be especially grateful to him.

It was fine. He didn’t deserve it.

They didn’t hate each other at this point, and he thought that that was probably about the best outcome.

They were able to speak cordially about Chloe. They were both able to go to her graduation and pose for a picture on either side of her, her in the center.

A lot of growth from where they had been even five years ago.

And fair enough. When you broke people’s trust the way that he had, you had to earn it back. And it wasn’t going to be instantaneous. He had no right to be angry about the years that Melinda had kept Chloe from him. He was a little angry about it, but he didn’t have the right to it. She had cause to be suspicious of him. It had been reasonable. Protective.

It had been what he would have done in her position.

All he could do was be grateful where they had settled out.

“Is there dessert?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said.