The Tycoon's Temporary Baby(28)

Peyton was apparently asleep again, because a stream of lullabies could be heard through the baby monitor sitting on the kitchen counter. Her mother was doing what most Texas women do when they’re upset. Cooking.

Wendy gave a bark of disbelieving laughter.

Her mother’s head jerked up, her eyes still sharp with annoyance. She had a hand towel slung over her shoulder, paring knife in her hand and a chicken defrosting in the prep sink.

She gave a sniff of disapproval before returning to the task at hand, dicing celery.

Wendy bumped her hip against the edge of the island that stretched the length of the kitchen. That honed black granite was like the river of difference that always divided them. Her mother on one side: cooking to suppress the emotions she couldn’t voice. Wendy on the other: baffled at her mother’s ability to soldier on in silence for so many years.

“You might as well just say it,” her mother snapped without looking up from the celery.

“I didn’t say anything,” Wendy protested.

“But you were thinking it. You always did think louder than most people shout.”

Wendy blew out a breath. “Fine. It’s just…” Anything she said, her mother would take as a criticism. There was probably no way around that. “You’re alone in the kitchen for less than five minutes and you start cooking?”

Her mother arched a disdainful brow. “Someone has to feed everyone. You know Mema isn’t going to want to go out to eat. God only knows what the food is like up here.”

Wendy laughed in disbelief. “Trust me. There are plenty of restaurants in Palo Alto that are just fine. Even by your standards. And we’re a thirty-minute drive to San Francisco, where they have some of the best restaurants in the world. I think on the food front, we’re okay. And if Mema doesn’t want to go out, there are probably two dozen restaurants that would deliver.”

Naturally, having food delivered wasn’t something that would have occurred to her mother. Back in Texas, all of the Morgans lived within a few miles of each other, in various houses spread over the old Morgan homestead, deep in the big piney woods of East Texas. Sure you could have food catered out there, but not delivered. As a kid, Wendy used to bribe the pizza delivery guys with hundred-dollar tips, but that only worked on slow nights.

Her mom sighed. “I’ve already—”

“Right. You’ve already started defrosting the chicken.” Here her mother was, making chicken and dumplings. Wendy could barely identify the fridge, given that it was paneled to match the cabinetry. She walked down the island, so she stood just opposite her mother. “Give me a knife and I’ll get started on the carrots.”

Her mother crossed to a drawer, pulled out a vegetable peeler and knife, then pulled a cutting board from a lower cabinet. A few seconds of silence later and Wendy was at work across from her mom.

Her mother had always been a curious mix of homespun Texas farmwife and old oil money. Wendy’s maternal grandparents had been hardscrabble farmers before striking oil on their land in the sixties. Having lived through the dustbowl of the fifties, and despite marrying into a family of old money and big oil, her mother had never quite shaken off the farm dirt. It was one of the things Wendy loved best about her mom.

“You used to love to help me in the kitchen,” her mother said suddenly.

Wendy couldn’t tell if there was more than nostalgia in her voice. “You used to let me,” she reminded her mother. She paused for a second, considering the carrot under her knife. “But you never really needed me there. I stopped wanting to help when I realized that whatever I did wasn’t going to be good enough.”

Her mother’s hand stilled and she looked up. “Is that what you think?”

Wendy continued slicing the carrots for a few minutes in silence, enjoying the way the knife slid through the fibrous vegetable. As she chopped, she felt some of her anger dissipating. Maybe there was something to this cooking-when-you’re-upset thing.

“Momma, nothing I’ve ever done has been good enough for this family.” She gave a satisfying slice to a carrot. “Not my lack of interest in social climbing. Not my unfocused college education.” She chopped another carrot to bits. “And certainly not my job at FMJ.”

“Well,” her mother said, wiping her hands on the towel. “Now that you’ve landed Jonathon—”

“No, Momma.” Wendy slammed the knife down. “My job at FMJ had nothing to do with landing a husband. If all I wanted was a rich husband, you could have arranged that for me as soon as I was of age.” Picking the knife back up, she sliced through a carrot with a smooth, even motion. Keep it smooth. Keep it calm. “I work at FMJ because it’s a company I believe in. And because I enjoy my work. That’s enough for me. And for once in my life, I’d like for it to be enough for you and Daddy.”