Chapter 23

Gerald truly won Brenda over when he offered to cook dinner one night. She was very surprised when he sliced up several potatoes, an entire red onion and several cloves of garlic. He wrapped them all up in tin foil and added butter and salt before closing it up. Then he peeled and chopped up more carrots than four people could eat, again he put them in tin foil and added brown sugar and butter before wrapping them up.

"How many people are you planning to feed with all those carrots?" Brenda wanted to know.

"Just the four of us," Gerald answered her.

"You are going to have a lot of left overs with that much!"

"Trust me, every bit of them will be gone and you'll be wanting more."

Brenda shook her head and said, "I'll make you a deal, whoever is wrong does the dishes tonight!"

Gerald grinned and agreed.

He took four T-bone steaks and all the tin foil packets out to the grill that he had preheated. Just a few minutes later he was calling the others to come to the table. Everyone got a medium rare steak one the plate in front of them, and in two bowls on the table he poured the of the foil packets.

Brenda was amazed at how tender and favorable the potatoes were and the carrots were like a candy treat. Adel managed to get the last portion of the potatoes and Clem snagged the last of the carrots. They all told him that the next time he made that meal, he needed to make a lot more of both the potatoes and carrots.

Gerald threw Brenda a look that said, 'I told you so!'

She sighed but before she headed to the kitchen to do the dishes she told him he could cook anytime he wanted. Adel and Clem were both impressed that she was giving her kitchen over to Gerald.

Over the pot of strong morning coffee that Mac shared with AJ on Monday morning, she asked what Liiani's work schedule was. He told her she got up around noon so she could get some chores done before she went to work at fifteen hundred hours.

Mac asked him if he thought calling Liiani on her lunch hour. AJ told her it was a good idea, because the time Mac got off work, Liiani would already be on duty. She thanked him and took a fresh mug of coffee to her office to start the day.

Liiani had gotten up before her alarm went off and started a load of laundry before her phone rang. She had just started thinking about what she wanted for breakfast, but when she Mac's voice, eating went out of her mind, as it filled with wedding plans.

"Hello, this is Mac, the Admiral said this might be a good time to call."

"It's perfect," Liiani responded. "Trev said you wanted to help with the wedding plans."

"I do," Mac chuckled at the choice of words. "As long as you don't mind me getting involved?"

"Mac! It is going to be your wedding too! Why don't I tell you what we already have in place and then you can tell me what you might want to change."

"I would want to change anything you already have in place," Mac assured her.

"Well let me go over things with you. The location we chose was AJ's back yard because of his beautiful garden. Is that okay with you?"

"Oh yes! I have seen his yard and it would be perfect. You would need to order chairs, could I do that for you?"

"I ordered seventy already, but can increase that to include whatever amount of guests you would have."

Mac thought for a moment and then said, "I can't of anyone that the Admiral has probably already invited. You might check with Trevor though."

"I'll do that," Liiani told her. "Now as for flowers, I haven't ordered anything yet but was thinking about roses because AJ has so many in his garden already."

"That's perfect. Have you chosen the colors yet?"

"I'm going to wear my mother's dress and its white but I need to find a veil to go with it. I was thinking very bold colors for the bouquets."

"I would probably go with a cream or ecru dress, I don't look good in stark white, but the bold colors would work with what I have in mind too so am good with that."

To be continued…..