Cowboy In The Kitchen. Mae Nunn

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      CHAPTER THREE

      “DON’T HOLD BACK, little brother. Tell us how you really feel about your rich boss lady.” Joiner, the middle Temple brother, poked fun at Hunt’s diatribe over his new employer.

      “I can’t help it. The more I listen to her big ideas, the more they worry me.” Hunt sank deeper into the sofa in McCarthy’s office. McCarthy sat behind the desk, and Joiner sprawled on the sofa beside Hunt. Cullen was in a corner, his nose in a book. “She’s determined to import a bunch of strangers so they can create a new ‘culture.’” He made quote marks in the air. “This is Texas, for pity’s sake. Why would anybody in their right mind want to replace the historical culture of Temple Territory that already exists? She’s on a collision course with reality, and I’m afraid my reputation as a chef could go down in flames with her.”

      “Oh, get over yourself, Cowboy Chef,” Joiner said, making fun of Hunt’s television identity. A lifelong lover of horses, Joiner was the closest thing to a real cowboy in the family. He’d always held it over the heads of his younger brothers, whom he’d berated as a bookworm and a kitchen mouse, regardless of the fact that both could have played professional baseball.

      “Life will continue,” Joiner insisted. “You have to move on to another dream now that McCarthy’s let the estate get away from you.”

      “Just wait a doggone minute.” McCarthy’s dark stare landed on each of his brothers. “I’m fed up with you three holding me accountable for seeing Daddy’s mission to clear our name accomplished. We’ve all wasted a lot of years talking a good game, but none of us ever put our shoulder to the wheel and made things happen. You can’t blame me because the bank finally found a buyer, and reclaiming Pap’s place is never gonna happen.”

      Cullen took a break from the textbook he was thumbing through. “I’m not so sure Daddy would want a lot of attention drawn to the Temple name now anyway, not after all the years it took for the gossip to die down. Why, wasn’t he in agreement with Pap’s decision not to come home after he got out of prison?”

      “Yes, but he never dreamed he wouldn’t see Pap again,” McCarthy said.

      “It’s the old man’s fault for going out to West Texas and getting himself killed working on that dangerous gas well. Otherwise we might have grown up with the flesh-and-blood Pap instead of this infamous legend Daddy spent his adult life trying to live down,” Cullen insisted.

      McCarthy sighed and dropped his chin to his chest. He pushed out of his chair and moved to the foot of the desk.

      “Pay attention while I spell this out for you knuckleheads one last time.” McCarthy slapped the tabletop to draw Joiner’s gaze away from his iPhone. “I was only a senior in high school when we had the conversation, but Daddy was clear on this subject, almost as if he sensed he wouldn’t be around to do it himself. Pap stayed away so Daddy and Mama wouldn’t have to raise us in earshot of constantly wagging tongues. Daddy was establishing himself at the hospital when Pap was paroled. Coming home would only have stirred the pot again. So he left well enough alone, and on the day he walked free, Pap went in the opposite direction.”

      “So he pretty much abandoned Daddy.”

      “Cullen, it’s not as if he was left on a doorstep in a basket. He was a grown man with four boys of his own. Pap did what he thought was right, and Daddy let him go. It was years before Daddy was finally able to put behind him the stigma that went along with Pap’s crime, and by then the old man was long dead. Still, Daddy felt he needed to forgive his father, and do something public to restore honor to our name.”

      “Why didn’t Daddy just buy Temple Territory himself?”

      “Like everybody else in Texas, he believed the place was jinxed, purchased and cursed by hot oil. But once he found out Pap had been killed, Daddy fixed his mind on going out to that well site to mark his father’s grave properly.”

      “And they didn’t make it,” Cullen said quietly.

      The private aircraft had gone down in the Apache Mountains, killing the two on board and leaving four teenage boys in Kilgore in the care of Alma and Felix Ortiz.

      They all fell silent, and Hunt decided to change the mood of the room.

      “Well, I never bought into that business about the property being cursed, and with any luck Pap’s place isn’t completely out of my reach yet,” Hunt announced.

      Three pairs of expectant eyes waited for him to continue.

      “How’s that?” McCarthy spoke up as he settled again into his chair.

      “In case nobody’s been listening, I’ve got a job—at Moore House. I’m on the inside, and I plan to stay all up in that lady’s business to slow her down before she changes anything that can’t be put right.”

      “Instead of fighting the inevitable, why don’t you tell some of those wealthy friends you’ve been feedin’ for free all these years that it’s payback time,” Joiner snapped. “Get them to invest in your own restaurant. You can call it Hunt’s Hangout or something equally sophisticated.”

      “You have no idea how much capital that would require.” Hunt had already done the math for himself out of morbid curiosity and been depressed for days by the number.

      “But I’m sure Gillian Moore does, and she didn’t seem to have any problem rounding up the cash. So instead of whining, why don’t you put on your big-boy boots and compete with her?” Cullen chucked a wad of paper at his twin.

      It bounced off the center of Hunt’s forehead. He rubbed the spot where a pointy corner had poked his flesh. СКАЧАТЬ