Ryder could have given her a ready answer to that one but he let it slide. Biting his tongue, he did as he was told and was soon by her side. It wasn’t easy, filling this role of badgered employee. He had to chuckle to himself. This was a far cry from being the owner of a billion-dollar enterprise. Talk about a humbling experience.
“Something funny?” Blake was looking at him like his soft chuckle annoyed her.
His smile widened but he shook his head. “No, just remembering something.”
“Okay, then.” She turned and picked up a huge bag of grits. “Let’s get started.”
Within minutes Blake had him stirring the stuff in the massive pot of boiling water.
“Don’t let it clump up,” she called out to him, her voice muffled as she stuck her head inside the cavernous refrigerator. When she backed out and straightened up she was holding a double-decker tray of eggs. “You do the eggs while I do the pancakes.”
“But I’m stirring grits. I’ve only got so many hands.” Ryder didn’t stop stirring.
“Well, let them work for you, darn it. Hurry up with the grits so you can scramble some eggs. The guys will be bursting through the door before you know it.” She deposited the eggs on the counter beside him and pointed to the big black frying pan. “Scramble them with milk so they’ll be nice and fluffy. And don’t you dare burn them.” The last words were spoken with her index finger pointed accusingly at his face.
And he hadn’t even done anything. Not yet, anyway.
One hand still stirring the pot of grits, Ryder reached over and turned on the front burner then grabbed the nearby stick of butter and dropped a generous chunk into the pan.
“Not too much, now.” Blake didn’t stop as she filled her pan with pancake mix. “And you’ve got to beat the milk into the eggs first.”
Ryder looked from grits to frying pan and back again. Something would have to give. It was his judgment call to make and he made it quickly, pulling the wooden spoon out of the pot of grits and dropping it onto an empty plate then grabbing the bowl Blake had left on the counter. The grits would have to fend for itself for a while. A butter-filled frying pan sitting on a hot burner was not something you kept waiting.
Quickly, he cracked a dozen of the eggs on the side of the bowl then beat furiously as he hurried to the fridge to grab some milk. Before he even got back to the counter he was pouring and whisking, beating the mixture into a frothy lather. With the butter melted and nice and hot he began to pour the mixture onto the sizzling surface then he stood back and watched with satisfaction as it coagulated before his eyes.
And that was when he smelled it. Burning grits. He’d forgotten he was supposed to be stirring, too. Darn. He’d never been good at multitasking. His eyes never leaving the eggs, he grabbed the wooden spoon and got to stirring.
Blake grimaced at him, eyes narrowed, but she never said a word.
Glad that his new ‘boss’ hadn’t chewed him out Ryder turned one hundred percent of his attention to the task at hand, alternating between grits and eggs then scooping piles of the fluffy yellow mixture into a bowl. Soon he was cracking another dozen eggs and starting the whipping process all over again. Through it all he kept stirring, grabbing his wooden spoon every other minute. From that point on he never forgot his grits again.
He was so caught up in his work that he gave a start of surprise when he turned to find Blake standing right beside him. In her eyes was a look of grudging admiration.
“Not bad,” she said with a slow nod as she stared at his mountain of soft gold.
Ryder gave her a quick grin, something akin to a smirk. “Where are your troops?” he asked. “Bring them on.”
“They’ll be here soon,” she said, turning to pour pancake mix on the griddle. “Don’t you worry about that.”
She was right. She must have left the front door open because at exactly seven o’clock he heard the tinkle of the bells indicating that someone had just stepped into the restaurant, and it wasn’t just one tinkle, either. After the first there was a second then a third and a fourth in quick succession and soon the place was abuzz with the sound of men greeting one another in the early morning breakfast hour.
Between Blake and Ryder they now had three stacks of pancakes, a huge bowl of fluffy yellow eggs and a pot full of steaming grits. Blake had taken charge of the bacon and that was ready, too, along with the coffee and tea that Ryder had prepared.
“We make a great team,” Blake told him as she gazed at their handiwork. “This is the first morning I’m actually ready for these guys.”
At her words a frisson of pride ran through him like he’d just won some kind of award. “I don’t know how you do it,” he said. “This is a lot of work for a woman alone.”
Blake shrugged. “You do what you’ve got to do.” Like those words were a signal for her to do just that she turned and walked toward the swinging doors leading into the restaurant, leaving Ryder staring after her.
He was smiling as he shook his head. He’d passed Blake’s first test – or was this the second – and he had no doubt she had other surprises up her sleeve.
But as far as he was concerned, if she had more tests to throw his way, she could just bring them on.
***
It had been an exhausting morning with Ryder piling huge ladles of grits onto plates, with scrambled eggs and strips of bacon. The pancakes went pretty fast and Blake soon found herself back in the kitchen making another stack, then another. Before the morning was over she’d made nine stacks in all. Something weird must have happened that morning because the crowd that descended on Beaumont’s was like none she’d ever seen before. She saw faces she hadn’t seen in ages. Some of them, she’d never even seen before. Had they all heard she had a new helper and had come out of sheer curiosity? Whatever it was, she was glad for the business. And as for the crowd, she didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t had Ryder hustling right by her side.
As she climbed into her Ford F-150 Blake smiled to herself. Ryder had surprised her, and in a pleasant way. Who would have thought a smooth-looking dude like that would have turned out to be a reliable workhorse? And he wasn’t too bad in the kitchen, either. Maybe she should hold on to him.
But that thought made Blake’s smile falter then wither away. It was just such a situation that had made her lose her faith in men. There was one she’d known who had been just as charming, just as impressive, and she’d fallen for the act, hook, line and sinker.