The Beast Gets His Cowgirl in the Show Me State - Jessie Gussman Page 0,1

than sprinkling them over the chicken like he’d been doing.

Madeline didn’t apologize. That was part of the appeal of her show. It looked so spontaneous, and she seemed so surprised when the next step needed to happen. That’s because she truly was surprised. But her audience just loved her quirkiness, and her cooking show had shot to number one, easily beating all the other cooking shows on TV.

“Would you like to get the bacon out?” Madeline asked, a little breathlessly, because it wouldn’t do for the stuff to burn. It had been a question, but moot, since she was already handing the oven mitts to Khalil and not giving him a choice.

That was another problem. She was afraid of the oven. It was hot, obviously, and she never failed to scorch her eyeballs when she opened the door, no matter how hard she concentrated. So far, her eyebrows had escaped mostly unscathed, although she had needed an eyebrow pencil to fill her left one in for about four months last summer after Cheryl hadn’t noticed she’d closed the door while broiling steak. That was the last time she’d touched an oven.

Less dangerously, she had no clue how to set the timer. Which was why she depended on Cheryl to let her know when things were done.

“Make sure he’s careful with the grease,” Cheryl said in her earbud.

“Grease is hot. Keep it in the pot,” Madeline said.

Khalil’s eyes lifted to hers, a bit of humor in them, before he continued to bend over, both lips sucked in and biting down hard. Madeline would almost laugh, because he looked like this was his first time getting anything out of the oven, except she knew she would look the exact same way, only worse, because just like the big football player—was he a linebacker? A defensive back? She had no clue and couldn’t care less. She certainly didn’t follow American football. It was way too smash-mouth and violent for her – give her a good game of polo any day – and she had never gotten used to it, even if she had been in the country for over a decade.

But she could relate—she would have fear on her face too.

How she’d managed to do a cooking show without opening the oven even one single time in the last six months was a feat that should have earned her an actual acting award. But if that were ever to happen, people would have to know that she’d been faking it these last two years.

Khalil was able to get the bacon out of the oven and set it on the counter.

“Hand him the tongs, and tell him to put the bacon over the top of the chicken in the cooker.”

Madeline did as Cheryl commanded, adding her own spin of quirk to it that had the audience laughing and Khalil giving her that smile which had several ladies in the small live audience throwing phone numbers at security.

While she was doing that, Cheryl continued, “Now explain to the audience that you’re cooking the bacon, the chicken, and the tomatoes together for six hours because it will add flavor to the meat.”

Madeline fluttered her eyelashes. “Normally, people don’t cook their bacon with their chicken, because they like it to be crispy. They put it on at the end. But we want all those yummy, delicious, salty-flavored good tastes out of the bacon and into our chicken. That’s why we put it in before we cook the chicken.”

That was another thing she was good at, totally making things up. Cheryl could give her the bare bones, and she could make it into something outrageous and outlandish. Again, her audience considered her quirky and loved every second of it. That’s what made her cookbooks successful. Cheryl came up with the recipes and the directions, of course, and Madeline added the flare and dash that made it unique.

“Think the bacon would just be good if we ate it now,” Khalil said.

“Me too. Let’s save two pieces back.” Madeline didn’t bother with the tongs. She just grabbed two pieces off the tray. “Oh, these are hot.” She tossed them back and forth between her hands.

“They just came out of the oven,” Khalil said.

Madeline managed to not have a retort for that. She honestly didn’t expect any football player that cooked with her to add much to the conversation about food other than eating it. Not that she subscribed to the stereotype of dumb jocks necessarily, but Cheryl was in charge