Weddings and Wasabi (7 page)

“What would Edward know about goats?” Jenn asked Trish, ignoring them.

“He mentioned his family makes artisan cheese, stupid. Remember?”

“Who. Is. Edward.” Venus pinned Jenn and then Trish with a lethal boardroom glare that probably got all her subordinates at her company leaping to do her bidding.

Trish regaled them with what had happened two days ago in Saratoga.

“And you didn’t even tell us?” Lex squealed.

“Did you at least get his digits?” Venus demanded.

“Yeah, he gave me his card.”

Trish clapped her hands. “He didn’t give it to me. That’s wonderful!” She beamed at his neglect of her.

The stirring in her chest reminded her of the wee hours of Christmas morning, waiting for Mom and Dad to wake up so she could leave her bedroom and tear into her presents. Edward wasn’t exactly a present, but she looked forward to seeing him more than
 
getting her Easy-Bake Oven.

Maybe instead of giving Larry’s clothes to a bunch of sadistic frat boys, she should have thanked him.

“Hello?”

Edward’s voice made her insides feel like butter in a crepe pan. “Hi, it’s Jenn. Jennifer Lim. Remember me?”

“Hey, gorgeous.”

No, not mere melted butter, but a cinnamon roll hot from the oven with iced sugar glazing dripping down the sides. “H-hi.”

“I was hoping you’d call.”

Now she felt like a total dweeb because she had called him because she needed something from him, not because she’d had the courage to call him earlier just to chat. Or casually suggest a date. Or verify he was single. Or ask him if he wanted children. “Um … I meant to call earlier but things have been a little crazy.”

“The goats?”

The stupid reason she hadn’t been able to see his winery? Yeah, those goats. “I’ve been trying to get rid of them but now I can’t.”

“Why not?”

She sighed. “It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

Oh good gracious, his voice made her want to pool on the floor.

Get a hold of yourself, Jenn. You are independent. A business owner. Confident.
She turned on her best Lauren Bacall impression. “Do you want me to tell you while you teach me how to milk her?”

Somehow that seemed a lot sexier in her head.

Luckily, he laughed. “I’d be happy to. I’m working on the back vineyards today but how about tomorrow morning?”

“Uh … do you mind if my aunties are around?”

“Why, do they bite?”

“Noooo … but Aunty Makiko usually says whatever’s on her mind no matter who else is around to hear it, and she’ll probably rip me a new one for quitting my job and not working for my aunty’s restaurant.”

“Whoa. That sounds almost as complicated as my brother asking two different girls to prom on top of Mama arranging for him to take one of her friend’s daughters.”

Jenn laughed. “Did he really?”

“Yup, so be sure to ask him when you meet him.”

When, not if. The gooey feeling returned to Jenn’s stomach. “We’ll also be outside with the goat while my aunties will be inside helping Mom fold paper cranes for Trish’s wedding.”

“I’ll be there.” He paused. “Did you want me to arrive early? Before they get there?”

Give the man a gold star. “That would be great, if you don’t mind getting here at eight?”

“See you then, Jenn.”

Jenn collapsed on her bed, cradling her phone against her chest like a Bella pining for her vampire Edward. Maybe she could invite him to lunch. Because if she really wanted to induce him to kiss her, she didn’t think a good place was Pookie’s udder.

Not Edward, but her Aunty Makiko stood outside the front door looking like a schoolteacher about to take sadistic pleasure in breaking a wooden ruler over some student’s knuckles. Namely, Jenn’s.

She whipped her hands behind her back. “Hi, Aunty. You’re early.”

A few feet behind Aunty, Edward peered over their shoulders with a helpless shrug that dislodged the coil of rope he’d slung over his quite yummy shoulders. He silently mimicked a fist fight and getting socked in the jaw by the aunty wrestling to get to the door first.

Jenn tempered her giggle into a smile, but it only seemed to deepen Aunty Makiko’s disfavorable glare. “Jennifer, I came early to speak to you.”

The
Kill Bill
sword fight theme clicked on in her head.

The last thing she wanted was to rehash her decision to not work for Aunty Aikiko in front of Edward, because this was going to get ugly. And while she was mentally preparing for a confrontation, she shrank from airing the dirty laundry in front of a guy who might just decide her stimulating company wasn’t worth her crazy, high-drama family.

“Aunty, can we talk later? My friend Edward is here to help me with Pookie.” She gestured behind them.

Edward’s eyebrows rose and he mouthed,
Pookie?
at Jenn, but when Aunty turned around, he smiled charmingly.

Aunty Makiko gave him a long look that made his smile harden.

Jenn’s teeth clenched. She was supposed to honor her elders but when they were this rude—! He’d dressed in old jeans and a faded shirt because he’d be helping her with a goat, after all, but there was no cause to stare like he’d come stark naked.

Finally Aunty Makiko turned—no greeting to Edward—and passed Jenn into the house.

Jenn chewed her lip and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Edward’s face was grave, but he tried to smile and shrug it off. “It’s not your fault.”

But she had asked him to come here, it had happened on her front doorstep, and she was
related
to the woman. That was all.

“Jenn, close the door, there’s a draft,” Aunty Makiko yelled from the living room.

“Come in.” Jenn stepped aside so Edward could enter the house. “We’ll head straight into the backyard.”

That was the plan, anyway. Aunty Makiko had other ideas.

Mom, bless her heart, was trying to distract her. “Makiko, here’s the origami paper. Trish said her colors were pale green and peach, so I got both—”

“Not now, Yuki,” she said irritably. “Jennifer, I need to talk to you.”

“Mom, this is Edward Casti—”

Aunty Makiko interrupted, “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

This was like a bad sitcom. “No, I don’t,” she said calmly.

Mom’s eyes popped out of her head while Aunty Makiko’s nostrils flared. “What did you say?” she demanded in a horrible voice.

Quaking in her Crocs wasn’t going to get her anywhere, so Jenn leaned on one foot and crossed her ankles to still the tremors. “I said—”

“I heard what you said, you ungrateful child.”

Jenn tried to damp down her irritation. What was
with
her family? Really! “How am I ungrateful?” Not to mention that being over thirty should mean her aunties would stop calling her “girl” and “child,” for goodness’ sake.

“After all Aunty Aikiko has done for you—”

“She didn’t do anything.” Jenn fought to talk through her tight jaw. “I paid for all my culinary schooling. I worked overtime to get my job done while taking classes. I put my schooling on hold while Mom went through chemo. Aunty Aikiko didn’t do a thing for me.”

“She offered you a job at her restaurant!”

As if that was on par with the Holy Grail. “And I refused. The problem with that is …?”

Behind Aunty Makiko’s back, Mom tried to signal Jenn to shut up with a finger slicing across her neck.

“She was expecting you to work for her,” Aunty Makiko said.

“She never actually asked me. She simply assumed I was going to culinary school for the sole purpose of working for her.” Jenn caught Edward’s embarrassed eye. “We’ll be in the backyard, Mom.” She grabbed Edward and hauled him out of the living room.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she stomped down the back porch steps and stalked across the postage stamp backyard. “Aunty Makiko doesn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.”

“I have an aunt like that,” he said. “Although Aunty Elena usually wants to talk about her latest gall bladder problems rather than scolding someone.”

Jenn reluctantly smiled. “I’d prefer the gall bladder.”

“Me too.”

The goats sheltered under the apple tree (or what was left of it after eating all the low-hanging branches they could reach) where Jenn shoveled out their feed into the bucket. “Do I need to give Pookie anything extra now that she’s nursing?”

Edward regarded her steadily for a long moment. “Pookie? Really?”

She rolled her eyes. “Newsflash—I didn’t name her.”

“True.” He reached into his back pocket and handed her a folded piece of paper. “I asked Aunty Lorena to write down what she fed her nursing goats so you can find it at the feed store.”

“Thanks.” A man who read her mind? His one flaw was probably a tendency to fart at the dinner table or something like that.

He unslung the rope from his shoulder. “Let’s tether her and see what she does.”

To Jenn’s eyes, it seemed Pookie threw a major tantrum, but Edward said, “Good, looks like she’s been tethered before. She may have been milked, too.” He up-ended the empty feed bucket. “Sit.”

Jenn eyed the close proximity to Pookie’s back leg. “You sit.”

“I’m going to be at her other side to prevent her from kicking you.”

“Oh.” Jenn sat.

“Now grab the teat gently, don’t tug at it.”

It felt leathery and foreign.

“You’re going to squeeze the milk out of the teat in a smooth motion from top to bottom … No, squeeze harder. Like pushing toothpaste out of a tube.”

“You’re sure I’m not going to hurt—Oh!” A stream of milk shot out of the teat and bounced on the dirt ground. “I did it!” She kept staring at it. “Is that all?”

“You have to let go of the teat so more milk can flow into it.”

“Oh.” She let go, and it slowly thickened like a memory foam cushion getting back to its original shape. She squeezed again, and another shot of milk came out.

“Good. Now grab two of them and try to get into a rhythm with alternating teats—squeeze, release, squeeze rel—”

“You quit your job to start your own catering company?” Aunty Makiko’s voice roared as if she were calling the cows to come home rather than just across the tiny yard.

She hadn’t known that already? Mom must have let it slip, assuming it was common knowledge. Jenn didn’t even deign to look at Aunty, concentrating on the two softish leathery teats in her hand.
Squeeze, release …
“I’m calling it Jenn’s Apoplexy-Inducing Brainchild.”

She had to wait a few seconds for Aunty’s “What?!” to echo across the yard, but she was surprised to hear a soft giggle. Jenn looked up from Pookie’s udder and saw her cousin Mimi standing on the porch near Aunty Makiko—well, not
too
near, since Aunty looked like she could breathe fire.

“Hi, Mimi. You came to help fold paper cranes?” What Jenn really wanted to ask was if Mimi’s mom, Aunty Aikiko, was around, too. Jenn hoped Mimi could read her slightly anxious expression.

She could. “I was at my parents’ house and Mom was ranting about something crazy—I thought she mentioned Disneyland, can you believe that?—so when your mom called me to ask if I could help, I drove right over.”

Bless her mother. Mom must have called Mimi the second she saw Aunty Makiko had arrived early to harangue Jenn. Out of all the cousins, Mimi was the only one who could manage to sidetrack Aunty Makiko from a tirade.

“Aunty, let’s go inside.” Mimi laid a hand on the chicken-wing arm, and her voice had modulated subtly to a younger, lighter tone that somehow made Aunty’s face a little less strained and lined. “We have a lot of cranes to fold.”

But then Aunty’s belligerent expression returned. “No, I’ll have my say.”

Didn’t she always?

“Jennifer, you cannot run your own business.” She said it like a royal pronouncement.

Squeeze, release, squeeze, release …

“Jenn, you’re squeezing a bit hard,” Edward murmured just as Pookie shifted slightly.

“Sorry, Pookie,” she told the poor abused goat. She let go of the two teats and stood up to face her aunt. Hopefully her loose jeans hid her quaking thighs. Her entire body shivered as if she were in a strong north wind.

“You don’t have experience,” Aunty went on. “Why don’t you work for Aunty Aikiko to gain some business experience?”

“The only business experience I’d gain would be learning how to run Aunty’s restaurant the way Aunty wants it run.”

Behind Aunty Makiko, Mimi stifled an amused gasp.

Aunty just about blew a gasket. “This family has done nothing but pamper and support you—”

“This family has never supported me,” Jenn shot back. “You only want to use me.”

To her surprise, Mimi gave her an encouraging nod.

Aunty’s mouth opened and closed like a rather stupid goldfish. Finally she demanded, “Come here so I can speak to you properly without needing to yell.”