“My sister. Twins.”
“No shit.”
Sarah chuckled. “Unlike what you see in the news, my sister and I don’t do everything together and are vastly different. We are not Drew and Jonathan.”
Eli laughed. “She your only sibling?”
“Yes. You?”
“One of each, no twins in our family.”
“Lucky,” Sarah sighed wistfully. “I always wondered what it’d be like to have a brother.”
Eli grumbled. “It’s not as great as it seems.”
Sarah didn’t answer that. A few more seconds of silence passed while Eli got to the fence line and parked before Sarah asked, “Your parents, what do they do?”
“They’re retired.”
“Yeah, but what did they do before?”
“They were the local vets.” Eli sighed and opened her door. She didn’t really want to play twenty questions. When Sarah got to the back of the truck, Eli took pity on her. “Being the daughter of the local vets means I know everyone in this county and most everyone in the next three counties. It also meant we were the flaming liberals in the area, even though my parents—well, my dad—isn’t that liberal. He is in some ways, in others not so much.”
“What?” Sarah’s eyes were wide.
Eli grunted as she pulled down the gate and dragged out the supplies. “My parents are both fine with folk like me. Others around here? Not so much. Just one of the ways people thought they were odd, but since Dad was from here they accepted us, especially since we’re the only vet clinic in a fifty mile radius.”
“Well, that’s one way to corner the market.”
Snorting, Eli dropped he post hole digger in front of Sarah and handed her gloves. “You’ll want these. You ever used one before?”
“Uh…can’t say I have.”
“Joy.” Eli moved over to the fence and waited for Sarah to join her. Once Sarah was there, Eli showed her with the tip of her boot where to dig the post. “Pretty much, you lift it up, slam it down, and then push out. Pull out the dirt, stack it on my land please, and then we’ll stop when it’s deep enough.”
“How deep is deep enough?”
Eli shrugged. “We’ll measure.”
She watched as Sarah lifted the digger about half as high as she would and dropped it, not very forcefully onto the ground. Smirking, she stalked back to the truck.
“Do it like you mean it, Sarah.”
It didn’t take Eli telling her twice. Sarah dug halfway down the first hole while Eli set everything else up. Then it was her turn. She took the wooden digger from Sarah and went to town on the hole, making sure it was done quickly and efficiently. She did not want to be out there any later than necessary, and she wanted the job done before nightfall because no one wanted to be tracking down Cassie in the middle of the night. Since she no doubt knew they were messing with the fence—she’d followed the truck over there—she would surely check it out when they were finished.
Breathing heavily, Eli shoved the post into the ground to measure its depth. Deciding it was good enough, she left it and started on the next one while Sarah watched her, leaning against the bed of the truck. “So why do you stay?”
“What?” Eli stopped, sucking in a deep breath of cool air.
“Why do you stay if you’re the token flaming liberal in town?”
Resting on the post hole digger, Eli stared Sarah up and down before she shook her head. “This is home.”
“Home could be elsewhere.”
“Yeah, but it’s not. I like it here. I like the job, and this is home.” Eli slammed the digger down before Sarah’s voice stopped her again.
“Would you ever move?”