The Red Hat Society's Domestic Goddess (18 page)

“Where’s your recipe from?” Kim asked, as she leaned over Millie’s shoulder to read the copy from the binder, under its orange
tab.

“Where do you think?” Millie teased, turning to smile at her friend.

“Your cooking bible,” Kim surmised with a smile.

“The Red Hat Society Cookbook,”
Millie said with pride. She’d tried every recipe in the book, finding most of them better than the recipes she’d used for
years. Like the apple pie. Wouldn’t the guys be surprised when she told them the trick to making that…

But she wasn’t about to start these bachelors-in-training off with dessert. They had to work up to that, by learning to make
an entrée first.

“Oh… Chicken Thighs in Wine. I love that one,” Kim said, smacking her lips together as if ready to eat.

Millie wasn’t so certain the students’ efforts would be any more edible than their eggs had been. But they had managed the
soup and sandwiches at the second class, or most of them had. And last class they’d tackled pasta. Except for Mitchell and
Steven, who’d had a stuck-together mess, the rest of the students had done well, so it was time for a greater challenge. She
said, “Should be simple.”

“And delicious if they do it right,” Theresa agreed. Her gaze landed on Wally, who was struggling to free a cart from the
clutch of them at the store’s entrance. His shirt, a cotton plaid, came untucked from his khakis. “Look at him. He has turned
struggling businesses into Fortune 500 companies, but he can’t even get a cart loose.” She shook her head instead of going
over to help him.

Charles did, holding the rest of the carts while Wally pulled the one on the end free. No doubt grocery shopping was another
skill Charles already had. Now that Millie knew he’d raised his niece, she understood why he had so many domestic skills,
but she didn’t understand why he’d enrolled in the class.

He glanced up from his perusal of the recipe, then winked one of those bright blue eyes at her. Millie swallowed the besotted
sigh at the back of her throat,
reminding herself that they were just neighbors and maybe friends.

Kim bumped her shoulder. “Okay, I get it.”

“What?” she asked. She probably wouldn’t have understood Kim’s comment even if she hadn’t been distracted.

“I know,” Kim said, “why you’re tempted to forget your plans.” She nodded her head toward where Charles stood, dressed in
his casual gear of faded jeans and white Oxford and still looking as elegant as a movie star. Or a lawyer.

She wouldn’t have suspected that as his profession. He didn’t come across as aggressive. After all, he hadn’t even managed
to kiss her yet although he’d tried. Nor did he interrogate; he listened more than he spoke. Obviously he’d not been a trial
lawyer.

“I’m not tempted to forget my plans,” Millie insisted, then checked to make sure Theresa had wandered out of earshot before
adding, “But maybe I could alter them.” To include someone.

If he were interested… and sometimes she had a feeling he might be. Charles pushed his cart up close to her. “So who’s Dame
Judy?” he asked, raising his copy of the recipe in the air.

She smiled, not surprised the name would interest him. “Obviously the author of this recipe and a great cook and fellow Red
Hat Society member.”

“You’re the great cook,” he praised. “I thought all the recipes we used would be yours.”

Her smile widened with pleasure from the compliment.
“I’m a great cook because I use these recipes and don’t try to concoct my own.”

Kim looped her arm around Millie’s shoulders. “But she makes them taste ten times better than my best efforts. She’s our domestic
goddess.”

“Domestic goddess?” Charles studied her silently for a moment. Then he nodded in agreement. “That fits perfectly.”

“That’s her Red Hat name,” Kim shared.

“Because you all made me change it when we started the class,” Millie reminded her.

“What was it before?” Charles asked.

Heat spread from Millie’s heart up to her face, probably turning it as red as the blouse she wore. “It wasn’t very interesting…”
she hedged, flashing Kim a quick warning look.

Kim, in a yellow tracksuit, shrugged and backed away. “I better see where Mr. Lindstrom is.”

Charles wasn’t leaving. His cart was parked directly in front of Millie. He leaned close. “Come on. Tell me.”

She laughed and shook her head. “I couldn’t think of anything then. Theresa and Kim came up with the name—Princess Sweet.”

“Mmmm… because you like sweets or because you’re sweet?” His gaze was focused on her mouth now, as if he were thinking about
answering his own question.

Millie shivered, and she was nowhere near the freezer section. “Y—you haven’t started shopping yet,” she said, pointing to
his empty cart.

“I shop here all the time,” he said, confirming another domestic skill. “I’ll find everything. I’m in no hurry. It’s
not a competition.” He stopped to flash a grin, before adding, “Despite what your sons think.”

Her sons. She needed to check on them more than Kim did Mr. Lindstrom. The thought had no sooner occurred to her than a crash
of tin against ceramic tile reverberated throughout the store. She winced, hoping it was Mr. Lindstrom who’d caused the commotion,
but her sons’ voices rumbled from the direction of the crash.

She headed toward the canned vegetable aisle, her footsteps slow and hesitant. The situation was as bad as she’d thought.
In the middle of aisle seven, her sons stood amid a mess of spilled tin cans. Well, actually, only one of them stood. The
other, Mitchell, lay sprawled next to his overturned cart. Chickens, two whole ones instead of the thighs indicated in the
recipe, lay beside him.

A bottle of wine was still spinning from the force of the collision, thankfully unbroken. It wound down to a stop, the cork
pointing toward Millie. She nearly laughed. Spin the bottle? She wasn’t likely to ever get kissed, not with her sons demanding
so much of her time and attention.

It was past time to retire her tiara. They had to take the class seriously.

Now.

I
’ve had it!” Millie said, resisting the urge to utter the swear words echoing in her mind. Instead of cussing, she had her
fingers tight around an ear of each of her
sons, dragging them into the condo like she used to when they were younger.

She hadn’t had to drag them out of the store; thankfully they had come of their own accord, after picking up the mess they’d
made. She’d ranted and raved at them in the store, her cool totally lost. Her face heated again, just remembering her shrill
outbursts. But she was through tidying up after them. Hopefully the store owner wasn’t too upset, since the grocery was Millie’s
favorite place to shop.

She stopped in the kitchen, backing Mitchell and Steven against the hickory cabinets so that they couldn’t get away from her.
She wasn’t done yelling yet.

“It was an accident,” Mitchell repeated the defense he’d been uttering since she’d come upon him lying on the tile floor amid
cans and chickens. “The aisle was narrow, and they had that pyramid of cans right in the middle of it. There was no way to
get around it without knocking them over.”

“I did,” Steven pointed out as he wriggled free of Millie’s grasp. “He’s the one who made the mess—”

Millie let Mitchell loose, too, then she did the same with her temper. “He’s not the one Audrey threw out. You made the mess
there, Steven.”

Steven gasped in shock at her tone.

But she continued, her anger driving her, as she accused him, “You never helped her around the house. You never even picked
up after yourself. The poor girl has enough going on; she doesn’t need to take care of you, too. You should be able to take
care of yourself. You’re almost thirty-six years old, for crying out loud.”

“Mom?” Mitchell was the one to ask the question, his tone cautious as he glanced between her and his brother.

Steven was silent, all color drained from his face, leaving him looking pale and old. He leaned heavily against the counter.
When he finally spoke, his voice rasped, “So you did start the class for me. You manipulated me. Both of you.”

Millie snorted. “I manipulated Mitchell, too. You don’t think he needs the class? He can’t keep a girlfriend because he’s
such a slob.”

“Mom!” This time Mitchell was indignant, his face flushed with bright color and his dimples nowhere to be seen.

“Come on,” she said, no longer charmed by her youngest’s boyishness. “Do you really think every one of them—Heather, Tammy,
Amy, and the other ones who weren’t even around long enough for us to meet—had a problem with your
hours?
They had a problem with
you.
They didn’t want to take over for your mother, cleaning up after you like you’re a toddler.”

A chuckle gurgled out of Steven’s throat until she whirled back toward him, then it became a strangled cough.

“And you, yeah, I started this class for you. I had to do something to save your marriage. I promised Brigitte I would try.
You’re sure as heck not. You haven’t done a darn thing to reconcile with Audrey, to make an effort to win back your wife.”

“You think a few cooking and cleaning classes will make Audrey take me back?” he asked, clearly disbelieving.

After her conversation with her daughter-in-law, Millie had her doubts that anything would be enough. Steven epitomized the
too little, too late scenario.

“I don’t know,” she honestly admitted. “But if she doesn’t, at least you’ll be able to take care of yourself.”

Before her anger ran out of steam, she forged ahead with another confession. “I don’t want to take care of you two anymore.
I’m tired of cleaning up after you. You’re grown men. It’s time you both start acting like it. Take this class seriously,
or don’t take it at all.”

“Mom.” Steven was the one to utter her name in shock this time. “This is how you really feel?”

Embarrassed. Aggravated. Those were the emotions she was feeling now. But she sensed they knew that already. She nodded. “If
you two weren’t going to at least try, why’d you agree to take the class?”

If it were to help each other, as she suspected, they wouldn’t admit it, at least not in front of the other. Mitchell confirmed
this when he said, “I convinced Steven that we needed to check out Charles since you were interested in him.”

“So that’s what you’ve been talking to him about,” she realized, as she stepped back, coming up hard against the white side-by-side
refrigerator. She leaned against it as her knees weakened. “You’ve been grilling him.” And because of that, they probably
knew more about him than she did.

“We have asked him some questions,” Steven admitted. “Dad left you with some good investments—”

“So you think Charles is an opportunist?” she asked,
insulted for him. Charles shouldn’t have had to endure an interrogation.

“We know better,” Mitchell freely conceded, “now that we’ve talked to him. He’s not after your money.”

“So what if he was? Do you think I’m so stupid that I’d give it to him?” she asked, insulted for herself.

“No, Mom,” Mitchell protested, “you’re not gullible. But you seem to like this guy. You dyed your hair.”

She hadn’t thought they’d even noticed. “I didn’t do this for Charles,” she told them, patting her cinnamon-colored curls.
“I did it for me.”

Steven expelled a ragged sigh. “We just wanted to look out for you, Mom.”

“So you don’t think I can look out for myself?” No matter how many times she’d told them she could. “Or maybe you’re going
to say the same thing Theresa and Kim have, that I shouldn’t get involved with someone that I might need to take care of.”

Steven shook his head. “No, Mom. We weren’t worried about you taking care of Charles. We were making sure he could take care
of you.”

Mitchell nodded. “And he can. He was a fairly successful lawyer.”

Millie wasn’t sure if Charles had told them that, or if they’d found out another way. But she didn’t care what they’d learned
about Charles. She was the one they didn’t know.

They didn’t understand that she wasn’t the fragile little woman they thought her. She didn’t need a man to pay her bills or
investigate any noises in the night. She could do that herself. She already did everything else.

It was the
everything else
she was worried about. She didn’t want to keep doing all the cleaning and cooking for the men in her life. But with the way
she’d just told off her boys, she doubted they would be interested in learning to take care of themselves.

Neither they, nor she, had survived the bachelor survival course.

Chapter Thirteen

“It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.”

—
George Santayana

P
hew,” Wally commented, as he set his grocery bag on the granite kitchen counter. “I’ve never seen Millie mad before.”

“It’s about time,” Theresa said, as she settled into a wicker chair in the breakfast nook. She didn’t suffer from Millie’s
hangup. She had no problem letting Wally do for himself.