Wyoming Tough - Diana Palmer [14]
CHAPTER THREE
THERE WAS SOME BIG SHINDIG planned for the following Friday, Morie heard. The housekeeper, Mavie Taylor, was vocal about the food the brothers wanted prepared for it.
“I can’t make canapés,” she groaned, pushing back a graying strand of hair that had escaped its bun. She propped her hands on her thin hips and glowered. “How am I supposed to come up with things like that when all they ever want is steak and potatoes?”
“Listen, canapés are easy,” Morie said gently. “You can take a cocktail sausage and wrap it in bacon, secure it with a toothpick and bake it.” She gave the temperature setting and cooking time. “Then you can make little cucumber sandwiches cut into triangles, tea cakes, cheese straws…”
“Wait a minute.” She was writing frantically on a pad. “What else?”
Morie glowed. It was the first time the acid-tongued housekeeper had ever said anything halfway pleasant to her. She named several other small, easily prepared snacks that would be recognizable to any social animal as a canapé.
“How do you know all this?” the woman asked finally, and suspiciously.
“Last ranch I worked at, I had to help in the kitchen,” Morie said, and it was no lie. She often helped Shelby when company was coming.
“This is nice,” she replied. She tried to smile. It didn’t quite work. Those facial muscles didn’t get much exercise. “Thanks,” she added stiffly.
Morie grinned. “You’re welcome.”
Her small eyes narrowed. “Okay, what about table linen and stuff?”
“Do you have a selection of those?”
“I hope so.” The harassed woman sighed. “I only came to work here a couple of weeks before you did. I’ve never had to cook for a party and I don’t have a clue about place settings. I’m no high-society chef! I mean, look at me!” she exclaimed, indicating her sweatpants and T-shirt that read Give Chickens the Vote!
Morie tried not to giggle. She’d never credited the Kirks’ venomous housekeeper with a sense of humor. Perhaps she’d misjudged the woman.
“I cooked for a bunkhouse crew before this,” Mavie muttered. “The brothers knew it…I told them so. Now here they come wanting me to cook for visiting politicians from Washington and figure out how to put priceless china and delicate crystal and silver utensils in some sort of recognizable pattern on an antique linen tablecloth!”
“It’s all right,” Morie said. “I’ll help.”
She blinked. “You will? They won’t like it.” She nodded toward the distant living room.
“They won’t know,” she promised.
The housekeeper shifted nervously. “Okay. Thanks. That Bruner woman’s always in here complaining about how I cook,” she added sourly.
“That’s all right, she’s always complaining about how I dress.”
The other woman’s eyes actually twinkled. Nothing made friends like a common enemy. “She thinks I’m not capable of catering a party. She wants to hire one of her society friends and let Mallory pay her a fortune to do it.”
“We’ll show her,” Morie said.
There was a chuckle. “Okay. I’m game. What’s next?”
MORIE SPENT A VERY ENJOYABLE hour of her free time laying out a menu for Mavie and diagramming the placement of the silver and crystal on the tablecloth. She advised buying and using a transparent plastic cover over the antique tablecloth to preserve it from spills of red wine, which, the housekeeper groaned, the brothers preferred.
“They’ll never let me do that.” She sighed.
“Well, I suppose not,” Morie replied, trying to imagine her mother, that superhostess, putting plastic on her own priceless imported linen. “And I suppose we can find a dry cleaner who can get out stains if they’re fresh.”
“I don’t guess I can wear sweats to serve at table,” Mavie groaned.
“You could hire a caterer” came the suggestion.
“Nearest caterer I know of is in Jackson, ninety miles away,” the housekeeper said. “Think they’ll spring to fly him and his staff down here?”
Morie chuckled. No, not in the current economic environment. “Guess not.”
“Then we’ll have to manage.” She frowned. “I do have one passable dress. I guess it will still fit. And I can get a couple of the cowboys’ wives to come and