“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.” He looked from her to the pan and then back again. He didn’t remember buying bacon. Maybe Alma had dropped it off the last time she’d been by. She had a tendency to mother him. “And that was all stuff you found in 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 next moment he told himself not to get used to this feeling or the situation that created it. After all, it could, and most likely would, change in a heartbeat.
Hadn’t his life come to a skidding halt and changed just with Hollis banging on his door, abandoning his responsibilities on the doorstep? Well, just like that, Kasey could go off and find her own place.
Or Hollis might come back and want to pick up where he’d left off. And Kasey, being the softhearted woman she was, would wind up forgiving him and take Hollis back. After all, the man was her husband.
But that was later, Eli silently insisted. For now, Kasey was here, in his house with her baby, and he would enjoy every second of it.
Every second that he wasn’t working, he amended.
Picking Wayne up, he surveyed his handiwork. “Not a bad job, even if I do say so myself,” he pronounced.
Ready to go back out, he turned around toward the door with the baby in his arms. He was surprised to find that Kasey was standing in the doorway, an amused expression on her face.
What was she thinking? he couldn’t help wondering. “Have you been standing there long?” he asked.
She smiled broadly at him. “Just long enough to hear you evaluating your job,” she said. Kasey crossed to him and her son. “And you’re wrong, you know,” she told him as she took Wayne into her arms with an unconscious, growing confidence. “You’re being way too modest. You did an absolutely great job.” There was admiration in her voice. “The nurse had to walk me through the diapering process three times before I got the hang of it,” she told him with a wide smile. “You never told me you had hidden talents.”
“Didn’t know, myself,” he freely confessed. “I guess that some people just rise to the occasion more than others.”
She thought about him opening his home to her. They were friends, good friends, but that didn’t automatically mean she could just move in with him. He had been under no obligation to take her in. She certainly hadn’t expected him to do that.
Looking at him pointedly, she nodded. “Yes, they do,” she agreed softly.
For one shimmering second, as he stood there, gazing into her eyes, he felt an incredibly overwhelming desire to kiss her. Kiss her and make a full confession about all the years he’d loved her in silence.
But he sensed he might scare her off. That was the last thing that either one of them wanted, especially him. He needed to put some space between them. He thought about his ever-growing list of things that needed his attention. Just thinking about them was daunting, but he needed to get started.
Eli abruptly turned toward the door.
“Well, I’d better get to work,” he told Kasey. “Or the horses will think I ran off and left them.” But instead of heading outside, the smell of a diaper that was past its expiration date caught his attention. “But the horses are just going to have to wait until I take care of this,” he told Kasey, nodding at the wastebasket and its less-than-precious pungent cargo.
“Don’t bother,” Kasey said. “I’ll take care of that.” To make her point, she placed herself between Eli and the wastebasket. “Go, tend to your horses before they stampede off in protest.”
Instead of getting out of his way, she leaned forward and impulsively kissed his cheek. “Thank you for everything,” she whispered just before her lips touched his cheek. “Now go,” she repeated with feeling.
His cheek pulsated where her lips had met his skin.
Eli didn’t quite remember going upstairs to put on his boots or walking out of the house and across the front yard, but he figured he must have because when he finally took stock of his surroundings, he was on his way to the stable.
It wasn’t as if she’d never kissed him before. She had. She’d kissed him exactly like that a long time ago, before she’d become Hollis’s wife and broken his heart into a million pieces. But back then, she’d brushed her lips against his cheek, leaving her mark by way of a friendly demonstration of affection.
And the results were always the same. His body temperature would rise right along with his jumping pulse rate.
Just being around her could set him off, but that went doubly so whenever she brushed by him, whether it was her hand, her lips or the accidental contact of different body parts.
It made him feel alive.
It also reminded him that he loved her. Loved her and knew that he couldn’t have her because it was all one-sided.
His side.
But he’d made his peace with that a long time ago, Eli reminded himself as he continued walking. It was enough for him to know that he was looking out for her, that he was ready to defend her at a moment’s notice, Hollis or no Hollis. And because of that, she would be all right. If on occasion he yearned for something more, well, that was his problem, not hers.
During the day, he could keep it all under control, enjoying just the little moments, the tiny interactions between them as well as the longer conversations that were exchanged on occasion.
It was only in his sleep that all these emotions became a good deal more. In his dreams he experienced what he couldn’t allow himself to feel—or want—during his waking hours.
But that was something he could never let her even remotely suspect, because in disclosing that, he’d risk losing everything, especially her precious friendship.
He wanted, above all else, to have her feel at ease with him. He wanted to protect her and to do what he could to make her happy. That couldn’t happen if she thought he might be trying to compromise not just her but her honor, as well.
His own happiness, he reasoned, would come from her feeling secure. That he could do for her. For them, he amended, thinking of the baby.
Reaching the stable, he pulled open the doors. The smell from the stalls assaulted him the moment he walked in. Babies weren’t all that different from horses in some ways. They ate, digested and then eliminated.
Mucking out the stalls would allow him to put changing a small diaper into perspective.
“Hi, guys,” he said, addressing the horses that, for now, made up his entire herd. “Miss me?” One of the horses whinnied, as if in response. Shaking his head, Eli laughed.
Approaching the stallion closest to him, he slipped a bridle over the horse’s head, then led Golden Boy out of his stall. He hitched the horse to a side railing so that the animal would be out of the way and he could clean the stall without interference.
“Well, I’ve got a good excuse for being late,” he told the horses as he got to work. “Wait till I tell you what’s been going on….”
Chapter Six
Eli worked as quickly as he could, but even so, it took him a great deal of time to clean out the stalls, groom the horses, exercise and train them, then finally feed them.
There were five horses in all.
Five horses might not seem like a lot to the average outsider who was uninformed about raising and training quarter horses, but it was a lengthy procedure, especially when multiplied by five and no one else was around to help with the work.
The latter, he had to admit, was partially his own fault. He didn’t have the money to take on hired help, but that still didn’t mean that he had to go it alone if he didn’t want to.
It was understood that if he needed them, he could easily put out a call to one or more of his brothers and they’d be there to help him for the day or the week. He had four older brothers, ranchers all, and they could readily rotate the work between them until Eli was finally on his feet and on his way to making a profit.
But for Eli it boiled down to a matter of pride—stubborn pride—and this kept him from calling any of his brothers and asking for help. He was determined that, as the youngest male in the Rodriguez fami
ly, he would turn the ranch into a success without having to depend on any help from his relatives.
Ordinarily he found a certain satisfaction in working with the horses and doing all the chores that were involved in caring for the animals. But today was a different story. Impatience fairly hummed through his veins.
He wanted to be done with the chores, done with the training, so that he could go back to the house and be with Kasey. He really didn’t like leaving her alone like this for the better part of the day.
He sought to ease his conscience by telling himself that she could do with a little time to herself. What woman couldn’t? His being out here gave her the opportunity to get herself together after this enormous emotional roller-coaster ride she’d just been on—gaining a child and losing a husband.
Not that losing Hollis was really much of a loss.
In addition Eli was fairly certain that Kasey wouldn’t want him around to witness any first-time mistakes that she was bound to make with the baby. In her place, he certainly wouldn’t want someone looking over his shoulder, noting the mistakes he was making.
Even if he wanted to chuck everything and go back up to the house to be with her, he couldn’t just up and leave the horses. Not again. Not twice in two days. He’d already neglected their training segment yesterday when he’d gone to bring Kasey and the baby home from the hospital in Pine Ridge.
Not that he actually neglected the horses themselves. He’d made sure that he’d left food for the stallions and God knew they had no trouble finding the feed, or the water, for that matter. But the stalls, well, they were decidedly more ripe-smelling than they should have been. Breathing had been a real problem for him this morning as he mucked out the stalls.
Raising horses was a tricky business. He knew that if they were left on their own for too long, the horses could revert back to their original behavior and then all the hours that he’d put into training them would be lost.
A Baby on the Ranch: A Baby on the RanchRamona and the Renegade Page 6