Straddling the Fence (9 page)

When she looked over, he quirked an eyebrow.

She shrugged. “I took a few art history classes in college.”

Eli leaned over and kissed her, aiming to keep things light,
even though he was feeling anything but. Just a soft brush of lips at first,
until she grabbed his belt loops and tugged him against her body. She tasted
like mint and honey from the hot tea she’d brought along to his house. He
pressed closer, holding her face in his hands, catching her sigh with his mouth
and deepening the connection. All it took was touching her and his intentions
drifted off with the breeze.

Of course, his phone
would
pick that moment to
interrupt, vibrating on his hip. He started to ignore the call, but Bellamy
must’ve felt it too because she pulled away, glancing down at the offending
device. “You better get that. Could be another calf birth.”

He unsnapped the phone from its clip, reading the display.
“No, it’s Ruby. Hey, Ma. What’s up?”

“I was calling to invite you to supper tonight. Fritz and
Kai are coming. Sage too. You’ll be the only one missing if you don’t show.”

In this case, Ruby playing the guilt card was warranted. Eli
hadn’t seen his folks in two weeks. He glanced at Bellamy then muffled the
mouthpiece on his phone. “You wanna have supper with the whole family?”

“Sure,” she said. He smiled, liking that she didn’t hedge or
hesitate for even a second.

“What time?” he asked his mom.

“Around seven.”

“We’ll be there.”

“We?” Ruby asked.

“I’m bringing a date. It’s a surprise, so don’t ask. And
we’ve even got dessert.”

Panic hit Bellamy’s face full force. “Oh my God, the pie!”

“Well, if it ain’t pretty Miss Bellamy Haile,” Ruby
declared, flinging her arms wide for a hug.

Bellamy blinked at the welcoming gesture then stepped into
the embrace, knowing it was going to knock her further off that axis she’d been
trying so desperately to cling to since she’d met Eli. She was right. Ruby’s
hug was full of warmth, genuine affection and homey smells. It reminded her of
the way it had felt to be around her grandmother.

“Eli never brings a girl around, so this is a really nice
surprise.”

“Mom!” Eli barked from behind Bellamy.

Ruby turned her loose and grabbed her son for a squeeze,
giving his cheek an embarrassing pat when she pulled away. “Just stating the
truth, eldest.”

Bellamy bit back a laugh, waving at Fritz, Kai and Sage, who
were scattered around the big kitchen in various spots.

“We brought pie,” Eli said, no doubt an attempt to steer his
mother away from his dating habits. “Homemade pumpkin. Bellamy made the entire
thing from scratch.”

“The crust got a little too brown around the edges,” Bellamy
said. “We were distracted by a horse.”

When Fritz coughed into his hand, Kai pinched him hard
enough to make him yelp while Bellamy’s face went up in flames.

Ruby laughed, oblivious it seemed, and fluttered a hand.
“I’m sure it will still taste delicious.”

“Oh, it does,” Eli said. “She had to sample it before we
left the house, see if it passed muster before we subjected y’all to it.”

“Whoa. Wait just a second.” This from Sage. “You baked a pie
at
Eli’s
?”

Bellamy nodded while Eli scowled, saying, “I cook all the
time.”

“But pies require spices, I assume.”

“You’ve had my homemade barbeque sauce before. Said it was
some of the best you’d ever tasted. And I make cinnamon toast for breakfast at
least once a week. The rest was common staples—eggs, butter, milk, flour.”

“Well, aren’t you Mr. Domestication,” Fritz drawled.

“Kiss my domesticated ass, both of you.”

Kai shoved Fritz into Eli. “There, maybe some of it will rub
off on you.”

Everyone cracked up laughing.

“Okay, enough arguing,” Ruby said. “You boys set the table
while we girls bring in the food.”

Kai nudged Bellamy as the sons filed out of the room to do
their mother’s bidding. “Friday night, eight o’clock, Sam’s Tavern. Me, you and
Grace are having ourselves a much needed girls’ night out.”

“Done,” Bellamy said.

Halfway through dinner, which was as delicious as expected,
Eli nodded toward Bellamy’s mostly cleaned plate. “You didn’t get any chicken.”

Uh oh. Busted.

“I don’t eat it.”

He frowned. “You don’t eat chicken?”

“I don’t eat meat.”

The whole table went silent. Forks stopped moving, jaws
stopped chewing, all eyes moving from Eli to Bellamy, back and forth.

Eli’s mouth worked around words he couldn’t seem to say.

“I’ve been a vegetarian since high school,” Bellamy
explained.

“You’re sitting at a table with three budding
cattlemen
and you mean to tell me you don’t eat beef?” Eli asked, but without any real
indignation. He was teasing because, like her, he was wrestling with a smile.

“That’s what I’m tellin’ you.” Then she glanced at Ruby. “No
offense to your cooking, Ruby. Everything I ate was wonderful.”

“Oh, none taken,” Ruby said with a dismissive wave.

Meanwhile, Eli appeared to still be in a mild form of shock.
“But…you fed me sausage that morning I brought your payment for pulling the
calf.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Did I?”

Next to her, Kai started to giggle, then Ruby clapped a hand
across her mouth, her shoulders shaking with mirth.

Eli pointed at her with his fork. “Bellamy Haile, if you fed
me tofu, so help me God—”

“You’ll what?” Bellamy smiled. “Drown it in sorghum syrup
and not know the difference? ‘Mm-mm, this is sooo good’!”

His grin won out, and he shook his head at her while the
whole table erupted with laughter. Even Joe, Eli’s dad, who’d barely uttered a
syllable all evening, wiped tears from his eyes.

“You’ll pay for that,” Eli said, just loud enough for Bellamy
to hear, and all her girly parts went warm and tingly.

They were finishing up Bellamy’s pumpkin pie—a hit, despite
the crust being too brown—when her phone trilled her mother’s ringtone from the
back pocket of her jeans.

“Excuse me,” Bellamy said, stepping out of the house to
answer. “Hi, Mom. You and Dad having a good time?”

“Oh yes. So much so that we’ve decided to stay longer. Your
dad wants to visit Arizona and New Mexico.”

Something twisted, sharp and tight, in her gut. “Oh. Then
you won’t be around for Thanksgiving, I’m guessing.”

“I doubt it. Maybe you can spend the holiday with a friend?”

She blinked away the sudden blur of tears. Her mother’s news
shouldn’t come as any real surprise, so why did it sting so much? Being around
Eli’s family, seeing how fun and close they were together, open and warm, only
served to shine a glaring spotlight on the things missing from hers.

Good thing she’d made a few friends, but it sucked having to
rely on an invite or spend the holiday alone. And she’d just bet Christmas
would be the same story.

“Maybe.” Bellamy tried to hide the quiver of disappointment
in her voice. “Where are you now?”

“The Grand Canyon.”

Apropos, considering the emotional distance that seemed to
stretch between them. A yawning empty cavern, dry as a bone left lying in the
desert sun.

“Still there, dear?” her mom asked.

She nodded at no one, fighting for a sound to emerge.

“Bellamy, did I lose you?”

Clearing her throat, she managed, “I’m here.”

“Oh good. Cell service has been spotty. I called to tell you
we received the tax bill on your grandmother’s place.”

“You’re getting mail while you’re gone?”

“One of our neighbors I trust is helping us with it. She
sends the important stuff by overnight mail whenever we know we’re going to be
staying someplace for more than a few days. Most of the RV parks will let you
receive packages.”

“I see.” Bellamy stepped off the Carters’ back porch,
crossing the yard to a wooden picnic table covered in crispy brown leaves. They
crunched beneath her bottom as she sat down on the top, bracing her feet on the
bench seat. “About the tax bill. You sending it to me to pay since I’m living
there now?”

It was only fair, she supposed.

“Yes, but I wanted to give you a heads up before you
received it. It’s a lot. All of the exemptions have finally dropped off, now
that your grandmother’s dead.”

Can’t you call her Mom? Jesus.

“How much is ‘a lot’?”

“Almost five thousand dollars.”

“Holy shit,” slipped out before Bellamy could stop it. She
didn’t have that kind of money saved. Being a large-animal vet in small-town
Georgia wasn’t exactly proving lucrative. Not that she ever intended to become
rich doing it, just comfortable. Perhaps able to pay off her student loans
faster and afford a newer vehicle at some point.

“But you have until the end of the year to pay them. Gives
you some time to save up the money. Or you could just sell the place. Mr.
Treadway, the neighbor who owns the adjoining land to the west, has wanted to
buy it for several years now. Since before your grandmother ever got sick. I
still have his number in my address book. I could give him a call for you.”

“No! Don’t. I’m…not sure that’s what I want to do yet.”

“Oh Bellamy. The place is too much for you and it’s falling
apart.”

She sighed and rubbed her forehead. She didn’t want to have
this conversation anymore. “I gotta go, Mom. You and Dad take care, okay?”

“We’ll talk again at Thanksgiving.” Then she hung up.
Thanksgiving was over three weeks away.

Bellamy stared down at the phone, noting the brief time
they’d talked, the hollow conversation of nothing but bad news and a total lack
of interest in how she was faring, before a fat tear landed on the display.
Damn.
And Eli chose that unfortunate moment to come looking for her. She swiped the
dampness off her cheeks while he made his way across the yard, grateful for the
mostly dark night to help hide her features.

He climbed up on the picnic table to sit down beside her,
wrapping a warm arm around her shoulders.

“You’re going to turn into a Popsicle out here without a
coat. Everything okay?”

She nodded, glancing away toward the fields behind the
house.

“Something tells me it’s not.”

“Can we go back to your place? I need to finish my laundry
and wash the dirty dishes we left in the sink.”

“It’ll all be there tomorrow, Bell.”

“Please?”

One side of his mouth curved before he kissed her temple,
but it didn’t erase the concern on his face. “Sure.”

* * * * *

Bellamy didn’t say two words on the ride back to his house.
Hadn’t, in fact, uttered a noise since they’d told his family goodbye. Eli kept
glancing over at her in the truck, but her face was averted while she stared
out the window. Something was wrong, courtesy of the phone call she’d gotten,
and it upset her enough to make her cry. Even with her best attempts at hiding the
tears, he’d seen them.

He wanted her to talk to him, except he should know by now
that she wasn’t the type to discuss her problems. Getting details out of her
was like chipping away at a mountain of stone with a butter knife.

While he loaded the dishwasher, she tossed her laundry into
the dryer then threw another load into the wash. He was sitting on the coach in
the living room absently surfing movie channels when she found him. Instead of
plopping down beside him, she straddled his lap, her hands immediately going to
the snaps of his shirt. She snatched the two halves apart then moved on to his
belt buckle.

He caught her wrists in his hands. “Bell, wait.”

Green eyes lifted to his, but they were shadowed by what
looked an awful lot like pain. His conscience wouldn’t let him ignore it in
favor of a fuck, no matter how badly he wanted her.

“For what? I don’t want to watch television.”

“You’re doing it again.”

“This isn’t gratitude sex, Eli.”

He switched off the TV with the remote then tossed it on an
end table. “I don’t mean that. You’re looking for a place to hide from
whatever’s bothering you. The same way you did the night we met. You chose me
over a bottle of tequila, remember?”

“So guess what? It works if you’ll play along.”

“I’ll be more than happy to if you’ll just talk to me
first.”

She slid off his lap with a huff. “I don’t
need
to
talk.”

“Yes, you do, and I’ll listen.”

Her fingers traced the piping on the couch cushion beside
her hip while she watched him, her teeth worrying the inside of her bottom lip.
Eli took off his boots before sliding to the floor and removing hers, along
with her socks. He massaged the arches of her feet, the tops, sliding his hands
under the legs of her jeans to rub her calves. Her tiny appreciative moan made
him smile, but he wanted to see
her
smile back.

“You would rather hear me, a
girl
, talk about my
problems instead of having sex? That doesn’t make any sense. You’re a man. I
thought sex always took precedence over the touchy-feely stuff.”

Damn, that stung. This relationship shit was hard. “I’m
going to ignore that remark because I know you feel cornered and the natural
reaction is to lash out at the closest thing. That thing being me.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, opened them, blinking rapidly.
“I’m sorry, Eli. Normally I’m not this bitchy.”

He placed her feet on his thighs, reclined back on his
hands. “I know that, and I forgive you.”

Patiently he waited for her to summon the courage to tell
him what was going on that was making her want to lose herself in sex.

“That was my mom who called earlier. I told you my parents
are on a trip out west, right?” At his nod, she continued. “They’re at the
Grand Canyon now before heading to Arizona, then New Mexico. They won’t be home
for Thanksgiving.”

“You can spend it with the Carters,” he said.

“The
reason
she called was to tell me she received
the tax bill on my grand—on
my
house, and that it’s almost five thousand
dollars. Then she told me to sell it.” Her bottom lip quivered before she
clamped it into obedience with her teeth.

“Why does the idea of selling it bother you so much?”

Bellamy sat forward, bracing her elbows on her knees while
she rubbed her forehead. “Because I love the place and I don’t understand how
she can be so callous about the home she grew up in. Doesn’t it
mean
anything to her at all? Hold any memories? Why doesn’t she understand how much
it means to
me
? Growing up, I spent every summer and school holiday
there. Every chance I got, I was in that house right up until my grandmother
grew too feeble to live alone. The thought of some stranger living there…or
taking a bulldozer to the place…it’s hard to take.”

“Have you tried telling her how you feel, Bell?”

“I shouldn’t have to. I’m her daughter. She should know. She
should
see
, but she’s never paid attention. She doesn’t care.”

“Sure she does.”

A harsh, watery laugh. “No, she doesn’t. You don’t get it,
Eli. My mom and dad are nothing like your family. There’s no warmth and joy and
closeness. No hugs and kisses and tender moments. No fun family dinners, like
tonight. The only people I got that from were Nana and Grandpa McCoy.”

He grabbed her hands in his, squeezing them, kissing the
backs of her fingers. Praying she wasn’t about to punch him for what he was
going to say. “You’re not gonna like what I’m about to tell you, but just hear
me out, okay?”