Oh-oh.Shirley was working in the next stall, pitching hay and raking. This was no time to slow down. Eloise put the tines to the ground and pushed all the harder, moving straw toward the door and then heaving it onto a mounting pile just outside. She was getting tired. Her arms were aching.
Fling! A sizable wad of straw came flying out of the next stall. Shirley was putting her back into it, looking good. No doubt she expected the same from Eloise, so Eloise kept at it, grunting with the effort, moving, moving, moving that straw.
The floor was finally clear. Eloise used the rake to pull the last straggling bits into the dustpan, then emptied the dustpan on top of the heap outside. Shirley must have finished as well. Things were quiet over there.
Very quiet. Eloise paused to listen and watch. No sound, no motion.
No pile outside the stall either. What did Shirley do, haul it off already? Eloise’s heart sank a touch. How could she ever keep up with that?
“Shirley?”
No answer.
“I’ve got these all done. Did you want to take a look?”
No answer.
Eloise approached the stall, neck craning.
No Shirley. All the straw and debris still lay on the floor of the stall as if she’d never been there.
“Shirley?”
Eloise looked, listened, and called again, but Shirley wasn’t in the barn. She closed her eyes in a long, earnest blink and opened them: same barn, same stalls, all quiet and normal, the scent of hay and manure still hanging in the air. She was still in the same place. Nothing had changed.
After a quiet, watchful moment she was able to sigh and tell herself, Well, this isn’t the first time. Take it in stride. Live with it.
But why today, of all days? What if things got really heavy like the other night, and she couldn’t tell the difference between real and weird right in front of Shirley or Mr. Collins?
She went into the next stall and got to work. It was all she could do, the best she could do. She dug in, pitched the hay out the door, raked some more, pitched some more—
Until she heard someone in the previous stall, pitching and raking. Oh, please.She wilted, rolling her eyes. Well, okay, live with it, but no messing around this time!Pitchfork still in hand, she dashed over and looked in the stall.
It was all cleaned out, just the way she’d left it, and no one was there.
Don’t think about it,she told herself. Just keep your mind and your eyes in the real world and don’t go anywhere else, especially today.
As she showered, she tried to experience nothing but the hot water drenching her head and streaming off her nose and chin. As she stood in front of the bathroom mirror she tapped the side of her face to see if her reflection would do the same. Still there? Still Eloise? So far.
Okay. This is real.
What if he asks me how I do what I do? What if he expects me to levitate and I start seeing … he’s going to think … oh, bummer. I can’t go there.
She put out a hand and touched the wall next to the mirror. You’re in the bathroom in the shop building. You have fifteen minutes to get down to the house and have lunch with Mr. Collins. It’s down that gravel path, the same one you came up with Shirley. Stay with it now.
Dane had prepared a small lunch for himself. He’d set the breakfast nook table for two, just functional, not fancy. He was heating up some chocolate syrup to make a café mocha, not for himself but for Eloise, and for no other reason than to see if she liked them. Mandy always did.
As he punched in the settings for a double shot—that’s how Mandy liked her mochas—he reassured himself once again that he was being rational. Yes, there were emotions involved, but he was aware of them, they were on hold, and he would deal with them with no denial. Yes, the very notion that she could be … that she was somehow … well, it was madness, self-delusion, a trick of emotions, hormones, and/or painkillers, buthe was approaching this whole thing logically, at minimal risk. In his orientation interview with her that morning he’d slipped in perfectly acceptable, nonpersonal questions for an employer to ask and gotten a string of yeses: Yes, she’d worked on a ranch, had worked with horses, could drive a tractor, had done some plumbing and some carpentry, and this was information that would not have been publicly available—just like her beverage of choice. This café mocha would be another question, a tiny, risk-free inquiry. If she didn’t care for mocha he could always drink it.
Oh!There she was, freshened up, in a clean change of clothes, hair shampoo-soft, looking timid, as if she were a troubled student and he was the vice principal. His first impulse was to smile and try to set her at ease. “Well, hello. How’d your morning go?”
She returned his smile, but it wasn’t her real one. “I think it went fine. I got four and a half stalls done.”
“Would you like a double-shot café mocha—decaf?”
Now the smile was half real and the eyes widened with surprise. “Wow! That’s my favorite! Thanks.”
Bam! Another yes.
The look on his face made her look herself over. “What?”
He got over whatever it was and laughed at himself. “Oh, nothing, I’m just … amazed. Boy, did I guess lucky! Have a seat.” He nodded toward the breakfast nook. She gravitated to the far chair facing the kitchen and checked by pointing at it. “Yep.”
The table was set with plates, silverware, and paper napkins. She pulled her chair back and placed her sack lunch next to her plate.
He brought her mocha as she sat down. “It’s dirty work, isn’t it?”
“I don’t mind.”
He had half a sandwich prepared for himself—a nice-looking stack of wheat bread, tomatoes, pickles, and what appeared to be prime rib, along with a cup of nonfat strawberry yogurt and a cup of coffee. He took the chair across from her. “Well, right, you’ve worked on a ranch before.”
Well … in a way.“Uh-huh.”
“Was that your home?”
“Uh …” Come on, Eloise, answer the question. How?“Um … most of my life. I think.”
“So you raised horses. Any cattle?”
Her answer was a totally dumb-sounding “Uh-huh,” and it sounded so guilty a cop would have arrested her.
“So I guess your dad was a rancher.”
The answer stuck in her throat.
“Oh, would that be too personal?”
“Um … it could get that way.”
“I understand.”
She groped in her lunch sack and found some celery sticks with peanut butter. She bit off half of one just to stuff her mouth. He took a bite from his sandwich and there was sweet, safe silence.
Not for long.
“I knew some folks who raised llamas,” he said.
It wasn’t even a question, but it stopped a stick of celery halfway to her mouth, and the look on her face made him check himself for a drool or a spill.
“We raised”—she had to clear her throat—“we raised some llamas. Isn’t that a trip?”
Now he had to mind what his face might be doing. Oh, yes, it was a trip, all right—and the vernacular had not gotten by him. “You—you really did?”
“And my dad was an architect. We did ranching because we loved it.”
“So that’s where you learned to drive a tractor and do carpentry and all that?”
“My mom died when I was thirteen, so it was just Daddy and me to run the place. But Mom used to do all that stuff, and Daddy told me, ‘When you get married and have a family of your own, you’ll need to know all this stuff too so you can take care of them.’”
He went for it. “And I’ll bet you raised doves.”
All right, now, that was just plain creepy. Was it happening again? Her insides hurt the way they used to when her folks would catch her doing something wrong; her fingers were quivering as she groped for her lunch sack and peered inside. “Did you … ? What did you say?”