Sarah’s question was so quiet, Eli wasn’t quite sure she’d heard her correctly, but when she looked up, she knew she had. “No.”
Silence remained, aside from the breeze and the cattle in the distance. Eli walked to her truck and grabbed the quick-set cement she had brought. Slicing the top open with her knife, she dumped it down into the post hole until it was sufficiently filled.
“Grab the water, would you?”
“Uh…yeah.” Sarah turned to the bed of the truck and brought over two gallons of water.
Once everything was done, Eli leaned against the back of the truck and sucked down a bottle of water. The sun was setting along the western horizon, and luckily, there were plenty of clouds in the sky that night to make it a gorgeous sunset.
She was about to comment on it when Sarah sighed. “It’s so beautiful out here. We don’t get sunsets like this in Dallas.”
“Too many buildings, I suppose.”
“Yeah, maybe, or just not enough sky left since everyone seems to take it up.”
Eli clenched her jaw and tried to loosen her stance. “I went to school in Kansas City. Finished my four years, and that was good enough for me. No desire to go back to crowds like that.”
“No? Not even to visit?”
“Not often.”
“I don’t mind big cities. Easier to not be seen in them.”
Eli froze at that. She was putting up the gate on the truck when she finished doing it slowly and gave Sarah a hard stare. “Why would you not want to be seen?”
“Escapism, really.”
“Life can’t be that hard that you need to escape.”
Sarah played with the gloves still in her hands. “Only some days.”
Eli’s heart went out to Sarah. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to walk down the sidewalk in a major city and be recognized, but to be fair, she probably did understand it. Everyone in town knew who she was—there was no escaping. They were all up in her business both in ways she didn’t want and in ways she did.
Reaching out, Eli ran a hand up and down Sarah’s arm, then patted her shoulder as she stepped in closer. “Sometimes it’s good to be seen.”
When Sarah’s gaze finally moved up to Eli’s eyes, she had tears brimming in them. “Sometimes. Most of the time, I’d rather not be so seen.”
“Sounds like you work to maintain that.”
Sarah snorted. “As much as I can. Are we done here?”
Eli took the change in topic for what it was. She turned to call Cassie over, her voice echoing through the field. Cassie came immediately, and she waited until there was very little space between them. Moving up next to the cow, Eli patted her neck and scratched her nose.
“Now, Cas, I fixed the fence. Don’t go breaking it.”
Cassie snorted and moved to the fence line. Eli caught Sarah tensing out of the corner of her eye and sidled up next to her to calm her down. They watched for a few minutes as Cassie checked out the job they’d done and then keened before sauntering off.
Eli shook her head. “I give it two weeks before she finds a new way out.”
“She’s that smart?”
“I’m not sure smart is what I’d call it. Determined and stubborn perhaps. And bored. She gets bored here. The grass is always greener on the other side, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Eli wasn’t quite sure why Sarah’s tone had suddenly changed from conversational to not, but she didn’t want to pry since Sarah was quite obviously a private person. “Come on, it’s dinner time.”
“I can cook something, if you want.”