Something Borrowed, Something Bleu Read Online Free PDF Page B

supervisor gave it back to me. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.”
“That’s okay. This information has actually been very useful.” I thanked the clerk who had helped me in the first place and made my way out to the parking lot, still thinking.
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    My trip to the post office took longer than expected, as did the drive to the T&J Dairy. I turned off the county road, glancing at my watch as I drove toward the cluster of buildings at the end of a long gravel driveway.
The Bines lived in a big farm-style house at the top of a little hill. They’d painted it white with forest-green trim. The colors were reversed on the barn, chicken house, and three other outbuildings which marched in a circle around the house. The siding showed wear, and lighter shingles spotted the roof in several places where it had been patched after rough weather. There were no mild seasons in northern Colorado, despite three hundred days of sunshine a year.
A line of cottonwoods wandered across the landscape behind and below the house, no doubt tracing the path of a river or significant stream. Several brown cows with white markings lay in the morning sun, fenced from the road with split rails instead of the ubiquitous barbed wire. The rheumy eyes of a bony old specimen watched with calm interest as I shifted the Subaru into Park. My tennis shoes hit the gravel in the parking lot at the bottom of the hill, and I stretched briefly before reaching back into the car for my tote bag. Chickens of all sizes and colors gabbled at one another conversationally, bocking and scratching in a large rectangular enclosure built off one end of their coop. A thick animal smell hung over the whole place, potent but not unpleasant.
The hand-lettered sign stuck into the ground read Classroom , and the arrow on it directed me to a small, square outbuilding by the parking lot. Dark green with white trim, like the rest of the outbuildings. Tabby had just begun talking when I entered.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said, stowing my tote bag in a corner and then joining the others.
Surprised recognition flickered across her face as she nodded her welcome at me. “No worries. You’re right on time.”
When Bobby Lee first told me he was dating Tabitha Atwood, all he could talk about was how amazing her eyes were. They still were: ice blue and intelligent. Now a fine web of crow’s feet fanned from their corners, and the years and sun had added lines around her mouth. The rest of her skin was taut and tan. White-blonde hair swooped down from a denim scrunchy into a short ponytail, and her gaze ricocheted between the class participants as she spoke, constantly gauging reaction and understanding from her six students. But her eyes kept returning to me. She’d recognized me the moment I walked in, and no doubt wondered why I was back in town.
The interior of the small space was clean and bright. The open windows front and back encouraged air circulation. A long folding table stood in the center of the room, and equipment both recognizable and mysterious, instruction handouts, a microwave, and a two-burner hotplate littered the surface. A miniature refrigerator hummed in the corner.
“Today we’re going to be making mozzarella,” Tabby said. “It’ll be ready to eat today, as opposed to cheeses that need to age for a significant amount of time in order to develop flavor. By definition, then, fresh cheeses taste quite mild.”
My mouth started to water. Beside me, an older woman with gray dreadlocks nodded her agreement at our instructor. Next to her stood an outdoorsy-looking couple, and on my other side a drab, bespectacled woman in her mid-twenties hung on Tabby’s every word. Given their similar features, I guessed the heavyset blonde beside her was her mother.
Tabby donned a pair of rubber gloves and waved us over to where a stainless-steel pot of milk sat on the hot plate. “From the same milk you can get any number of cheeses—the difference comes from the kind of