“So it’s not the flying, it’s the visual?”
“Exactly.”
He refilled her cup and pushed the sugar toward her. “Are you hungry?”
A loud gurgle erupted from her stomach right as he asked. “I guess that answers that,” he said.
She moved from her perch and joined him in the kitchen. “Tell me you have something other than an energy bar.”
“The fresh foods are gone. I have a decent supply of canned goods.” He opened his pantry and she peered inside. “Many of the locals have chickens, so I managed to snag a few eggs.”
Monica eyed a can of chicken, a sealed jar of salsa. She started taking handfuls of ingredients from the cupboard and set them on the counter. “I can make this work,” she told him.
“You sure you don’t want me to figure something out?”
“No, no. It’s nice to have my hands in something less toxic than what I find with my patients.”
He moved to her recently deserted chair to watch. She felt his eyes on her as she took over his kitchen. “Most bachelors don’t have anything other than steaks, beer, and microwave meals.”
“I had my share of those days. Gets old after a while. My mom taught us all the basics.”
“Good for her,” Monica said with a smile. “Have you talked to her since the quake?”
His silence had her glancing over his way.
“My parents passed a few years ago.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. Were they young?” From the look on his face, the memory of their passing still hurt.
“Yeah.”
Monica pushed on to another topic. He obviously didn’t talk about his parents any more than she did hers. She got that. “Jessie was the cook in our family. We were so broke most of the time eating out wasn’t an option.”
Trent laughed. “And now she’s married to a Morrison.”
Monica opened the can of chicken and dumped it into a pan over the stove. “That’s a crazy story.”
“What is?”
“How she and Jack met. She thought he was a temporary waiter at The Morrison, just passing through. He didn’t tell her he owned the damn hotel.”
“And that mattered?”
“Well yeah. She had Danny to think about. A bad high school decision made her a single mom early on. She always seemed to attract the biggest losers. Then comes Jack pretending to be a bum… well, actually, he didn’t really pose as a bum, but he knew she wanted to find someone who had it together, which in his head meant she wanted someone with money.”
“Jack has money,” Trent said.
“No guy wants to think a woman is with him for the money. So he lied.”
“He told her he was broke?” There was laughter in Trent’s voice.
“He omitted the truth. He didn’t say he was broke.” Monica stirred the chicken and added spices she found above the stove. “Jack was determined to make her fall for him. She was determined to ignore him.”
“I take it that didn’t work.”
“Not for long.” She poked her head back into the cupboard and found a package of tortillas. “You’re holding out on me, Barefoot.”
He smiled. “Forgot those were in there.”
She glanced on the package for an expiration date. Still a few days off. Fresh eggs were cracked and sizzling in the pan as she finished her sister’s story. “Eventually she and Jack hooked up and she found out about who he really was. Ticked her off at first, too.”
“No one likes to be lied to.”
“No. I get why he did, though. The guy has some serious cash. I think there was more than one woman in his life who wanted to marry him just for the money. That has to be hard on a guy.”
“That’s very forgiving of you.” Trent had rested his chin in his hands as he watched her in his kitchen. He had this silly grin on his face that made her wonder exactly what was going on inside his head.
She pulled two plates off a shelf and scooped her chicken omelets onto them.
“They are crazy about each other. I knew he was the right guy for her long before she did. It’s easy to forgive him.” Monica turned off the stove and brought the plates over to him. She topped off their coffee before taking the seat to his side.
“Were you a short-order cook before you became a nurse?”
“I waited tables a little when I was going to school.” She poured salsa on her eggs and took the first bite. “Hmmm.”
Trent approved with a quick thumbs-up when his mouth was full. “Good,” he mumbled around the food.
“Everything’s good when you’re starving. It needs cheese.” But it was still the best meal she’d had in forever.
“It’s perfect.”
Not perfect, but it was nice he approved. “Did you have any crappy jobs growing up?”
He shook his head. “Not really. Went to college after high school, then straight into the family business.”
“The helicopters?”
He took another bite and finished swallowing before he elaborated. “I floated around the office first. Marketing, public relations, that sort of thing.”
“Doesn’t sound like you had much of a choice. Was it a foregone conclusion that you’d work for the family?” She wasn’t sure if that was better or worse than having no direction from your parents.
“Seemed a waste of time to look for work somewhere else. Besides, if the corporate side wasn’t for me, I could always fly.”