“I do want an anchor, I just didn’t think it was all that feasible.” I felt I had to explain that first. “And it’s not that I’ve really changed my mind about that, but Brandon seems to be the exception to the rule. He likes ghosts, for one; he’s eager to see some. And he volunteered to spend more time with me, despite knowing exactly what I do. What I am. It’s a golden opportunity. Besides, like I said, the man’s sex on legs. If I turn down the opportunity to spend time with him, I should be certified insane.”
“I didn’t think you were a total idiot.” Hannah nodded, satisfied. “You treating him to breakfast or cooking for him?”
“Cooking, of course. That’ll get me more brownie points.” Not to mention eating out was difficult.
“What are you going to cook the man for breakfast?”
Being a man myself, I knew the adage was one hundred percent true: the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Seeing how Brandon could pack it away told me that whatever I made needed an emphasis on quantity. “I thought maybe a traditional Southern breakfast? Biscuits, sausage gravy, easy over eggs, some fruit. What do we have to work with?”
“Well, we’ve got the ingredients for all of that, but there are still dishes in the sink to be done.”
Yeah, no, he was not walking into a messy kitchen. I had a good impression to make. I hopped up immediately. “Let me just check on ingredients and clean the kitchen before I go to bed.”
“You should have dates more often if it means my house gets cleaned!” Hannah called after me, chuckling evilly.
I thought about telling her it wasn’t a date. But tomorrow’s breakfast would be a date if I had anything to say about it. And I had, in fact, quite a bit of say.
The trick to good biscuits was to not overwork the dough. Dinner rolls, you wanted the dough to be consistent and well blended. Not so with biscuits. You mixed it just enough to get everything more or less blended, then you pinched off the batter to make cathead biscuits and dropped them into a well-greased cast iron skillet. My mama had taught me when I was a little over knee-high, and it was more muscle memory than anything at this point.
I was wrist deep in dough when my cell phone rang in my back pocket. Swearing, I quickly wiped one hand off and accepted the call before it went to voicemail. “Hey, Brandon.”
“Morning,” he greeted in a rough purr. It sounded as if he was barely awake but still functional. “So where are we meeting for breakfast?”
“How about you just come over and I’ll feed you? Breakfast foods are a bit challenging for me in restaurants.” Mostly because it all consisted of butter on top of or in something. Butter, man. Butter slays me.
“Oh, sure. Dairy. Man, that must be a pain to avoid. Okay, I’ll come in about thirty minutes. That sound good?”
“Yup, see you then.” That would work out about perfectly, in fact. The biscuits took thirty minutes to bake, so he’d come in with them fresh out of the oven.
I quickly finished those up, popped them in, then went about cooking the sausage and gravy. The fruit was already cut up and in cute glass bowls on the table. Hash browns were going on the back eye, as I had second thoughts about only offering biscuits, fruit, and eggs to Brandon. The eggs, of course, would take five minutes flat.
Beau wandered in and took a deep breath. “God, I feel like I’ve just stepped back in time to my mother’s kitchen. How come you haven’t cooked like this before, Mack?”
Hannah must have been right behind him, as I heard her clearly say, “Oh, this isn’t for us. He’s got a man coming in.”
Beau’s bushy white eyebrows went up. “Is that right?”
“A man that’s FBI approved to be an anchor,” Hannah added. Because she’s evil and likes to stir the pot.
“Brandon Havili? That man?” Beau’s eyebrows stayed up. “How come you know all of this?”
“Because I stayed up to talk to him.” She sailed by him like the queen she was and bent over to sniff at my gravy. “How are you doing that without butter?”
“Used the sausage drippings,” I admitted, still stirring.
“You are a clever cook, I grant you. Don’t worry, Mack”—she patted me on the arm—“we’ll get out of here in a few minutes. Won’t cramp your style.”
While it would have been polite to assure her she was welcome to stay in her own kitchen, I really wanted them both out of here. Because she was right. They’d totally cramp my style. “Merci, Hannah.”
Even as Hannah put both hands at his back, shoving him out of the kitchen, Beau looked over his shoulder at the oven. “But—but biscuits!” he wailed plaintively.
“I’ll make you a batch tomorrow,” I promised, biting back a laugh.
“Maybe they’ll be some left,” Hannah soothed, still pushing him out.
With Brandon coming, I very much doubted that, but I knew better than to say so.
It’s rather hard to cook something when you’re expecting company. Murphy’s Law dictated the food wouldn’t come out quite as good as normal, even if it was a recipe you could make in your sleep. Murphy was my guardian angel even on the best days, so I was hyper aware of everything I did to make sure food hit the plates as yummy as possible. I was also swathed in a huge apron to protect my sweater, since I wanted to look as yummy as the food. Priorities.
Brandon knocked at the door precisely thirty minutes later—was he always this punctual?—and I let him in with a smile. By some miracle, I had everything but the biscuits on the table and nothing had burned. I’d take that win.
He greeted me with that trademark smile of his, teeth white against the copper of his skin, and I kinda wanted to kiss his face off. Baby steps, me. “Good morning. Come on in. Your timing is good.”
“It smells great in here.” He stepped through, shedding jacket and gloves, his nostrils flaring like a bloodhound that had the scent. “Wow. What am I stepping into?”
“Biscuits, sausage gravy, hash browns, easy over eggs, and fruit,” I answered, taking the coat and hanging it up on the rack nearby. “If you don’t like eggs that way, tell me, I can scramble them real quick.”
“All that sounds great.”
My timer on the oven went off, and I quickly ushered him into the breakfast nook off the kitchen so I could pull the biscuits out. They were nice and crispy golden on the surface, and it was an easy flick to get them out of the pan and onto a plate. I used a second plate to flip them over again, right side up, then carried it to the table with a butter knife so we could ease them apart. They’d baked into each other, as biscuits do.
Brandon settled at the table and looked over the spread with a delighted smile.
“Bon appétit!” I encouraged.
He loaded up his plate and dug in, chewing with a blissful expression on his face. “I wasn’t sure how it would taste with no butter or dairy, but damn. I can’t tell the difference.”
“I have a butter substitute I use that tastes just like butter. It’s a rare thing in dairy-free products, but this one’s solid. Can I make you up some coffee?”
He waved me down. “Sit, sit. I already had my hit of caffeine for this morning. This is good, Mack. Really good.”