Once she was behind the wheel of the car, she headed toward the highway. She kept looking for Eli’s truck anywhere, but she couldn’t find it. A nagging feeling that something wasn’t quite right tugged at the back of her mind, but she ignored it. They had talked about her leaving, and they both knew it had to happen, that there was no getting around it.

  Her drive to the airport was uneventful. Her flight was the same. When she landed in Dallas, she took a rideshare to her apartment. Everything was in the same place as it was when she’d left two weeks before with so much hope for a break from everything. She’d had a break for sure, but something still felt unsettled.

  Sarah stood in front of the large window in her high rise, staring out at the darkening sky and the horizon. She hadn’t lied to Eli when she said the sky seemed so much bigger there than in Dallas. Tears stung her eyes as she forced herself to turn around and start in on her next preparations. She had two weeks left until her tour started. They had final rehearsals, final checks on their reservations for everything. She hadn’t meant to smash so much into the next two weeks, but the break had been just what she needed to get through to the next little bit.

  Dumping her clothes into the wash, she sighed as the scent hit her. Everything she had brought home with her smelled like Eli, that half-cow-shit, half-soap scent. A tear grazed down her cheek, and she wiped it away with more force than she intended. She hadn’t gotten a text or a phone call from Eli. Nothing. No checking about how her flight had been or if she’d made it back safely.

  Pursing her lips as she set her washer to run, Sarah debated whether or not to take that step herself. She held the phone in her hand, wondering what Eli was doing at that moment, wondering where she was, what she was thinking. She rubbed her fingers across her lips, remembering the last time Eli had kissed her. Everything felt uneven and distorted. The bubble they had created in those two short weeks had burst.

  Anxious pain lanced in her belly, but Sarah ignored it. She opened her phone and sent a quick text to let Eli know she was home, that she had enjoyed her time there, and that she hoped and wanted to see her again. After she hit send, she threw her phone onto her couch and went to stare out the window of her apartment. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to need a break from her break.

  When her phone rang, she jerked suddenly. She ran to it, picking it up, but it wasn’t Eli. It was her agent. Disappointment chilled her bones as she answered, ready to get down to the business of what still needed to be taken care of. Maybe the tour was exactly what she needed then, to distract herself from the whirlwind that was Elijah Wilson.

  Chapter 17

  It had been the longest two weeks of her life. Eli had avoided the house as much as she could, putting every ounce of extra energy she had into her cattle and her wheat and her house and building the stupid wedding arch she had thought would be a good idea but was starting to regret. She’d crawl into her bed at night, lonely and so exhausted that her body had no hope but to crash hard until she had to wake up and do it all over again.

  One week had not been enough time for them to explore everything they could have been together, but then again, two weeks probably wouldn’t have been enough time for that either. And they both knew it was temporary. It had to be. Eli wasn’t built for traveling like Sarah was. She’d made that very clear from the outset, and she in no way expected Sarah to give up any of her life either.

  They were two very different people who happened to share one very nice and very short week together. It was nothing more beyond that. They’d both known it going in, but Eli couldn’t for the life of her figure out why she still struggled with it.

  She slammed the truck door shut and went out into the fields. Bill would already be there, she was sure. She needed an extra hand that day, and he was always willing to give her some help if she needed it. Sure enough, as Eli pulled out into the lower pasture, she saw his truck with him sitting inside of it.

  Eli parked next to him and grabbed the stuff she needed. When she got out, so did Bill, and he met her at the back of her truck where she pulled over a bucket with tags, iodine, and the tagger she’d used for years. She cleaned it off good to make sure everything would work right and checked it out, not saying anything to Bill.

  “Elijah...”

  “What?” she muttered.

  “I have let it slide until now, but you’re going to have to tell me what’s going on. You and Bridget have a fight again?”

  She shot him a dirty look. “No, and really, doesn’t anyone in town mind their own business?”

  His lips quirked to the side at the comment, and she knew he was thinking exactly what she was thinking. The answer was never. He pulled up to sit on the bed of the truck and stared at her as she continued to fiddle with the tagging equipment far more than she needed to.

  “You know, when you were about eight years old—”

  “Really, Bill? We’re going with this?” Eli grabbed the bucket and set her shoulders, ready to leave or do anything other than what she knew was coming. A lecture. From the only person she had gotten so many lectures from, it rivaled her own parents.

  He gave her a firm look, and Eli dropped the bucket on the ground and glared at him. He started over again.

  “When you were about eight years old, you asked me if it was okay to marry Ava.”

  Eli paled. She didn’t remember that at all. Remembered nothing of that conversation. Bill rubbed his lips together as he stared at her.

  “I wasn’t quite sure what to say to you because I didn’t know why you were asking, and after a few more follow up questions, I realized you weren’t asking if you could marry Ava, but if you could marry someone like Ava, a girl. So yes, Eli, I knew you were gay probably before you ever did.”

  Clenching her jaw, Eli wrapped her arms over her chest wishing the conversation would be done and over with already.

  “Now I realized you weren’t interested in Ava pretty early on, not to mention, she was not interested in you.”

  “When hell freezes over is the phrase that comes to mind.”

  “Yes.” He pointed his finger at her. “But nonetheless, I was not afraid to let you be friends with my daughter. I was not afraid of who you would become because I knew you would become someone great, that you were more than who you liked or didn’t like. Everyone is, really, but that’s neither here nor there.”

  “What’s your point, Bill? You’re getting long-winded.”

  One more pointed look shut her right up. “Bridget did not have the same freedom you did in that regard. You know as well as I do what it was like to grow up in her house and the shame she still has from that.”

  “Bridget and I broke up two years ago. Get with the program. We did not have a fight because there are no more fights to have.”

  “I know.” He raised his hands in the air. “Hear me out.”

  “Can I hear you out while we walk down and catch cows?”

  “No. This is important.”

  “Fine.” Eli had been put in her place. Had her own father been there, he would have either joined in the conversation with Bill or he would have laughed at Bill’s attempts to lecture before telling Eli to shut up and listen. She leaned against the tailgate but refused to sit on it like him, wanting to make sure he knew she still needed to get the tagging done that day.

  Bill pulled out a can of chew from his back pocket and slipped some tobacco under his lower lip. No other sound greeted her but the brush of the wind and occasionally the keening of a cow far off in the pasture. When he was done, he pressed a hand to hers and then patted the top of it before letting go.

  “You and Bridget had a couple fights the other week.”

  “So.”

  “So the whole town is talking after the last one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Meaning, Bridget called in she was pulled over to check the truck because of certain activity before she got out to see who was in the truck. Also meaning Kitty drove by while you two were standing outside arguing.”

  “Damn it.”

  “Yep. So the two of you had an argument last week, and you know, it took me longer than I would like to admit to figure out why Bridget and you would be fighting again after two years of being off.”

  Eli pressed her lips tightly together. She wasn’t going to admit it if she didn’t have to, but she was pretty sure everything was about to come tumbling out.

  “You haven’t been to town in two weeks, Eli.”

  “What’s your point?” Eli dug the toe of her boot into the hard topsoil while she clenched her jaw and stared out at the horizon.

  Bill spit at the ground and let the silence sit a moment. “You know you can talk to me, kid, right? You’ve never had a problem talking to me before. Remember when you and Ava went out and got drunk at the bonfire and came home sick beyond words?”

  “Yeah, I remember that.” Once again Eli was lost on where he was going with the story, but that was often how Bill talked. Winding his way through different stories to prove his point.

  He knocked his shoulder into hers. “I never told your dad.”

  “Ever? How did he find out then?”

  “Eli, you were three sheets to the wind. He’s not stupid. Even sober you’re a bad liar.”

  Rolling her eyes, Eli waited for him to continue.

  “You can trust me. You can talk to me, and God knows, sometimes you need to talk to someone other than Cassie.”

  Laughing, Eli rolled her shoulders and pulled herself up to sit next to him. Neither said anything for quite some time, and when she put her head on his shoulder, he wrapped his arm around her in a side hug, and Eli melted. She’d almost forgotten how much like a second father he was to her.

  “We did fight, Bridget and me. At bingo the other week, she kissed me—very unwanted. Anyway, I thought that was the end of it, but it wasn’t, and when she pulled up on me that day, I realized how bad it was. So yeah, we fought, but I think we worked it out. Finally. Nothing like two years too late, huh?”

  “It’s never too late. Was she right?”

  “Right about what?”

  “What she saw between you and that girl.”

  Eli rubbed her hand over her forehead as she focused in on Sarah, who would probably take offense to being called a girl by a guy who was no more than ten or fifteen years older than her, but that was neither here nor there. She wasn’t sure how she wanted to answer him. She wouldn’t lie, of course, but she hadn’t fully sorted through everything herself. She’d mostly just avoided it. When she turned to him, he stared directly into her eyes, his balding head reflecting the sun from the middle of the day.

  “Shouldn’t you be wearing a hat? Your bald spot is shiny. Don’t need cancer.”

  “Eli.”

  “Sorry, yes, Bridget was right.”

  He nodded. “I thought as much when I saw you at the sausage supper. What are you going to do about it?”

  “Nothing.” Eli shoved off the truck and stepped away from him, grabbing her bucket of tagging tools and lifting it up. “I’m gonna go tag me some cows. You coming?”

  He groaned as he got off the truck, the vehicle moving when his weight was no longer pushing it down. When he stepped toward her, she thought the conversation was over, that she’d managed to end it, but the sad look in his eyes told her it was far from over.

  “You should call her.”

  “What’s the point? Our lives are not compatible. There’s no way it would work.”

  “You don’t know that if you don’t give it a try.”

  “I refuse to do to her what Dad did to Mom.” Eli turned then, leaving him behind her as she walked toward her cattle. They had at least a dozen calves to catch and tag that day, and the longer Bill stood there and talked, the longer it was going to take, and Eli wasn’t sure she had the energy to run circles around him anymore—or the will.

  When they got down the hill, Bill put a hand on her arm to stop her. “You should ask your mom if the decision was worth it or if she feels it was a mistake.”

  Eli didn’t answer him. Instead, she set her bucket down, prepared a tag, and grabbed her notebook to record everything. She handed them over to Bill as she went on to catch one of the calves. Buddy was the easiest, since he already liked her from her feeding him when he was first born.

  She wrapped her arms around his middle and sat him on his butt, while she swung a leg over his hind quarters to keep him in place. Bill came over without a word and pierced the tag through Buddy’s ear. After checking to make sure it was properly in place, Eli let Buddy go, patted his bum, and sent him on his way. It took them the better part of the afternoon to catch the calves that had been born the last month and tag them all, but eventually they were done. She’d have to do another round of it when her cows were done with calving, but she’d rather do them in small batches than all at once.

  Luckily, Bill didn’t bring Sarah up again—or Bridget for that matter. By the time she got back to the house, her muscles ached from wrestling calves. Stripping down, Eli jumped into the hottest shower she could stand and pressed her forehead to the cold tile. Bill was right, as much as she didn’t like to admit it. Sometimes she really hated the fact that he knew her so well. That still didn’t tell her what she was going to do about it all, though. Collapsing into bed after scrounging up some food, Eli tried to shut her mind off so when her alarm went off at three in the morning she’d have a chance of being able to focus.

  Sarah was late. She hated being late. By the time she pulled up to the Flying Saucer in Garland, she knew Kara was going to be annoyed with her. When she sat down at the small table outside—near enough to the lake that they felt like they were almost on the water.

  “I’m so sorry. 620 was backed up.”

  “It’s always backed up.”

  “I know.” Sarah clenched her jaw. In all honestly, she’d left her apartment late because she hadn’t been quite sure she wanted to go, but then the thought of ditching Kara had guilted her into going anyway. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to explain that whole ordeal to her.

  It was likely going to be their last time seeing each other in person for the next six or seven months, and she didn’t want to leave her best friend without saying goodbye—not that they wouldn’t talk during that time almost constantly, but it was far more difficult to keep in touch on tour than when she was in the same city.

  “How’s everything going?” Kara asked as the waitress came over to take Sarah’s order.

  “It’s going.”

  “You’ve been quiet.”

  “Have I?” Sarah honestly hadn’t noticed. She’d been so caught up in finalizing all the details and overtime practice runs of their sets that she wasn’t even sure what day it was most of the time, or what time of night it was.

  Kara nodded. “I don’t think you’ve texted in days.”

  “I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t. She honestly hadn’t even noticed she’d kind of dropped off the face of the planet. When her beer arrived, she drank at least half of it before she popped a handful of the dill popcorn into her mouth. Kara eyed her curiously before she set her own drink down and stared out at the water. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Kara sighed. “You know, I was thinking of maybe moving home.”

  “What? Why?”

  Kara shrugged. “Easier. Don’t have to deal with broken hearts all over the place.”

  Sarah froze. Her gaze moved straight from the wooden bowl of popcorn to Kara’s expressive eyes, and it wasn’t fear or worry or anxiety or sadness Kara looked at her with. It was anger. She was had. “I’m not running.”

  “You are.”

  “I’m not.”

  “You are.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Sarah, I have known you for years. Trust me, you are running.”

  “I’m going on tour, which has been in the works for years. I can’t be running when all I’m doing is going to work.”

  Kara smirked, then straightened her back and leaned over the table like she had a huge secret to share. “You don’t have to be getting physically farther away to be running.”

  “Fuck that.”

  Kara raised an eyebrow at Sarah, and Sarah muttered an apology before Kara started again. “Did you or did you not sleep with the handsome, talented, hot and cold B&B owner?”

  “She doesn’t own it yet.”

  “Semantics. Sarah, quit avoiding. I’m serious.”

  Sarah narrowed her gaze with a glare. She drew in a deep breath, spinning the glass in front of her in circles. “I’m not avoiding, really. What is there to run from? It was a week.”

  “Two weeks.”

  “A week, not even a week. But whatever.”

  “You were there for two weeks.”

  “Yeah, but we didn’t...it was less than a week.”

  “Sarah, I know you really well by this point. Trust me when I say the attraction started well before you two were boinking.”

  “Boinking? What are we? Twelve?”

  “You’re not because you’re old. I, however, am a spirited, young, barely twenty-something.”

  “Shut up.” Sarah finished her beer, wishing she could have another already at the table waiting for her. She’d been thinking non-stop about Eli whenever she wasn’t thinking about her music or her tour, but then she’d sing the song that started it all, the song that was on the radio when she’d figured out Eli knew who she was the entire flipping time.

  When the waitress came back, Sarah ordered food and another beer while Kara just ordered food. She rubbed her fingers together and bounced her foot as she waited impatiently for the waitress to return, but Kara’s hand on hers stopped her in her tracks.

  “What happened?”

  “What do you mean? We hooked up. I had to come back to Dallas, and that was the end of it. It’s not like there were any promises of forever or proposals in the mix. I was gone for two freakin’ weeks, Kara, I’m not that fast. I am not a U-Haul lesbian.”