Page 85 of Recipe for Rivals

“Or you could help me take our things to the dessert table and prepare to assemble the plates?” Chad had decided to take over the burgers, and I was in charge of putting out the dessert. I was glad my oven had quit smelling like burned plastic when I had to make one hundred little angel food cakes, because I’d ended up making them late into the night while my kids were asleep.

It hadn’t been a trial. I had sent pictures to Dusty so he would know what he was up against, but cutting out most of the important components with a peace sign or a shaka in front of the camera.

He’d replied with a picture of himself, frowning, in front of a table covered in some sort of bread item I couldn’t quite identify.

This morning’s text:

Dusty

Today’s the day! You’re going down, Walker

Yeah, I hadn’t minded when Chad had asked me to come to the event and help out. I wanted to win. I needed those bragging rights, because Dusty didn’t seem like the type of guy to let things go easily, and I would never hear the end of it if I lost.

“I’ll help you,” Alice said. I could already see her growing uncomfortable at the crowd gathered around the football field, camp chairs lined up on the perimeter to watch the men starttheir football game. The police team wore blue and the firefighters red, to make it easy to tell them apart.

My dad would be disappointed, but I was definitely Team Red today. Since I was cooking for blue, though, I would take that secret to my grave. Red could win the football game so long as Blue won the cook off.

Desi was standing at the tables when I got there. “The game has already started. Kendall is over there if you want to go find her, honey,” she added to Alice.

Alice clutched the bottom of my shirt, pulling hard. I put my things on the table before reaching down to pry her fingers from my hem. “I’ll walk over with you in a minute,” I told her.

Desi looked between us. She poured more lemonade powder into a giant cooler and mixed it with a wooden spoon, ice clinking together as she stirred.

“Are you doing the drinks for everyone?” I asked.

“Yes. The firehouse is covering chips. The people can go down both lines and get a slider and a dessert from each side. Voting boxes are up by the picnic tables.”

“It’s so organized.”

Desi preened. “Thank you.”

I hadn’t known she’d taken over the set up, but the woman was head of the PTA and dressed like a lawyer. She clearly meant business.

I finished setting out plates and shoved my coolers under the table, nestled in the grass. The sun had come out, shining down with steady, comfortable warmth. We had an hour before lunch, so I didn’t need to come back here and set up for at least forty minutes. I tapped the top of the foil pans holding the little angel food cakes and considered how warm they’d get in the sun. They were better off waiting beneath the table, too.

After getting everything nestled on the grass, I reached for Alice’s hand. “Let’s go find Kendall.”

“Okay, Mommy.” She clutched Peaches tightly under her arm, squeezing my fingers with her free hand.

“See you over there!” Desi called.

Kendall was at the play structure on the other side of the field, hanging upside down on a gymnastics bar, when we found her. Last I’d heard, Penny had moved on to a different BFF, leaving Kendall and Alice to themselves. Neither of them seemed too sad about it, but if this was a preview of their teen years, we were in for some headaches and tears.

When Kendall noticed us, she flipped to her feet, landing on the bark, and ran our way. “My mom says you’re going to be Chad’s new girlfriend,” Kendall said, then turned to face Alice with utter joy on her face. “If he’s your new daddy, then we can be neighbors. He’s my dad’s BFF, but he isn’t married yet, so my mom doesn’t have a BFF. Butnowyour mom can be my mom’s best friend!”

My stomach somersaulted, following the reasoning behind her excitement with growing trepidation. Did Desi think this because Chad said something, or did she jokingly mention it in passing to her husband and was accidentally overheard by the six-year-old?

Alice looked horrified.

“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I told them both. “And no one is getting a new daddy, okay?” My stomach still felt sick. The more I thought about it, the more I could see Desi had only been chatting to her husband about me and Chad in the way happily married couples talked about their friends getting together. In a perfect world, I would marry Chad and we could have couples’ dinners and go on cruises together and our kids could play all the time and we’d have houses next door.

I knew this, because it was the life I thought I’d have when my friend Blair had married my brother Jason. The only problem was that Carter and Jason never really saw eye to eye. There hadbeen no couples cruises or double dates. It had been a lot of me hanging out with my family while Carter worked late and dropped in for a minute occasionally before we all went home.

Desi should have known better than to say anything like this around Kendall. Six-year-old girls didn’t know how to keep secrets.

Well, except for Alice and the wretched Chewbacca situation. Ben still wasn’t talking to her—most of the time, when he remembered he was mad.

“Will you be okay here?” I asked.