Page 91 of Bailey

Bailey didn’t feel one bit bad about flirting with Reeves, and she bumped Ronnie with her hip as she set Hydrangea back on the floor. “Well, if you’d call Carla again, you wouldn’t feel like this.”

“I am not calling Carla,” Ronnie drawled.

“You should, though,” Momma said as she exchanged a glance with Bailey. “She was a nice woman.”

“Yeah, sure, she’s nice,” Ronnie said. “But there’s no spark there, Momma.” He sighed as he sat down. “I don’t need you two hooking me up with anyone.” He glared first at his mother, and then Bailey. “It’s bad enough that Daddy arranged my whole career for me. I don’t need my momma getting me a girlfriend.”

Reeves chuckled and sat down. Everyone looked at Bailey, and she realized that they thought of her as the main party planner. She flew into action and started opening the boxes Ronnie had brought in. “Okay, these look like the small bites.” She organized the boxes by what was in them. “We should start with those. Did you get the menu explanations, Ronnie?”

“Mm, yeah.” He dug in his back pocket and extracted a piece of paper that had been folded into fourths.

She took it from him, wishing it were a little more pristine. Still, she could read it, and she said, “It looks like we’ve got crab-stuffed mushroom caps, barbecue shrimp skewers, sausage and polenta bites, and a vegetarian option: spinach-stuffed ravioli.”

Bailey looked at the food in front of her and found one of each. She picked up some forks and handed them out. “Everyone take something, and let’s see how it all tastes.”

She went for the crab-stuffed mushrooms, as they had a layer of melty cheese over the top. “I don’t know if I trust seafood in Wyoming,” she said right before she popped the mushroom cap into her mouth.

“I thought you didn’t like mushrooms,” Momma said, and she’d gone for the vegetarian pasta first. She put the ravioli dripping with brown butter in her mouth, her eyes immediately widening. “This is good.”

“I don’t super-love mushrooms, no,” Bailey said. “And I would never pick this, but it’s good.”

“The shrimp is amazing,” Ronnie said, already going for his second bite.

Reeves had started with the sausage and polenta, and he moaned in a way that Bailey had heard before. She grinned at him and raised her eyebrows. “It’s that good, huh?”

“It’s incredible,” he said. “Just the right amount of spice, and that polenta has some parmesan cheese in it.” He flipped over the lid of one of the containers. “Where is this party?”

“The Oaken Barrel.” Momma extended her fork toward the sausage and polenta bite. She put the whole thing in her mouth, as that was what these small bites were meant to be—one-bite deliciousness.

She too moaned, but she also rolled her entire head. “We have to have this one,” she said. “Daddy would love it.”

Bailey tried it next, and she agreed. Once they had all tried all four small bite options, she asked for their votes, and the sausage and polenta bites came out on top for Daddy. She wanted to have a vegetarian option, as they would be inviting hundreds of people, and so she looked at Ronnie, Reeves, and Momma. “We can only have three, so is it the mushrooms with crab meat or the barbecue shrimp?”

“I think shrimp,” Ronnie said. “It’s not as exotic.”

“Or as polarizing,” Momma added.

Bailey put a three next to the barbecue shrimp and looked down to the main dishes. “All right,” she said. “We have a surf and turf option, a chicken option, a vegetarian option.”

They ate through the main courses, and The Oaken Barrel had sent three chicken choices, two vegetarian choices, and three surf and turf choices.

“I think the salmon,” Ronnie said. “It was definitely the best fish.”

“Shrimp and salmon do go great together,” Reeves said.

Bailey noted it, and then looked up. “So we can have the stuffed chicken breast or the chicken piccata, or a more standard, cowboy-style barbecue chicken with a baked potato.” She looked at the remnants of each dish, knowing which one she wanted.

Momma shook her head. “That one’s too plain, Bailey. If we’ve got these fancy small bites, we need a higher-end chicken dish.”

“My vote is the stuffed chicken,” Reeves said. “I loved that one.”

“I did too.” Bailey smiled at him, noting that he was giving his opinion just fine.

“I think it’s the best option,” Momma said, and Bailey circled it on the paper. They moved on to the vegetarian options. With the eggplant Parmesan decided, Bailey cleared the table, and Momma started setting out the desserts.

“I honestly don’t know how we’re going to decide this,” Ronnie said, eyeing the cakes, tarts, cheesecakes, and pastries. “I basically just ate four meals, and I want all of them.”

Bailey laughed and cleared away their forks and handed everyone a spoon. “They gave us one of everything,” she said. “But only one. So you only get a couple of bites. Let’s dig in and each make a list of our top five.”