Page 50 of Iron Shield
“Yeah.”
“You never told me that.”
She lifted a shoulder and let it drop.
When her friend didn’t speak, she rushed on. “You know, their bread could be better.”
Stina bobbed her head. “And their clam sauce.”
Their gazes met, and Stina wrinkled her nose.
At the same time, they said, “Bitter.”
They shared a smile that made her feel a bit shy. “It’s a silly idea.”
“Not silly at all. I think it’s a great idea. But…do you actually have any experience in the kitchen?”
“Some. Mybabaused to take me in her kitchen and let me cook with her. We baked bread andvarenykyevery Christmas.” Her lips curved at the sweet memory she had of her Ukrainian maternal grandmother. She saw Jolie’s questioning look and explained. “Same family as a pierogi.”
Jolie echoed the smile. “We have a kitchen here. It doesn’t have a lot of variety, but there are staples and a few items in the pantry that might surprise you. You could spend some time there. The guys love when I cook, but since I started all these classes, I don’t have a lot of time. And Younger just heats things up and throws it on a plate, so you can’t be any worse.”
She had met the whole team, but she wasn’t sure she had all their names straight. “Is Younger the older dude? Looks scary?”
“They all look a little scary, don’t you think?”
Stina laughed. “That’s true. All right.” She pushed to her feet. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need a break from your contagious physiology class or whatever it is.”
“Cognitive psychology,” she corrected, flashing her a grin.
Before Stina walked out, Jolie already turned back to her screen and was engrossed in her learning.
The kitchen occupied a surprisingly large section of the underground facility. Industrial refrigerators lined one wall. Stainless steel counters stretched in an L shape and there was apantry where she found enough shelf-stable food to survive an apocalypse.
Or at least a ghost ops team with bottomless stomachs and hollow legs.
She turned in a slow circle, trying to figure out where to start. Then she spotted a cabinet. In black marker, someone had written on the front. AMMO.
With a suspicious glance around, she quickly opened the door, saw boxes of bullets inside, and shut it again.
A breath whooshed out of her. Welp, she definitely wasn’t in herbaba’skitchen.
But the place was actually…impressive. A big industrial stove that rivaled the ones at Antonio’s sat in the center of a wall with a stainless-steel range hood over it.
She moved toward the pantry and located supplies. Flour, sugar, spices, canned goods and dry goods. The fridge held little fresh produce, which wasn’t ideal for what she had in mind, but the inventory wasn’t that bad either.
An idea began forming. She poked around the refrigerator, her brain reorganizing ingredients. For the first time since arriving at Sierra, Stina felt a spark of excitement.
Maybe she couldn’t leave or go online. Maybe she couldn’t return to her old life just yet.
But she could do something she enjoyed.
And judging by the ingredients she spread across the counter, Sierra team—Rome in particular, if he planned to hang on to those sculpted abs—was about to spend a lot more time in the gym.
NINE
Rome had spent the better part of the day discovering that avoiding Stina required more effort than finding her.
Which was a problem because he’d spent the better part of the day trying to do both.
