I’ve been a slacker keeping Thursday’s Tasty Temptations rolling along at a consistent pace. Now, I’m back again and as a reminder, or to introduce you to the idea of these posts, my daughter remarked after reading my books that they always made her hungry. A reference to the number of times food is mentioned which made me wonder just how many times my scenes centered around food and family conversation.
I decided to look at my first book, In My Wildest Dreams, and get a count of food references. My last post, a few months back, covered chapter fourteen. Here’s an excerpt from chapter fifteen:
“Good morning, you two,” Layne’s daddy said in a boisterous tone as we entered the kitchen. “Son, you’d better grab some plates before Woods here polishes off all the food.”
Unbelievable. Woods was better, much better than I remembered. No evidence of the near-death experience I witnessed last night remained. His only response to the comment was to help himself to another stack of Olive’s pancakes with a satisfied grin. He did stop eating long enough to stand and address me as I came into the room.
“Good morning, Ms. Lynzi. I want to thank you for all your help last night. Those two would as soon killed me as to look at me, I think, and they left me in no condition to transport out of there on my own. If you hadn’t been in the barn I-I don’t know what would have happened to me.”
“I’m just glad we got you out when we did, Woods,” I answered, amazed at the rapid recovery.
“We both are,” Layne added. “What can you tell us about why they chose last night to confront you?”
We took seats at the table and listened as Woods told his side of the story. “They’re unhappy I’ve not handed Ms. Lynzi over to them yet. They want to use her to bargain with you about ownership and control of the land.”
“It’ll be a cold day in hell before they get their hands on Lynzi again, and the land belongs to the folks here, not to any one man.” Layne leaned over and kissed the top of my head. “Lake, any word from the teams running down the latest leads this morning?”
“Yeah, they checked in, nothing new to report though I’m sorry to say.”
They consumed pancakes as fast as Olive could turn them out. It always astounded me how much these guys could eat at one sitting so it was no time at all before the table was clean.
“Olive, you’re spoiling me here. When I go home, I’m going to have to do all this myself again and I’m not going to remember how,” I said to her as she gathered the last of the plates from the table and scurried off to the kitchen with them.
“Now don’t you go thinking about going back so soon, sweetheart. We still have lots to do here.” Layne leaned in and nuzzled his face in that spot on my neck that sent me into melt down mode as his warm breath bathed my skin. His hands slipped around my waist.
“Mmm, Layne,” I breathed. My eyes closed and my head tilted, giving him full access to my neck. My hand snaked up around his neck and tugged him even closer.
“Oh, geez. Don’t you two have a room?” Lake snorted.
“Don’t you have work to do?” Layne addressed Lake with a none-too-pleased expression and a hint of irritation in his words.
“Of course I do. Let me get my instructions from my boss. Oh, wait, that would be you. Well, what do you say, boss?” Lake was begging for a brotherly tussle if you asked me.
After a long pause, Layne shook his head and continued. “Well, Lake, I need the training room set up for kickboxing and the range for cross bow,” Layne said as we finished our coffee. “Lynzi’s gonna start some light training today.”
More coffee. No surprise there! In addition, breakfast consisted of pancakes. Stacks and stacks of pancakes! How do you like yours?
Now, this is a stack!
Whipped cream?
Hot fudge and banana?
Fruit?
Funny face?
Larynn Ford 