my pantry?”
“And your refrigerator,” Kasey added, amused that the contents of his kitchen seemed to be a mystery to him. “By the way, if you’re interested, I made coffee.”
“Interested?” he repeated. “I’m downright mesmerized. That’s what brought me down in the first place,” he told her as he made a beeline for the battered coffeepot that stood on the back burner. Not standing on ceremony, he poured himself a cup, then paused to deeply inhale the aroma before sampling it. Perfect, he thought. It was a word he used a lot in reference to Kasey.
He looked at her now in unabashed surprise. “And you did this with my coffee?”
She merely smiled at him, as if he were a slightly thought-challenged second cousin she had grown very fond of. “Yours was the only coffee I had to work with,” she pointed out. “Why? You don’t like it?”
He took another extralong sip of the black liquid, waiting as it all but burned a path for itself into his belly.
“Like it?” He laughed incredulously at her question. “I’m thinking of marrying it.”
Outwardly he seemed to be teasing her, but it was his way of defusing some of the tension ricocheting through him. He was using humor as a defense mechanism so that she didn’t focus on the fact that he struggled not to melt whenever he was within several feet of her. Though he had brought her here with the very best of intentions, he had to admit that just having her here was all but undoing him.
“Really, though,” he forced himself to say, putting his hand over hers to stop her movements for a second, “you shouldn’t be doing all this. I didn’t bring you here to be my cook—good as you are at it.”
She smiled up at him, a thousand childhood memories crowding her head. Memories in which Eli was prominently featured. He was the one she had turned to when her father had been particularly nasty the night before. Eli always knew how to make her feel better.
“I know that,” she told him. “You brought me here because you’re good and kind and because Wayne and I didn’t have a place to stay. This is just my small way of paying you back a little.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t a system of checks and balances, Kasey. You don’t have to ‘pay me back,’” he insisted. “You don’t owe me anything.”
Oh, yes, I do. More than you can ever guess. You kept me sane, Eli. I hate to think where I’d be right now without you.
Her eyes met his, then she looked down at his hand, which was still over hers. Belatedly, he removed it. She felt a small pang and told herself she was just being silly.
“I know,” she told him. And that was because Eli always put others, in this case her, first. “But I want to.” Taking a plate—one of two she’d just washed so that she could press them into service—she slid two eggs and half the bacon onto it. “Overeasy, right?” she asked, nodding at the plate she put down on the table.
They’d had breakfast together just once—at Miss Joan’s diner years ago, before she’d ever run off with Hollis. At the time, he envisioned a lifetime of breakfasts to be shared between them.
But that was aeons ago.
Stunned, he asked, “How did you remember?” as he took his seat at the table.
She lifted her slender shoulders in a quick, dismissive shrug. “Some things just stay with me, I guess.” She took her own portion and sat across from him at the small table. “Is it all right?” she asked. For the most part, it was a rhetorical question, since he appeared to be eating with enthusiasm.
Had she served him burned tire treads, he would have said the same thing—because she’d gone out of her way for him and the very act meant a great deal to him. More than he could possibly ever tell her, because he didn’t want to risk scaring her off.
“It’s fantastic,” he assured her.
The baby picked that moment to begin fussing. Within a few moments, fussing turned to crying. Kasey looked toward the noise coming from the converted infant seat. “I just fed him half an hour ago,” she said wearily.
“Then he’s not hungry,” Eli concluded.
He remembered overhearing the sheriff’s sister-in-law, Tina, saying that infants cried for three reasons: if they were hungry, if they needed to be changed and if they were hurting. Wayne had been fed and he didn’t look as if he was in pain. That left only one last reason.
“He’s probably finished processing his meal,” he guessed. “Like puppies, there’s a really short distance between taking food in and eliminating what isn’t being used for nutrition,” he told her.
With a small, almost suppressed sigh, Kasey nodded. She started to get up but he put his hand on her arm, stopping her. She looked at him quizzically.
“Stay put, I’ll handle this.” Eli nodded at his empty plate. “I’m finished eating, anyway.” He picked Wayne up and took him into the next room.
She watched him a little uncertainly. This was really going above and beyond the call of duty, she couldn’t help thinking.
“Have you ever changed a diaper before?” she asked him.
He didn’t answer her directly, because the answer to her question was no. So he said evasively, “It’s not exactly up there with the mysteries of life.”
Changing a diaper might not be up there with the mysteries of life, but in his opinion, how something so cute and tiny could produce so much waste was one of the mysteries of life.
“This has got to weigh at least as much as you do,” he stated, marveling as he stripped the diaper away from the baby and saw what was inside.
Making the best of it, Eli went through several damp washcloths, trying to clean Wayne’s tiny bottom. It took a bit of work.
Eli began to doubt the wisdom of his volunteering for this form of latrine duty, but he’d done it with the best of intentions. He wanted Kasey to be able to at least finish her meal in peace. She didn’t exactly seem worn-out, but she certainly did look tired. He wondered just how much sleep she’d gotten last night.
After throwing the disposable diaper into the wastebasket, he deposited the dirty washcloths on top of it. The latter would need to be put into the washing machine—as soon as he fixed it.
Dammit, anyway, he thought in frustration, recalling that the last load of wash had flooded the utility room.
Served him right for not getting to something the second it needed doing. But then, life on a ranch—especially since he was the only one working it—left very little spare time to do anything else, whether it was a chore or just kicking back for pleasure.
And now that Kasey and her son were here—
And now that they were here, Eli amended, determined to throw this into a positive experience, there was an abundance of sunshine in his life, not to mention a damn good reason to get up in the morning.
There! he thought with a triumphant smile as he concluded the Great Diaper Change. He felt particularly pleased with himself.
The
