Page 62 of An Endless Memory

Yet, with Eliot, I didn’t feel smothered. The way he treated me made me feel precious. I’d soak up his presence while I could.

Fourteen

Eliot

I was cleaning up lunch. Lily didn’t look as wan as when I’d arrived or even this morning after she woke.

I would not think about what it was like to wake up and have her right there. To see the way she eyed my body when she thought I wasn’t looking. If she hadn’t been sick only hours earlier, I would’ve crawled back into bed. But there’d been a baby in the room. And we weren’t a real couple.

Weekends like this made it hard to remember.

I started the dishwasher. Lily was feeding Kellan, and Cali had laid herself down for a nap. She’d been thrilled to see me this morning, but she’d been mellow all day. It must’ve been a helluva week with school and stomach bugs.

When I was done, I went outside. At some point, since she’d had Bug, she found time to erect an enclosure for the dog to run around in until he got used to living in wide-open country. I let him out. Since I was in the yard, Lily said he’d stick around. It was when he was bored and alone that he got into trouble. I picked up a ball and tossed it. He darted off.

Lily could clearly handle herself. She was a single mom with a house and forty acres, two kids, and several pets. Strong women like her intimidated weak men. Her ex had undermined her confidence to the point of hyperindepedence. Would she ever trust me enough to tell me what she needed?

My phone rang. Cody.

I answered. “Hey.”

“Eliot. When do you need us this fall?” Cody always got right to business.

Hadn’t he been preparing me for a lack of familial help this fall? “I haven’t looked at the dates yet. You know I like to see what the weather’s going to be like.” Barns used to have us moving cattle—rain, sleet, or snow be damned. The work would get dangerous for us and for the animals.

“Yeah,” he said, resigned. “I wanted to get this planned around baby appointments and football games. Ivy’s in basketball now too, and that’s in the fall for her age.”

A thread of envy twined around my neck. “You can sit this one out.”

“The kids love going. It’s good for them.” He sounded more like he was justifying the trip. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Don’t worry about it.” My ever-present bitterness crept out. Cody always figured his shit out. I just never pointed out that it was for himself. I’d be a selfish asshole to do that, but I was also left holding the bag, or in this case, two hundred and fifty head of cattle and twenty horses.

“Any chance Chambers is around? If he’s working today, I wanted to catch him.”

“I don’t know, but probably. I have better internet than him.” Chambers’s wife didn’t like old westerns, and shootouts were all I heard coming from the office during the day.

“You don’t know if he’s there? Where are you?”

“Lily’s.” I stubbed the toe of my boot into the ground. Bug returned with the ball, dropped it, and ran back and forth, anticipating the next throw. I lobbed it again. “She got really sick, so I came down for the weekend.”

He grunted. “My first thought was that you were with some other woman.”

Anger dripped hot in my veins. “What’d ya take me for, Cody? I promised her I wouldn’t.”

“It’s just… You’re acting like you’re married.”

Annoyance made me grind my teeth. “I am married.”

“Yeah, I’m gathering that.”

“Her family has to believe it.” Bug dropped the ball and raced away before I had a chance to throw it. I tossed it with extra force. Cody’s tone chafed.

“More than her family might be believing it. You like this girl.”

First Chambers, now him. “Of course I like her, or I wouldn’t have helped her out.”

“Sure. That’s all it is.”

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