Free Love Finds You in Treasure Island, Florida by Debby Mayne Page B

secured her bicycle at the pole by the side door leading to the kitchen. When she walked into the house, she encountered Lacy standing at the stove, stirring something in a pot. That was something she didn’t see often.
    “What’s for supper?” she asked as she stepped up to glance in the pot. Lacy turned, her face contorted in a frown. “I’m trying to make stew, but it’s all lumpy.”
    Amanda saw clumps of flour floating on top of the thick brown liquid. “Why don’t you spoon some of those out? It looks pretty good underneath. What kind of stew is it?”
    “Hamburger, potato, carrot, and bean stew.”
    “Interesting.” She’d never had hamburger stew before. “Where’d you get the recipe?”
    “I made it up.”
    That explained why she’d never heard of it. At least Lacy was getting creative and making an effort. “Why the sudden interest in cooking?”
    “Brad misses home-cooked meals.”
    Amanda pursed her lips and nodded. “Makes sense.” She leaned over and looked in the pot again. “I like all the ingredients, so I bet it’s pretty good.”
    Lacy looked up at her, and a smile slowly crept over her face. “I hope so. I told Brad I’d come over and cook for him and Timmy sometime.”
    Amanda took care not to act too surprised. She put her gear on the side counter by the door and sat down at the kitchen table. “So how’s it going with Timmy?”
    Lacy shrugged as she turned back to stir her stew. “What do I do with these lumps?”
    “Want me to help you?”
    “No.” The sharpness in Lacy’s voice startled Amanda.
    Amanda held up her hands in surrender. “Okay, I was just offering my assistance. Put the lumps in a bowl.”
    “Then what?”
    It took every ounce of self-restraint to remain sitting. Amanda had always done everything for her sister, so she knew she needed to accept Lacy’s desire to do it herself.
    “After you get all the lumps out, you can toss them.”
    Lacy looked at her quizzically. “Isn’t that wasteful?”
    What would be wasteful was having to toss the entire contents of the pot. “No, cooks do it all the time.”
    “Oh.” Lacy opened a cupboard, pulled out a bowl, and held it up for inspection. “This one okay?”
    “It’s fine.” Amanda doubted that the small cereal bowl would hold all the lumps she’d seen floating, let alone the ones beneath the surface, but she wasn’t about to interfere any more than she needed to.
    “So what’s going on with you and Jerry?” Lacy asked.
    Startled by this out-of-the-blue question, Amanda hesitated for a few seconds before answering. “Nothing is going on. Why?”
    Again Lacy shrugged, as she continued lifting golf-ball-sized lumps from the stew. Amanda wondered if there would be anything left without the lumps.
    “I think it’s time you let down your guard. It’s been awhile since Eric…well, you know.”
    Amanda didn’t want to even think about Eric, let alone talk about him. In fact, when she allowed thoughts of Eric to linger in her mind, she became physically ill. “I don’t think it’s any of your concern.”
    Lacy turned and glared at her with squinty eyes. “You can’t keep hiding from men forever, Amanda. Jerry seems like a sweet guy, and it’s obvious that he likes you a lot.”
    “Yes, and it’s also obvious that he’s on vacation, and after it’s over, he’ll go back to Atlanta. Then what?”
    “People move all the time.”
    Amanda snickered. “Yeah, like I’m going to shut down the bicycle business I’ve worked so hard to build, and he’s going to abandon his elderly parents who obviously need his help.”
    “If you really love each other, you’ll figure out a way.”
    Who said anything about love? Lacy could stay in her fantasy world if it made her happy, but she didn’t need to intrude on Amanda’s reality.
    “Don’t worry about it, Lacy,” Amanda said as firmly as she could without sounding bossy. “You stick to your love life, and I’ll worry about mine.”
    Lacy