This time she raised her gaze as far as the white T-shirt stretched across his broad chest. “Like some packed crab is really whitefish?”
“No, honey. Like Rocky Mountain oysters are really balls.”
There it was again. Honey, and the way he said it sort of poured over her like honey, too. “Balls of what?”
“Jesus, I knew you didn’t have clue. Balls as in testicles.”
She finally looked up into his face, behind the shadow cast by his hat, and into his eyes. “Sure they are. And next you’re going to tell me that my hot dog is really a who-hah.”
His brows rose up his forehead and laugh lines appeared in the corners of his eyes. “You don’t believe me?”
“Of course not. That’s repulsive.” She speared the oyster and lifted it to her lips.
“If you think so, you better not put that in your mouth.”
She gave it a slight sniff, then turned to Shelly, who was in a heated discussion about where she and Paul would place the big-screen television. “Shelly, what is this?”
“What?”
“This.” She shook her fork.
“A Rocky Mountain oyster.”
“Is it a shellfish?”
“No, it’s a testicle.”
“Oh, my God!” She dropped the fork as if it had suddenly zapped her. “Whose?”
Dylan burst out laughing. “Not mine.”
“They came from the Rocking C. I bought ‘em during castration season,” Shelly told her.
“You bought them? Oh, my God!”
“Well,” Shelly answered as if Hope were the crazy one, “they don’t just give away free oysters, you know.”
“No, I don’t know. I’m from California. We eat real food. We don’t eat cow balls.”
“Steer.”
“Whatever!”
“They taste just like chicken,” Dylan informed her.
“You said the same thing about lizard!” She felt as if she’d been drop-kicked into an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies. Next they would probably break out the roasted squirrel.
“I was kidding about the lizard.”
“Dylan’s right,” Paul added from down the table. “Rocky Mountain oysters taste like chicken- crunchier, though. Like a gizzard.”
“That’s what I hear,” Shelly said. “Of course, I’ve never eaten one.”
Finally, some sanity. Hope raised her hands to the sides of her face. Her stomach was suddenly queasy, but she was saved from further culinary description by the twins.
“Mom, we’re heading downtown,” Thomas informed his mother.
“What’s going on downtown?”