He grinned. “Better not let the sheriff hear you say that.”
Miss Joan smiled serenely at him. “Rick won’t say anything. Not with Alma helping me and being his deputy and all. Your sister doesn’t like that bastard any better than any of us do,” she confided. Then, raising her voice so that Kasey could hear her, she urged, “Don’t wait too long to have your dinner.” With a nod of her head, she informed them that “It tastes better warm.”
One final glance at Kasey and the baby, and the woman was gone. Carla was right behind her, moving with surprising speed given her rather large size.
“I didn’t tell her about Hollis” was the first thing Eli said as he closed the door again and turned around to face Kasey. He didn’t want her thinking that he had been spreading her story around.
Kasey knew he hadn’t. This was Miss Joan they were talking about. Everyone was aware of her ability to ferret out information.
“Nobody ever has to tell that woman anything. She just knows. It’s almost spooky,” Kasey confessed. “When I was a little girl, I used to think she was a witch—a good witch,” she was quick to add with a smile. “Like in The Wizard of Oz, but still a witch.” At times, she wasn’t completely convinced that the woman wasn’t at least part witch.
He grinned. “Out of the mouths of babes,” he quipped. “Speaking of babes, I think your little guy just fell asleep again. Probably in self-defense so that he didn’t have to put up with being handled.” He grinned. “Carla looked like she was dying to get her hands on him.” He had noticed that the waitress had struggled to hold herself in check. “But then, I guess that everyone loves a new baby.”
The second the words were out, he realized what he’d said and he could have bitten off his tongue.
Especially when Kasey answered quietly, “No, not everyone.”
He could almost see the wound in her heart opening up again.
Dammit, he would have to be more careful about what he said around Kasey. At least for a while. “Let me rephrase that. Any normal person loves a new baby.”
Kasey knew he meant well. She offered Eli a weak smile in response, then looked down at her son.
“I’ll try putting him to bed so that we can have our dinner. But I can’t make any promises. He’s liable to wake up just as I start tiptoeing out. Feel perfectly free to start without me,” she urged as she walked back to the rear bedroom with Wayne.
As if he could, Eli thought, watching her as she left the room.
The truth of it was, he couldn’t start anything anywhere, not as long as she continued to hold his heart hostage the way she did.
Shaking free of his thoughts, Eli went to set the table in the kitchen. With any luck, he mused, he’d find two clean dishes still in the cupboard. Otherwise, he would actually have to wash a couple stacked in the sink.
It wasn’t a prospect he looked forward to.
Chapter Five
Eli wasn’t sure just when he finally fell asleep. The fact that he actually did fall asleep surprised him. Mentally, he’d just assumed that he would be up all night. After all, this was Kasey’s first night in his house, not to mention her first night with the baby without the safety net of having a nurse close by to take Wayne back to the nursery if he started crying.
Granted, he wasn’t a nurse, but at least he could be supportive and make sure that she didn’t feel as if she was in this alone. He could certainly relieve her when she got tired.
Last night, when it was time to turn in, Kasey had thanked him for his hospitality and assured him that she had everything under control. She’d slipped into the same bedroom she’d used earlier. The crib he’d retrieved from her former home was set up there.
Her last words to him were to tell him that he should get some sleep.
Well that was easier said than done, he’d thought at the time, staring off into the starless darkness outside his window. He’d felt much too wired. Besides, he was listening for any sound that struck him as being out of the ordinary. A sound that would tell him that Kasey needed help. Which in turn would mean that she needed him, at least for this.
He almost strained himself, trying to hear if the baby was crying.
It was probably around that time that, exhausted, he’d fallen asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, he was positive that only a few minutes had gone by. Until he realized that daylight, not moonlight, was streaming into his room. Startled, he bolted upright. Around the same moment of rude awakening, the aroma of tantalizingly strong coffee wound its intoxicating way up to his room and into his senses.
Kicking off a tangled sheet, Eli hit the ground running, stumbling over his discarded boots on his way to his door. It hurt more because he was barefoot.
Even so, he didn’t bother putting anything on his feet as he followed the aroma to its point of origin, making his way down the stairs.
Ultimately, the scent brought him to the kitchen.
Kasey was there, with her back toward him. Wayne wasn’t too far away—and was strapped into his infant seat. Sometime between last night and this morning, she’d gotten the baby’s infant seat out of the car and converted it so that it could hold him securely in place while she had him on the kitchen table.
Turning from the stove, Kasey almost jumped a foot off the ground. Her hand immediately went to her chest, as if she was trying to keep her heart from physically leaping out.
“Oh, Eli, you scared me,” she said, struggling to regain her composure.
“Sorry,” he apologized when he saw that he’d really startled her. “I don’t exactly look my best first thing in the morning.” He ran his hand through his hair, remembering that it hadn’t seen a hint of a comb since yesterday.
“You look fine,” she stressed. No matter what, Eli always looked fine, she thought fondly. She could count on the fact that nothing changed about him, especially not his temperament. He was her rock and she thanked God for him. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone to come up behind me, that’s all.” She took in a deep breath in an attempt to regulate her erratic pulse.
“What are you doing up?” he asked.
“Well, I never got into the habit of cooking while I was lying in bed,” she stated, deadpan. “So I had to come over to where the appliances were hiding,” she told him, tongue-in-cheek.
But Eli shook his head, dismissing the literal answer to his question. “No, I mean why are you up, cooking? You’re supposed to be taking it easy, remember?” he reminded her.
She acted mystified. “I guess I missed that memo. Besides, this is how I take it easy,” she informed him. “Cooking relaxes me. It makes me feel like I’m in control,” she stressed. Her eyes held his. “And right now, I need that.”
He knew how overwhelming a need that could be. Eli raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, cook your heart out. I won’t stand in your way,” he promised, then confessed, “And that does smell pretty amazing.”
