I shook my head. “Not yet. Ten more minutes and it’ll be ready to come out of the oven. The timer’s on my phone. I won’t miss it.”
She patted my knee. “You did great up there. I watched you beat those eggs like a pro. Maybe someday, you’ll want to join me in the kitchen at the diner.”
I scrunched my nose and held up my hands. “Do you seriously not remember the time I nearly burned down the diner making toast?”
Her blue eyes narrowed as her eyes glazed over with memory. “Oh. Yeah.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said with a laugh. “First, the competition. Then, maybe...possibly...in a few years...I’ll think about helping in the kitchen again.”
She laughed and nodded in agreement, tweaking my cheek gently.
Lexi popped up from the other side of her. “Come on, Char. We’ve got ten minutes for Operation Cowboy. That’s plenty of time to accomplish a little flirting. Let’s go.”
“Operation Cowboy?” I stared at my mom, wide-eyed, as Lexi pulled me from my chair with surprising force for someone so small. I was hoping for a little motherly intervention, but she just smiled knowingly, then looked away. So much for that. “F-f-flirting? I’m not sure I’m ready.”
“Sure you are.” She nodded and set her jaw like a mini-Joan of Arc, then led us toward the judges’ table. “Last night we laid the plans. Now, we act. I’ll help. I’ll be your wing-woman. There’s Graham. Let’s do this.”
Before I could dig my Sketchers into the fading linoleum tile, we’d arrived. All three guys looked incredibly bored. Hunter cradled his cheek with his right hand, his elbow propped up on the table as his eyes drooped. Rhett snored softly, using his massive arms as a pillow. And Graham played with his phone, grinning at something he was typing.
“Hi, Graham.” Lexi dropped her hand from my arm and stood in front of him, tapping the toe of her flip flop on the ground until he dragged his eyes away from his screen to look up at her. “How’s it going?”
“Good.” I didn’t miss the slight hesitation in his eyes before he covered it up with an oily smooth grin. “How you ladies doing?”
“Oh, we’re good.”
She elbowed me hard in the rib. I gasped, drawing Graham’s dark gaze to my face. Right then and there, I decided that Lexi was officially evil. With a slight whimper and an apologetic smile, I nodded at him.
“Good. We’re doing good. Really good. Perfectly good.”
His brow furrowed slightly. “Right...”
So much for Operation Cowboy. This was Operation Humiliation. I didn’t know how to flirt. That was Lexi’s territory. She could flirt with a brick and get its phone number. I was hopeless.
Still, Lexi wasn’t giving up easily. As the silence stretched awkwardly between us, she gave me a heated glare that could’ve fried an egg on my face.
“So...Graham...what events do you ride in for the rodeo?” I asked, shrugging at her. My question seemed to cool her off slightly. She glanced expectantly at Graham, a soft smile on her face.
“Bull and bronc,” he said, perking up enough to abandon his phone for a second on the table.
I bit my lower lip. “Sounds dangerous.”
He chuckled and cocked his head to one side. “I prefer the dangerous events. They’re the big prize winners. I leave the sissy events to the pansies like Rhett here.”
Rhett grunted in his sleep and Graham’s grin grew a bit wider.
“Maybe that’s because you couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with a rope if you tried,” Hunter shot back. I hadn’t even realized he’d woken up from his stupor, but he was alert now and fixing Graham with a glare.
Graham returned it with a withering stare of his own and then a dismissive grunt. Turning toward us in his seat, just enough to block Hunter from his view, he picked his cell off the table and handed it to me.
“Why don’t you put your number in there, beautiful?” he asked, turning back on the oozing charm with very little effort. “Maybe we could hang sometime.”
I ran my fingers over the edge of his phone, a hard pit forming in my stomach. A glance up at Lexi’s barely contained smile told me Operation Cowboy was succeeding. But a look down the table at Hunter made the pit turn into a gnawing mass. He was staring straight ahead, rage simmering in his eyes, the muscles in his jaw clenched tight. His fingers curled into white-knuckled fists as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Hunter obviously didn’t like this guy. And if Hunter didn’t like him, there was a good reason for it. But Lexi had her heart set on finding me a cowboy to help with the competition. And maybe having a little extra motivation to win, besides stomping Sarah, couldn’t hurt after all.
My gut was pulling me in two different directions. It was impossible to make a decision. But then my alarm went off on the cell phone in my pocket, erasing all thoughts about putting my number into strange boys’ phones.
“That’s my pie,” I said, sliding Graham’s cell back onto the table.
Hurrying toward the oven, I bit the inside of my cheek in excitement. In all probability, it still had a few minutes to go. I’d set the timer early just to make sure I didn’t over cook it. Brown sugar pies were easy to burn. If my toast disaster at the diner had taught me anything, it was to always set the oven for a shorter time. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Not when the stakes were so high.
But, as I opened the door to my oven, a nasty, burnt smell filled the air. I gasped in horror, finding the top of my pie black as Ms. Gentry’s dress. It had burned! After everything I’d done. After all the prep. It just didn’t make sense.
Cursing under my breath, I quickly grasped a pair of potholders and reached for my pie. It was hot. Scorching hot. And my speed
