Eli didn’t wait another second to break the physical contact and move down the hall toward her tiny office in the back of the house. She opened the door and led Sarah inside. The desktop was littered with papers, and suddenly she was very aware of how messy it was. She tried to keep it neat and clean, but it was the one place in the house she felt she could let up on cleanliness—well, that and her own space in the basement.
“It’s right here.”
“Thanks.” Sarah sat down in the rolling chair as Eli leaned over the desk and turned the desktop on and typed in her password.
“Do whatever you need.”
“Shouldn’t take me too long.”
“All right. Well, I’ll be back in a few hours. You’re free to have whatever you find in the kitchen, but you’re on your own for dinner unless you’ll eat what the hunters get.”
“Dinner?”
“Yeah.” Eli gave her a quick smile as she reached the door to her office. “It’s a bed-and-breakfast, we don’t make you lunch or dinner unless there is a special request, in which case, I typically hire out, because those are not my forte. Hunters don’t complain much so long as it’s hot and filling.”
“Ah.”
Eli left her office and made her way to the den, grabbing her mug as she moved to the kitchen. She washed out the coffee pot, filter, and her mug, and then saw the note she’d left for Sarah earlier. With a quick check, she saw the untouched omelet still in the oven. Pulling it out, she dumped it in her compost bucket out the back door before washing the dishes, a slight annoyance in each move she made.
Why had she even bothered to make Sarah breakfast if she wasn’t going to eat it? Pursing her lips, she turned off the water and dried her hands on the towel wrapped around the handle to the fridge. She headed out the back door, shoving her feet in her work boots after checking for critters, and then stomped around when they were too freaking cold to be wearing. The cold front that had followed the storm was just as unexpected, and it was supposed to last through the rest of the week. She hoped briefly that Sarah had packed for colder weather, but then she shook the thought. That was Sarah’s business, not hers.
Eli stepped off the deck and glanced at the house. Sarah stood at the window in her office with her arms by her sides, staring right at Eli. A shiver ran down her spine as she stopped short at the edge of the trail leading down the hill to the barn and her work truck. They stared at each other for what felt like minutes. Eventually, Eli made the first move and headed to the barn. She had to get to work.
* * *
Sarah watched Eli walk down to the barn. She disappeared briefly while she was still too close to the hill but reappeared as soon as she was near the barn itself. Sarah hadn’t noticed the trail when she’d been on the deck before, but it must have been how Eli walked to and from the barn every day. It hadn’t even occurred to her to wonder how to get to the barn from the house.
Eli hopped into a truck that looked like it was a hundred years old, backed out from the driveway, and went down the road. Sarah had to force herself to move away from the window. She’d emailed Kara and expected a response whenever Kara got around to it. Their conversations were often intermittent, so it wasn’t uncommon to wait days for responses, but that was how their friendship worked.
With a sigh, Sarah moved out of the office after shutting the computer down and went up to her room, skirting around the piano. Eli had scared the living daylights out of her when she’d been sitting there listening. She’d been about to switch to a new song she’d been working on for months to see if it sounded better with some slight modifications to it, and she’d glanced back and saw Eli sitting there, like she owned the place. Well, she did own it.
Grunting, Sarah hid away in her room and shut the door. She had no idea what to do with herself. She wasn’t used to the quiet, to being so disconnected from the world. Even when she was alone at home, she wasn’t alone. Someone was always only a text message or a phone call or a tweet away. But with no phone, and only dial up Internet, she wasn’t about to spend much time waiting for her social media to get pulled up or for emails to come in.
Flinging herself onto the bed, Sarah knew she had to waste a few hours until Eli came back for some entertainment, because if she was left to her own devices, it could get bad. She should have brought a book, or two or three. Wondering briefly if Eli had any around the house, Sarah left the safety of her room and rummaged around the den and living room. She found two bookshelves filled with novels—some classics, some newer ones, mostly romances, but a few mysteries.
She flipped through some of them and grabbed one she decided wouldn’t be too horrible, though reading was not typically her thing. She was not the greatest reader in the world, and it took her forever to get through a book, so she often just read the CliffsNotes version of it if she could, to make it seem like she had read the book itself. When she got back to her room, she propped up the pillows behind her back and opened the book.
* * *
Sarah must have fallen asleep because the sun was setting in the sky, casting a pink and orange hue through her room. Brushing her hair out of her face, Sarah moved to the window to see if Eli was back from whatever she did out in the fields. She was kind of curious what she did out there, but she wasn’t brave enough to ask if she could go out with her, and she wasn’t sure she was courageous enough to find out in general.
She’d read the reviews onIndigoand had seen that Eli had willingly taken people out to teach them about ranching and even on something called trail rides. Sarah wasn’t quite sure what those were exactly, but it intrigued her nonetheless. She’d never been on a horse before, though, which scared her more than she was willing to admit to anyone.
Her growling stomach told her she needed to eat something and that she had failed to scrounge up food since she’d been in the airport in Denver. With bare feet, she walked through the hall and down the stairs to the kitchen. The fridge was full of food, and it was overwhelming. If part of the deal was no dinner, she’d have to cook for herself, in which case, she might as well cook for Eli as well, assuming she was coming home in time to eat.
Home.That word sounded odd to her ears. Sarah pulled out some chicken, spinach, ham, and cheese that she saw right in the front of the fridge. Rummaging around the pantry, she found potatoes in abundance along with onions. It didn’t take her long until she had a plan formulated. It took her a bit longer to find the dishware, and she hoped Eli wouldn’t be too offended by her taking everything out and making them a meal that should last a night or two.
She’d just put everything into the oven when Eli pulled up outside with her truck in tow. Sarah’s heart rapped in her chest, reminding her she wasn’t quite over her nerves from the previous night. She sipped a glass of water as she set the timer on the oven, twice, because she messed it up the first time. Turning to face the walkway, she waited for Eli to head inside.
Instead of coming in the front door, like Sarah had assumed she would, Eli walked around the deck toward the back, which led straight into the kitchen. Sarah watched as Eli passed each window completely unaware that she was being observed. Sarah drew in slow deep breaths, her stomach twisting in new and unexpected ways. She was intrigued by Elijah Wilson, proprietor, and semi-owner of what seemed to be multiple businesses. Eli certainly seemed to have her head on straight.
Eli opened the door and stopped sharply when she glanced up to see Sarah staring straight at her. “Uh...hi?”
“Hey. I made dinner. Figured if I was cooking you could eat, too.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Eli’s lips thinned, and her eyes squinted.
Sarah couldn’t decide if it was a good sign or not. “It’s just something I make for myself all the time and then freeze to eat it over the week. I don’t cook as often as it may come off.”