Marrying Kate by Kimberly Rae Jordan Page A

that someday she’d see the bloom of love in their marriage.
    Amelia came into the kitchen distracting Kate from her thoughts. Knowing the others would close behind, Kate went upstairs to get Dani. The kids were all up and dressed by the time Jared came back. He took a quick shower, then joined them at the breakfast table.
    After Bry had to try three times to get his attention, Kate sensed something was bothering Jared. She didn’t want to bring it up in front of the children though, afraid he’d just brush off her concern because they were present.
    Her immediate fear was that it had something to do with their marriage. Had she done something wrong? Kate quickly thought back over the past couple of days trying to pinpoint something that might have upset him. Nothing came to mind but that didn’t ease her worry.
    "Auntie Kate!" This time she was the distracted one, Kate realized when she heard the exasperation in Bry’s voice.
    "Sorry, honey, what do you need?" She pushed aside her depressing thoughts and focused on Bryan.
    "I forgot to tell you you’re supposed to make cookies for class tomorrow." He handed her a sheet of paper. "Here’s the paper my teacher said to give to you."
    Kate glanced at it, frowning. Cookies? She hadn’t even attempted any type of baking. "How long have you had this, Bry?"
    He shrugged. "Couple a days."
    "You should have given it to me as soon as you got it," Kate admonished him. "You know I have a hard time with this sort of thing. I’m not sure I could make anything in time. At least anything edible."
    "Here, let me take care of that." Jared took the paper from her hand and scanned it. "One of the men at work has a sister who is a terrific baker. She’s always sending cookies and other goodies for us. I’ll ask her if she could whip these up for Bry."
    The small amount of self-confidence she’d managed to build in her abilities in the kitchen shriveled up inside Kate. She felt like a complete failure. She couldn’t even bake cookies for a class treat. Kate wanted to snatch the paper back from Jared and inform him that she could do this for Bry, but she knew she couldn’t. And on top of that, she didn’t want to embarrass Bry with her pathetic attempts at baking cookies.
    Silently, Kate stood and began clearing the table. No one seemed to notice her withdrawal which rankled her even more. After everyone left and it was finally just her and Dani, Kate decided that she was going to try her hand at cookies. No one would know if she failed , but if she didn’t then she’d have something waiting for her family when they came home.
    Grimly determined, Kate searched the cookbooks for a recipe for chocolate chip cookies. With Dani corralled on the other side of a baby gate out of reach of the oven, Kate set to work.
    Two hours later she gave up in defeat. The cookies went into the garbage which she then carted outside. Tears slipped down her cheeks as she cleaned up the mess. Thankfully Dani had gone down for a nap so she didn’t witness her aunt’s meltdown.
    "Stupid recipe," Kate muttered as she shoved the cookbook back into its place on the shelf. "Easy, my foot."
    It wasn’t bad enough that she’d simply failed, she’d failed at a recipe that had specifically had "easy" in its title. Easy Chocolate Chip Cookies . Hah.
    Feeling totally inept, Kate decided it would do her ego good to work on something she actually excelled at. Resolutely she pulled the boxes out of the closet in her old room and began to pull the components out. She hadn’t used it in all the time she’d been here. If she’d needed to check email or go on the internet, she just used the desktop in the office. Her computer with her special programs had sat packed in boxes since she’d sold her condo and shipped everything. The children had demanded too much of her emotion and time to even think about working. Now was different though and even if it wasn’t, this was an emergency. Kate needed to do some work she