Page 27 of An Endless Memory

“No, but Aggie’s husband has a lot of ranching cousins who’ll stock you up with good beef.”

My alarm was rising again. I’d love to buy from the source. I used to do it when I was married, but without a veterinarian’s salary, that wasn’t happening. “I can’t afford bulk fresh meat like that.”

“My treat.”

“Eliot—”

He turned, and I was pinned by his intense stare and Kellan’s dark-blue one. “If I’m staying with you through Monday, I’m going to need more than that freezer-dried food in the basement. You don’t want me diving into Flakes’s stash, do you?”

Cali giggled.

“I don’t have a small appetite,” he added. “My treat.” He turned back around. Since I was sick of discount beef, I followed him.

He loaded up the cart with more eggs, milk, yogurt, cereal, fruits, and frozen veggies than one man could eat in a weekend. My suspicions were growing before we reached the cashier. When it was time to pay, he handed Kellan to me and dug out his wallet.

“Eliot, you can’t?—”

Another dark, quelling stare. It should upset me, not make molten lava flow through my belly and circle down. I was not attracted to his high-handedness.

“He’s going to share his fruit snacks,” Cali whisper-squealed.

Didn’t all rugged ranchers want princess fruit snacks after a hard day’s work?

I waited until we got the kids and the groceries loaded into the car. He’d never given the keys back to me after he’d driven here. He put the cart away, but I stayed outside the vehicle.

As much as I wanted to indulge in being a passenger princess, I had to address his intrusiveness in the store. “I’m going to pay you back.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I do worry about it.”

He stopped next to me by the passenger door. I had to tilt my head back to look at him.

He waited until he had my full attention. “It’s okay to get a little help.”

“Not always.”

He held my stare, then his gaze traveled down my face, down my neck, to my collar. “It’ll bother me if I don’t, and it’ll sure as hell bother me if you try to pay me back. I don’t cook for more than one unless I’m running the grill at family events.” He skated his gaze away. “And those don’t happen in Buffalo Gully as much as they used to.”

That sense of loss in his voice matched the heavy air I’d first noticed about him. “Isn’t your family all up in your business?”

“Not anymore. When we were younger, my brothers did their thing and ignored me unless I wasn’t pulling my share around the place.”

Oh. Well… “What about Aggie?”

“She was usually upset she wasn’t included enough.”

My points were falling way short of their goal, but this had hit home. “I’ve had to pay for the help I get in the past.”

His gaze sharpened. “How so?”

“Carter’s parents were hypercritical. If I asked them to watch Cali, they’d ask him if I was doing my share around the house. Was I contributing? Could I handle the duties? Why was I always calling my parents or my oldest sister, Violet? So I didn’t.”

“And your family? Didn’t they check on you?”

“I think they got discouraged, but I do have to learn to live on my own.” Having a guy pay for all my groceries wasn’t the best example of fending for myself.

He arched a brow. “Most people have a support system. Your ex-in-laws sound like jackasses.”

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