by Sarah Gay
“Dallas, Texas, you’re looking better by the minute!” she exclaimed as she organized her ingredients.
She rotated a Vidalia onion in the air to examine it. It resembled an alien space saucer, flat and aerodynamic. “You are beautiful.” The flatter the sweeter, as the onion mantra went.
As Maggie turned to hang the empty grocery sack on the wall hook behind her, the back door slammed shut. No one should be in here. Pineapple never comes in this early. Ever since Dax’s girlfriend was attacked by her serial killing stalker a few months back, Maggie had been on edge. The stalker was currently in jail awaiting trial, but what if Maggie had her own stalker?
She stumbled, grabbing the hook for balance as she took in a sharp breath. She ducked down onto her hands and knees and scrambled to the drawer beneath her soup ingredients. Her fingers fumbled through the drawer until she held firm to the handle of a butcher knife.
Heavy steps neared, causing Maggie’s breath to quicken and her heart to pump chilled blood through her pulsating veins.
“Margarita!” Pineapple’s voice echoed through the kitchen.
Maggie sat up, rested the knife in her lap, and gave a dramatic exhale. “You scared the daylights out of me,” she scolded, returning the knife to the drawer as she stood.
Pineapple’s round, expressive face held a look of concern. “Sorry, Mags. You okay?” He was the only person she allowed to call her Margarita or Mags.
Pineapple was the restaurant owner and a firefighter on the other shift. He’d taken Maggie under his wing when she started working with Park City Fire. What’s more, when he discovered she was in culinary school on her days off to give her mind a rest from the trauma, he placed a key to his restaurant in her hand. If anyone had earned a ticket through the pearly gates, it was Pineapple.
“I’ve never seen you in this early.” Maggie tucked her shirttail into her jeans and pulled up the socks inside her slicker boots. She was a mess after that scare, not to mention her lack of sleep. “What’s going on?”
He shrugged. “I heard what happened last night and wanted to check on you.”
She gave him a tender smile as she wrapped her arms around his thick, soft center. “Thanks.” She buried her face in his cotton shirt and breathed in his sweet, citrusy scent.
His large palms held the back of her shoulders in a protective way. “Want to tell me about it?”
She shook her head, but the words spewed from her mouth, “I couldn’t revive the little girl. I was able to emotionally distance myself at first…but then her mother appeared.” Maggie’s tears absorbed into Pineapple’s cotton shirt. “I never want to see the face of another mother when she realizes her child is dying. There are no words for that expression—and no way to purge my mind of her agony.” Maggie took in a deep, shaky breath. “My job was to save that little girl. I failed.” Her voice trailed off to nowhere.
He patted her back. “Your job is to respond quickly to an emergency and do everything in your power to save lives. Did you do that?”
She rubbed her nose and forehead into Pineapple’s drenched shirt as she nodded. She appreciated Pineapple’s effort to quiet her soul. He held her for another minute until she relaxed her grip on him and placed a hand over her heart. “Responding to horrific accidents is affecting me more than I thought possible.”
Pineapple motioned to the front of the restaurant. “Let’s sit down.” He led her to a table by the front window with a view of the snowcapped mountain and pulled out her chair.
“Thanks,” she sniffed out as she slumped into her chair.
Pineapple cupped his hands over hers across the table. “What can I do to help?”
She bit her lower lip as her eyes studied the bright blue swirls on the tabletop. “I wish I knew.”
“I’ve never seen you this down before. Do you want something warm to drink?”
She rubbed her irritated eyes. “Warm is what I need.” She squeezed his hand. “And lots of sun. I’ve been offered…” She hesitated. She didn’t want to give herself, or anyone else, false hope—but she didn’t want to keep it from him either. She lifted her chin. “I was offered a trial position in Dallas, Texas as the caterer for an event planner with the possibility of taking over her business in the future. I leave in two weeks and I’ll be there for only a few days while I’m off the clock here. If everything goes well, I’ll commute for a bit, then move there permanently.”
Pineapple wrinkled his forehead. “Dallas?” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop thoughtfully before his face broke into a full smile and he slapped an open palm down onto the table. “That’s great! I have a cousin who plays football there.”
“Football?” She lifted an eyebrow and gave him a teasing smile. “Can he still read after all those hits to his head?”
“I sure hope so.” Pineapple shook his head as the room filled with his contagious laughter.
Maggie loved listening to his cheery exuberance.
“He’s super talented. Some football players sweat it week to week, hoping their team won’t cut ‘em. But not Cole—he’s someone to be reckoned with on the football field, not to mention he’s wicked smart.”
“Sounds like a great guy.” She gave a slow bat of her lashes.
“I could set you two up,” he said with eagerness.
Her eyes widened. “No. No.” She shook her head and waved her hands in front of her chest, enacting the universal slow down symbol. “That’s not what I meant. Something tells me we wouldn’t match up well. I’d be extremely content with a simple rancher.” She straightened her spine to show her determination. “That’s my idea of happiness.”
“Cole might surprise you,” he said with a wink.
She stood. “Well, I’m going to surprise you with a delectable soup.”
He followed her to the kitchen. “What can I do to help?”
“Peel the onions.” She handed him four onions.
“Yeah, you might want to forget about Cole,” he laughed out. “With all these onions, no one is going to come near either of us.”
Maggie shook her head with amusement. “Don’t knock it. I’m French, remember?” Her mood had definitely improved. “And all the better. There’s no one I’d rather spend the morning with than you.” She bumped his side with her hip.
“We’re making French onion soup?” Pineapple questioned with disappointment.
“Why the long face?”
“I was hoping you’d make me Mexican food one of these day.”
“Oh, that.” She waved a hand dismissively in the air. “You know I can’t cook Mexican food. I ate it as a kid, but never learned how to cook it. I experienced a little bit of the Mexican culture growing up, but my parents were adamant that I lead a more…” she looked to the ceiling for the right word. “Promising life than they did as migrant workers. I guess they didn’t want me working in the vineyards forever. They understood what it felt like to be put down and discriminated against and didn’t want me to experience the same thing, so they sent me to the schools with more affluent kids. I did my best to fit in. My fair complexion and blue eyes must have helped with that, but I always felt different. Like I didn’t quite fit the mold.”
“Where did your crystal blue eyes come from?”
“Even though my dad is partially Mexican, most of his ancestors came from France. We’re still not sure where my dad and brothers got their height, they’re both over six feet, but I’m guessing that’s where I got my blue eyes.” She arranged the beef bones, carrots, beef scraps, and onion slices into the roasting dish for the beef broth. “I think.” She shrugged as she drizzled olive oil over the broth ingredients. “According to my dad, that’s what his grandmother had told him. My dad’s stories are engaging. Unfortunately, you never know exactly how much of his stories are fact versus fiction. He tends to embellish. His stories could be ninety percent fiction and ten percent truth—or ninety percent truth and ten percent fiction. But I want to know my heritage for sure, so I did that…” She
waved a carrot in the air. “DNA swab.”
“Isn’t Cinco de Mayo a celebration of when Mexico kicked the oppressive French out of their country?”
She raised an eyebrow and nodded. “Mexico won the battle against Napoleon and the French scurried off with their tails between their legs.” She tipped an imaginary hat to Pineapple. “You know your stuff. I guess my great-great-great-grandparents decided to stay in Mexico rather than head back to France with Napoleon. I chose French culinary classes to learn more about my French heritage, or at least experience their culinary delights.” She licked her lips. “And I must say, the French sure know how to indulge in the most glorious way.”
“When do you get those DNA results back?”
Maggie placed the roasting pan into the heated oven and grabbed her phone from her pocket. “Today,” she trilled with excitement.
As she opened her email app, she did a little nervous patter of her feet as if she were a little girl who needed to use the restroom. Her inbox contained three new messages, but her eyes only focused on the one with the subject line, Ethnicity estimate and DNA matches. She placed her phone on the counter, face up, and took in a deep breath.
She rubbed her palms together feverishly. “Here goes nothin’.” She tapped her screen to open the email. Her eyes flew through the percentages but narrowed when her brain caught up with her sight. She crossed her arms with a grunt. “What?” her voice squeaked.
Continue reading the Forbidden Groom Here
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Thank you for reading The Storybook Groom! If you enjoyed this book, explore Sarah Gay’s other clean reads:
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About the Author
Raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Atlanta, Georgia, Sarah currently calls the northern Utah mountains, and the southern Utah red rocks, home. She graduated in Human Development from Brigham Young University and spent several years working as a Human Resource Professional. Her human resource skills are now utilized managing a workforce of four young children. When Sarah’s team is being trained off campus, she dedicates her time to writing inspirational stories.
She would love to hear from you and can be contacted at [email protected]. To register for new releases, promotions, and free recipes, sign up for her newsletter at http://www.sarahgay.com/register/.
Message From The Author
If you enjoyed The Storybook Groom, please consider posting a review on Amazon. Also, please watch for upcoming Texas Titan books by Cami Checketts, Taylor Hart, Jennifer Youngblood, and Lucy McConnell.
The Texas Titans is a fictional NFL team based on interviews of ex-NFL players and is not meant to resemble any NFL team or player. Any resemblance to NFL teams or players is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Gay
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