Charmed by the Cook's Kids
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Melinda Curtis
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PROLOGUE
“NO ONE ATE my chef’s surprise.” Eight-year-old Camden Monroe sat alone on top of a picnic table at a Pennsylvania lakeside campground.
“Well...” Rather than point out that benches were made for sitting and tables for eating, Grandpa Harlan joined him. He smelled of sweet coffee and cigar smoke, aromas Cam associated with adventure and laughter. “You must have some idea why they couldn’t stomach your breakfast.”
“No.” Cam glared at the green gas cookstove and the large frying pan caked with burned eggs.
“Ca-a-a-m...” Grandpa Harlan stretched out his name in a way that expected truths, not excuses.
“The eggs might have been dry,” Cam allowed, gaze still caught on the frying pan.
“Ca-a-a-m...”
“Or overdone in parts.” Code for burned. Cam snuck a glance at his grandfather.
The old man raised a white, bushy eyebrow.
“I thought the extra cheese and salt would make it taste good.” Cam picked at a carved heart in the wood tabletop, but it refused to flake. It was harder than his burned eggs. “Better even.”
He’d thought his two siblings and nine cousins would lick their paper plates clean. If they had, he’d have said, “Surprise!” and admitted the eggs weren’t perfect, but he’d have spoken proudly because he’d also have fixed his mistake.
Wasn’t that what Grandpa Harlan was always preaching? Fix your errors? Take pride in your work?
But nothing could fix those eggs. Or ease the taint of failure, a stink that was going to cling to Cam like the smell from a skunk. And he’d been so hopeful when everyone had scooped large portions from the frying pan.
Because his cousin Holden was oldest, he’d shouldered his way to the front of the line and had been first to take a bite of Cam’s egg-and-potato scramble. He’d shouted a warning—“Abort! Abort! Abort!”—and then run to the trash can and tossed in his plate. It had landed with a thud as loud as thunder.
Ten more jokes and thuds had followed.
Only Grandpa Harlan had tried to finish his breakfast.
Cam’s stomach turned in mortification.
And he hadn’t even eaten his own cooking!
“This is a lesson, Cam.” Grandpa Harlan drew him closer, lowering his voice as if his eleven other grandchildren were near and hadn’t run off to the diner down by the lake for breakfast. “You can’t cover up your mistakes. Do you understand?”
Cam nodded. “Monroes always do their best.” It was something his father and grandfather preached.
Cam had to be perfect.
Or be the butt of Holden’s teasing forever.
