“Bama,” he said, using the popular nickname for the University of Alabama. “Roll, Tide.”
Logan made a sound similar to his dog’s rumble-growl.
Dan chuckled and glanced at the other man, remembering where Kinley had said she and her siblings had grown up. “Let me guess, University of Tennessee?”
“Go, Vols,” Logan said in confirmation.
“No sports rivalry at my dinner table,” Bonnie ordered, lighting two white tapers in milk-glass holders. Though she’d tried to sound stern, her smile gave her away. “Do you still live in Alabama, Dan? The magazine is headquartered in Hoover, right?”
“It is. I keep a small apartment in Hoover, not that I’m there much.”
“Is that where you grew up?”
“Yeah, we lived in the suburban Birmingham area.” And he had always chafed to get away from there, dreaming of someday living in L.A. or New York or even Europe—anywhere but Alabama. Anywhere but under his parents’ thumbs. His plans hadn’t worked out that way, but he had compromised by taking the travel job offered by his cousin, an ambitious and determined woman almost twenty years his senior who’d founded her own modestly successful magazine at a time when magazines were generally expected to fail.
“Do you still have family in Birm—”
Bonnie’s polite question was cut off by a cry of pain from Kinley.
Reacting swiftly, Dan reached Kinley’s side at the same time as her siblings. She had dropped the knife and grabbed a kitchen towel, which she’d wrapped around her left hand. Most of the tomato was already in the salad bowl, but one small section sat partially chopped on the cutting board, surrounded by several bright red drops of blood.
“How bad is it?” Logan demanded, reaching for his sister’s hand.
Holding her towel-bundled hand out of his reach, Kinley looked chagrined when she met Dan’s eyes. “It’s fine. I just need to stick a bandage on it. I didn’t get any blood in the salad.”
“We can see that,” he assured her. “Why don’t you let your brother look at your cut?”
Bonnie dashed across the room. “I’ll bring the first-aid kit,” she called back over her shoulder.
Noticing Kinley looked a little pale, Dan motioned toward the table. “Sit down. I’ll get you a glass of water.”
“You might need stitches, Kinley,” Logan ordered. “Let me check your hand.”
Setting a glass of water on the table beside her, Dan could tell she hated having this attention focused on her because of a mistake on her part. Once again, self-confessed perfectionist Kinley was not in full charge of the situation, and she didn’t like that. While he was sure her determination was an asset when it came to work, both in getting the inn off the ground and in her supplemental real-estate career, this was a woman who needed to learn to relax occasionally.
“It doesn’t need stitches,” Kinley insisted. “It’s only a nick.”
“It’s a little more than a nick,” Logan corrected, carefully examining the still-bleeding cut on her left index finger. “But I think you’re right that you can skip the stitches. You can probably get by with a bandage for a few days.”
“Here’s the kit.” Bonnie set a white plastic box marked with a red cross on the table. “There’s ointment in the box along with adhesive bandages, or gauze and tape if that would be better.”
“It’ll be fine,” Kinley muttered. “I’m sorry I caused such a fuss.”
Dan quietly cleaned up the kitchen counter while Logan tended to his sister. He scrubbed a couple drops of blood from the counter and floor, then handed the plastic cutting board to Bonnie, who rinsed it with hot water then placed it in the dishwasher. Kinley had reacted quickly by wrapping her hand with the towel, so she hadn’t made much of a mess.
“Thanks, everyone,” Kinley said when Logan closed the first-aid box. “Now if I haven’t ruined everyone’s appetite, could we just eat and forget about this?”
Dan grinned as he took the seat Bonnie indicated for him. “Very little spoils my appetite. Especially when the food looks and smells as good as this.”
Bonnie smiled. “It’s just a pot roast and vegetables I cooked in the slow cooker. I made peach cobbler for dessert.”
“Bonnie bakes the yeast rolls herself, too,” Kinley pointed out, visibly relieved to change the subject from her accident. “She makes a lot of them at a time and stores them in the freezer.”
“It all looks delicious. Even the salad,” he added with a wink at Kinley that earned him an automatic nose wrinkle.
“Have you enjoyed your first day with us, Dan?” Bonnie asked as they passed the food family-style.
“Very much. Kinley answered a lot of questions for me this morning, and I was able to see some of the area this afternoon. Oh, and we had an excellent lunch at the cafe, where I met Mary, who seemed very friendly.”