Читать книгу Cooking Up Romance онлайн | страница 26

Then years later, on a group date, she’d met Greg and soon after had never felt more complete in her life.

Spurred on by the day’s events, old thoughts and new questions, she strode to the guest bedroom in the 1960s California ranch house, the room with the attic opening. Once there, after pulling down the door with a broomstick-length hook and unfolding the spring-operated ladder, she climbed up and switched on the dangling single lightbulb inside. Boxes and boxes of her parents’ papers were stored up there. Hopefully, someone had taken the time to label some of them.

Unable to see well in the dim light, she chose willy-nilly two boxes filled with papers and manila folders, and dropped first one and then the other through the attic opening. They landed with loud, reverberating thuds on the floor, leaving a small dust cloud in their wake. The first box brought her small calico Daisy Mae out of hiding from another room, and the second box sent the cat lunging back for cover.

“Sorry, sweetie!”

A muted meow assured Lacy her little girl cat was okay. Probably ticked off, but okay.

After lifting the first box onto one of the twin beds, she rifled through it, finding ten years of federal and state tax forms. If she had the time one night, she’d shred them all. Lifting the second box, she remembered she needed to defrost the assortment of homemade hand pies she’d premade and kept stored in her deep freezer in the garage…the same one her father had used for food truck supplies for over twenty years.

She really didn’t have time for this wild-goose chase. With all those pies to thaw tonight and bake in the morning, she’d have to get up early. She also needed to take inventory of her paper goods and plastic utensils tonight or she wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink. Everything had to be perfect tomorrow, because a potential long-term job offer depended on it.

Remembering the smiles on the faces of the construction crew on Friday when she’d handed out the pies and cups of coffee helped push that dark, dreary cloud away. Why drag up those old memories when all they did was bring her down? From now on she’d concentrate on the bright side of things. The future. Maybe that would bring her luck. She could use it.