Sue Thomas FBEYE

Recipe for Trouble

Written for a challenge on a ff site. italic portion was a story starter.   ~~~ or *** designate 'chapter breaks' in the original format. Which was forum posting with comments allowed between posts. :)

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"That's not how Mommy does it."

His pint-sized assistant chef watched every move with her eagle eye and had done nothing but complain from the moment he'd tied her little red apron around her waist.

"Okay – what does Mommy do differently?" He wasn't a fool, if he wanted to get out of this kitchen any time soon he'd have to fold. A strong man always knew when he was bested.

"She shifts it first."

"Shifts it?" Baffled, he looked at his daughter quizzically.

She giggled. "Silly Daddy. Everybody knows you gotta shift the flour into another bowl before you put it in the cake batter."

Making a comical face that left her rolling on the floor, he stepped over her writhing form and fetched another bowl. "Shift it, huh?" It made no sense, but then the kitchen wasn't usually his domain. He dumped the mixture from the earthenware bowl into the big red plastic bowl. "There, happy now?" he asked, whereupon the pint-sized version of his wife climbed back onto her stool, dropping her head into her hands she shook it woefully and asked in a tone perilously close to a whine, "Is Mommy ever going to come back home?"

"Ah... poor baby luv." He said, tweaking her nose. "You miss your mommy, don't you?" Bobby resisted the urge to sit on the other stool and drop his own head in his hands and whine for Tara to come home.

She had been asked to come teach a course on cyber tracking and firewalls at Quantico. It was a month long course and even that hadn't actually been long enough so they asked if she'd rather have to spend another two weeks there, making it a six week course... or if she'd rather just stay and teach on the weekends too... meaning that she could finally go home to her husband and daughter and not have to go back and forth all month. Tara had made the difficult decision to stay and cram it all into the month, teaching even on Saturdays and Sundays. By the time she managed to be able to steal a couple minutes to call home, it was already after Katie's bedtime and so mother and daughter had not been able even to speak to each other while she was gone.

Bobby could tell she was tired, he heard it in her voice, every night when she called. The team hadn't been the same without her, trying to stay on top of their game even though they were missing the most important part. He missed her too, throughout their 6 years of marriage, neither of them slept well when they were apart. His nights were mostly sleepless although he supposed that could be because his squirming, wiggling sprite of a daughter had decided that since mommy was gone, she couldn't sleep by herself and insisted on sleeping in their bed with him every night.

"Daddy?" He was jolted out of his misery by the sad look in his daughter's green eyes. "You didn't answer me." Her lower lip trembled as it poked out into a pout. "When's mommy coming home?" Her eyes welled up with tears.

That did it. He couldn't stand to see Tara cry and he couldn't stand to see Katie cry either. Probably because she did look exactly like Tara, except the eyes and dimples. He gathered her up in his arms, baking idea forgotten for now as he headed for the rocking chair in the living room. He cuddled his just turned four year old daughter in his arms as she buried her face in his shirt and cried. "Shh baby luv." He soothed as they rocked. "Mommy will be home soon." He murmured, kissing the top of her tousled head. Her tears slowed and she hiccupped a few times before she fell asleep in his arms. "Tara..." He whispered into the quiet house. "Come home soon..." He knew she would, but time was a huge thing for a just turned four little girl.