Girl Gear 5: Wicked Games Read Free Page B

state-of-the-art setup made for a much better classroom.
    It was definitely good to see Izzy again. Though Kinsey had lost touch with the other woman once both were busy in school, the two of them had been fast friends as young girls. They'd spent hours running wild at Kinsey's parents' home where, for almost twenty years now, Izzy's uncle Leonard had worked magic with the Grays' lawn and tropical garden.
    "You know this is hopeless, don't you?" Kinsey really wanted to smack whoever had started the rumor that the way to a man's heart was through his stomach. "I burn microwave popcorn. I add too much water to packets of instant cocoa. Carryout was invented for a reason, hello. Doug is not going to want to eat anything that comes out of my kitchen."
    "It won't be coming out of your kitchen." Lauren climbed onto the bar stool behind the cooking island. "It'll be coming out of Sydney 's."
    "With too many cooks spoiling the broth, it looks like," Kinsey grumbled, glancing at the latest batch of hovering fairy godmothers. Calm. Collected. Ohhmmm . Why had she let herself be talked into such a ridiculous idea?
    Now it was too late to back out.
    She'd canceled the regular Sunday morning breakfast she shared with her parents to get in this quick cooking lesson before tonight's date. She'd left Doug a message Friday afternoon after the infamous planning luncheon; he'd left her one last night on his way to a basketball game.
    But a phone tag relationship was not what she'd been hoping to explore.
    "So, what's on the menu?" Wearing a royal-blue headband to hold back her short chunky dreadlocks bronzed with highlights, Izzy pulled open the refrigerator door and peered inside. "And do not tell me you're thinking to fix up anything low or reduced or light. You will not win a man with a woman's diet. Just ask my Gramma Fred. A man's hunger has to be fed and fed right."
    Sitting beside Poe on a third bar stool, Kinsey buried her face in her hands. "Why do I sense a disaster rather than a home-cooked meal in the making?"
    "Have a little faith here, Kinsey." Sydney joined Izzy at the refrigerator's open door. "You know full well Izzy grew up in her grandmother's restaurant. And Ray hasn't exactly wasted away since I've taken over the cooking, though Patrick's been doing a lot of it since he's been home."
    Kinsey sighed, then glanced over at Poe, who shrugged and said, "I'm only here for the show."
    One less pair of hands in the mix, anyway. And since Kinsey planned to do nothing but take notes… "Okay, then. Where do we start?"
    "Hmm." Sydney examined the labels on several packages of butcher-wrapped meat. "I bought pork and lamb and chicken and beef. Whatever you don't use for Doug, I'll freeze for Ray. I guess the first thing is to decide what you're in the mood for, since you'll be eating it, too."
    "If I'm supposed to eat my own cooking, then the deciding factor is what's the easiest to fix and the hardest to screw up?" Sad, but true.
    "No. The deciding factor is what you want your cooking to say." At the sound of Patrick Coffey's voice, five pairs of female eyes turned toward the doorway where he stood.
    His hands hooked into the frame overhead, he leaned forward, his long, lanky body covered by nothing but a pair of low-rise jeans and a ribbed white tank-style T-shirt that showed off an intricately woven tattoo ringing the bulge of his right biceps.
    His hair hung in dark twisted strands to his shoulders, hiding much of his face in the shadows. At least until he pushed away from the door frame and entered the room, raking all that hair back into a ponytail he secured haphazardly with a thick red rubber band.
    Kinsey released the breath she'd been holding, heard Poe do the same at her side. Having seen him off and on now for over a year, Kinsey still remained clueless how the man managed to inspire equal parts lust and trepidation. But he did.
    She supposed it was a normal reaction to his circumstances. After all, how many guys returned