Birthright

some out.
    “Not everybody likes cheese in their eggs.”
    “Everybody should like cheese in their eggs.” She passed him the cheese, skirted around him to open a loaf of bread. “Put some in my share, and if it gets in someone else’s that’s too bad.”
    Doug watched Jake hold out a hand for the knife she’d taken out of a drawer, watched her pop bread into the toaster, then take the plate he handed her.
    It was like a little dance, he decided, with each knowing the steps and rhythm the other would take even before they were taken.
    “I just dropped by to give you something I picked up in Memphis.”
    There was another moment of surprise, obvious on her face, before she worked up a smile. “Barbecue?”
    “No.” Doug handed her a small brown bag. “Just a little souvenir from Graceland.”
    “You went to Graceland. I always wanted to go to Graceland. I have no idea why. Wow, look at this, Graystone, it’s an official Elvis beer cozy.”
    “You can never have too many beer cozies.”
    Jake studied the red cozy dutifully. “You better keep that out of Digger’s reach. He likes a good beer cozy.”
    “Well, he can’t have this one.” She took a step toward Doug, hesitated. What the hell was she supposed to do? Should she kiss him, punch him in the arm? “Thanks.” She settled for patting his shoulder.
    “You’re welcome.” And they, Doug thought, just didn’t know the steps and rhythm of their dance. “I’d better get going.”
    “Have you had breakfast?” She opened a drawer, took out a spatula even as Jake poured the eggs into the skillet behind her.
    “No.”
    “Why don’t you stay? There’s plenty, right, Jake?”
    “Sure.”
    “I wouldn’t mind, and lucky for me, I like cheese in my eggs.”
    “Grab a plate,” she told him. Jake shifted to the right as she bent down, opened the oven door and took out the platter of bacon he’d already fried.
    “Leo told me to come straight back,” Lana announced as she walked in. “Doug, I saw your car outside. I guess you heard what happened.”
    “Grab two plates,” Callie told him, refilling the toaster. “Do we need a lawyer?”
    “Leo has some concerns. I’m here to alleviate them. The legal concerns anyway. As to the rest.” She lifted her hands. “It’s awful. I don’t know what to say. I spoke with Bill just yesterday afternoon. He let Ty talk his ear off about that damn deer bone.”
    “Where’s Ty?” Doug handed her a paper plate from the stack on the counter.
    “What? Oh, with Roger. I don’t really think I could eat. I just want to speak with Leo.”
    “When I cook, everybody eats.” Jake got an enormous jar of grape jelly out of the fridge, passed it back to Callie. “You’d better get a seat before the horde piles in and takes them all. How many we got, Dunbrook?”
    “Rosie and Digger are at the site. So counting our guests here, we’ll be eleven for breakfast this morning.”
    T hey came in and out, in various states of dress and undress. Some scooped up food, then wandered off with their plates. Others found a space at the long scarred table Rosie had picked up at the flea market.
    But Jake was right. When he cooked, everyone ate.
    Callie concentrated on the meal, deliberately putting food on her fork, and the fork in her mouth. She didn’t bother to tune in as Lana went over the legal ground with Leo.
    “People might make us stop,” Sonya commented. She shredded a piece of toast, scattering crumbs over the eggs she’d barely touched. “I mean, the police, or the town council or something like that. They might want the dig shut down.”
    “The Preservation Society has bought the land,” Lana told her. “We’ll settle on it in a matter of weeks. As a member, and having spoken with another key member only this morning, I can promise you that none of us blames your team for what happened. The work you’re doing there isn’t responsible for what happened to Bill McDowell.”
    “He died when we were all just sitting there. We were all just sitting there.”
    “Would you have just sat there if you’d known he was in trouble?” Jake asked her.
    “No, no, of course not.”
    “Would you have done whatever you could to help if you’d known he needed help?”
    Sonya nodded.
    “But you didn’t know, so you couldn’t help. The dig was important to him, don’t you think?”
    “Oh yeah.” She sniffed, pushed her fork through her eggs. “He was always talking about it, getting all revved up