Page 29 of Breaking All The Rules
“What on earth are you looking for, Junior? You’ve been clattering around for ages.”
Austin, on his hands and knees, his head stuck inside the corner cupboard in the kitchen, grimaced at the nickname he’d had since forever. Junior. It felt particularly sharp and pointy right now. He’d gone to Denver, struck out on his own for five years to prove to everyone he wasn’t Junior anymore, but old habits died hard.
“Didn’t you used to have a fondue set?” His mother’s love for/obsession with kitchen gadgets had resulted in much clutter over the years.
“A fondue set?” The puzzlement in his mother’s voice reached right inside the cupboard.
“Yeah,” he confirmed as he eased out and rested back on his haunches.
She placed a basket full of vegetables she’d obviously just picked from the garden on the drainer of the sink. His mother had an amazing green thumb, her garden bursting with seasonal goodness all year round. As far as Margaret Cooper was concerned, there was nothing as nice as freshly picked produce.
She frowned as she proceeded to rinse away the dirt from her harvest. “The one we got as a wedding present from my cousin Avery and his wife?”
“Um…yes?” Austin didn’t really care about its provenance.
“Why do you want that old thing?”
Because he couldn’t stop thinking about Beatrice. Ever since she’d kissed him yesterday, Austin had thought of little else. Of how nice it had been. Of how he’d like to do it again. Of how much he liked her.
Of her skittishness…
“I hear they’re making a comeback,” he said.
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Oh, okay…”
This morning, as he’d been helping out in the yards, he’d randomly remembered the old electric fondue set his mom would bring out on occasion for a birthday party or a sleepover and figured he could give it to Beatrice. But he didn’t want his mom to know that. Just because he was living back home again didn’t mean she got to know everything going on in his life.
The fact that he still lived at home had seemed to freak Beatrice out enough without seeking his mom’s approval or counsel.
Returning her attention to the vegetables, she said, “Have you looked in the big old chest in the barn?”
Austin blinked. “No.” Why in the hell would it be in the barn?
“Last year we decided to try and declutter in here a bit.”
Austin almost smiled at that. We meant only his father. Decluttering wasn’t something his mother usually embraced. She wasn’t a hoarder exactly, but everything had a story attached to it, which made her stuff feel like friends rather than objects—the cousin-Avery anecdote being a classic example.
“We put a bunch of disused things in the chest to donate to Goodwill.”
“Okay.” Austin rose. “Thanks.”
“Lunch is in fifteen minutes,” his mother called after him as Austin strode out the door.
…
It took him ten minutes to unearth the item buried under a veritable treasure trove of gadgets that belonged in the previous century. He had no idea if the set still worked or not—he might have to do some rewiring. He could have sourced one online, but this would be quicker.
Plus, this was more personal. And everything about Beatrice felt personal.
By the time he was tromping back into the big central farmhouse kitchen via the mudroom, his father and brother and sister-in-law were already there, laughing and chatting as they set the table.
“Oh, you found it!” his mom exclaimed, obvious delight coloring her voice as Austin crossed to the bench near the sink and plugged it into the socket.
“I did,” he said as the red light glowed instantly. Yes. The pot could benefit from a bit of spit and polish, but it would do.
“And it still works, too.”
He grinned at his mother. “It does.”
