Eli wasn’t sure what made him more uneasy: the fact that Beth was only going to be temporary help at the clinic or that she’d signed on to stay at all. He might have gotten her from point A to point B like Delaney had asked him to do, but in the grand scheme of what should have been a random spring Tuesday, he’d taken every wrong turn possible when it came to Beth Spence.
He lifted the griddle from the burner, gave it a little shake, and flipped the pancake from one side to the other.
“Well, color me impressed, Dr. Murphy. I’ve never seen anyone do that in real life.”
Eli’s head shot up to find the woman in question standing on the opposite side of the L-shaped counter.
Her blond hair lay damp and wavy on her shoulders, the gray cotton of her T-shirt growing dark where the water had soaked through. The left leg of her white joggers was pulled up, resting on top of her cast, while the elastic of her right leg gathered at her ankle.
“Sorry,” she added when he didn’t speak. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that, but you looked like you were concentrating on what you were doing. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Eli was staring, but in his defense, it had been—how long was it?—years since he’d seen a woman in his home fresh from a shower. Okay, so technically this was the guesthouse on the property and not his actual home, but close enough.
“If that’s my pancake, Doc, I think it’s burning.”
“Shit,” he hissed, eyes darting back to the griddle. He turned off the burner and slid the giant pancake onto the plate waiting on the counter. “It’s a little crispy at the edges, but otherwise it’s still in good shape.” He lifted the plate and handed it to her. “There’s a glass of water, some silverware, and syrup on the table behind you.”
Beth grinned and closed her eyes, breathing in the steam rising from the plate. “Oh my god,” she said, eyes fluttering open. “It smells like fresh baked banana bread.”
The corner of Eli’s mouth twitched. “That right there is my world-famous, big-as-your-head, banana bread pancake.” And the only thing he knew how to cook, not that he was about to admit that.
Beth set the plate back on the counter, tore off a piece of the pancake, and popped it into her mouth.
“Oh. My. Gaw!” she exclaimed, mouth still partially open to account for the heat of what was still an extremely hot hotcake. She finished chewing and swallowing. “Why would I ruin this with syrup?” She tore off another piece and greedily shoved it into her mouth.
Eli crossed his arms and raised his brows, now staring unapologetically at the woman enjoying his cooking. How could he not when she was smiling from ear to ear with every bite?
“You’re welcome to sit down if you want to. This is your place after all,” he told her, keenly aware of his own grin and realizing that maybe their strange introduction included a couple of right turns after all.
She laughed, then covered her full mouth with her hand as she finished her most recent bite. She glanced from the small but—in Eli’s opinion—adequate kitchen to the plush cream sofa overrun with throw pillows to the bedroom door that now hung open on the wall kitty-corner to his right.
“It’s not big,” he added, attempting to answer the questions in her head. “But it’s clean. The fridge is stocked. And it’s rent-free.”
She turned back to face him. “You’re kidding, right? You think I find this place lacking? I live in a studio apartment attached to my parents’ Vegas motel. And I use the term apartment loosely. This place is at least twice the size and has both a tub and shower? Dr. Murphy, this is the lap of luxury, and you are quite the decorator.”
Eli’s smile faltered, but he did his best to paint it back on.
“I can’t take credit for the decorating,” he admitted. “That was all Tess. But I did install the tub, so I guess I had a little something to do with how the place turned out.”
Beth swallowed, but she hadn’t been eating anything at that moment. “Tess…” she began. “She was your wife?”
Was your wife. So she already knew.
He blew out a breath. “I guess Delaney told you.” He didn’t mind when Tess came up. But he tried to avoid having to tell the story again and again. It would be easier if he could just hand every new person he met a sort of press briefing or memo that got the hard part out of the way.
She nodded. “She mentioned it a while back when the shelter was just getting up and running. Horseback riding accident, right? I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking with the decorating comment. I’m sure this is the last thing you intended to talk to me about.”
He stepped out of the kitchen area and strode toward the sofa and the chaise longue portion that was covered end to end with pillows. He pivoted to face her, perching on the arm of the chaise.
“The accident? No. I don’t really talk about that. But Tess? She designed this place. It was meant for family. Anyone who wanted to visit would always have a place to stay. Her parents had just sold their place and retired to this great little condo village on Lake Tahoe, so it was perfect. But when I lost her…” He let the words hang in the air a moment, waiting to see if they tried to strangle him or buoy him forward. He inhaled, something in Beth’s gaze telling him that whichever way this turned, it was okay. “She was an only child. We didn’t have any kids.” He shrugged. “The place has been kind of empty for a while.”
Eli had two brothers, and once upon a time he thought he and Tess would follow in his parents’ footsteps—three little horseback-riding rug rats running around the property, the guesthouse always filled with guests. Now it was just him. He’d gotten used to the solitude, to not having to worry about anyone other than his patients and himself and occasionally his younger brothers, especially when they sprung new horses on him without warning.
Eli stared at the mess of pillows and shook his head. Then he picked one up and held it to his chest, wearing it like armor. He waited for the tilt of the head or the Poor Eli frown. But Beth hopped up onto the counter, one bare foot dangling next to her cast.
“You hate those pillows,” she said, brows raised.
The laugh rose from his gut and escaped his lips before he registered what happened.
“How did you know?” he asked, incredulous.
Beth nodded toward the pillow he was holding. “You all but sneered at that poor stuffed piece of fabric. What did it ever do to you other than offer comfort and, no doubt, sincere design aesthetic?”
Eli laughed again. “I didn’t sneer. I don’t sneer.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Fine. It wasn’t a sneer, but it was this look of, like…what’s the word I’m looking for?”
Resignation, he thought, just as Beth added, “Oh! Resignation. Like, ‘You know what, pillow? We’re both here, so we might as well make the best of it.’” She gave him a self-satisfied grin.
Well, shit. You might be even more intuitive than Lucy.
“Who’s Lucy?” Beth asked.
Eli’s eyes grew wide. “I said that out loud?”
She nodded. “Are you okay?”
Yes. No. What was happening? He felt fine, only…off. Like something in the air had shifted. Maybe a cold front was on its way in and the change in barometric pressure was messing with his head. Or maybe it had just been so long since he’d held a conversation that lasted more than ninety seconds that he’d forgotten the difference between inner monologue and actual spoken words.
“You were talking about someone named Lucy?” she prodded again.
“You mean this nosy girl?”
Eli stood, glancing over Beth’s shoulder to where the screen door slammed back against the frame, and a slightly older version of Beth entered…following the matriarch of the Murphy property, Lucy.
Delaney scrambled after the hen, her blond ponytail swishing wildly behind her as she struggled to catch what she must have thought would be a calm little hen.
“Ouch!” Beth yelped before she had a chance to greet her sister. She jerked her bare foot up to the counter and gasped when she saw a speck of blood on her ankle. “That, that, that, that happy meal waiting to happen just bit me!” She rubbed her ankle, lips pursed in a pout.
Delaney picked the bird up and held it under her arm like a football. “Don’t you listen to her, Luce,” she cooed. “Bethy’s not quite at one with ranch life just yet.” She kissed her sister on the cheek and then rolled her eyes as Beth tended to her wound.
Okay, so maybe it was more than a speck of blood if Eli could see it from several feet away.
“How’d she get out of the coop?” Eli asked, only mild accusation in his tone as he rounded the counter and headed for the sink. He grabbed the first aid kit from the cabinet above. “Also, it’s not a ranch,” he reminded his friend.
“Why do you automatically blame me?” Delaney teased. Looked like she picked up on the accusation. “And you have a barn that houses not one but two horses, Eli. If it looks like a horse ranch and acts like a horse ranch…”
Eli pivoted and exited the kitchen area, pausing briefly to give Delaney’s elbow a nudge with his own.
“I also have a chicken coop with all the chickens locked safely inside when I left this morning and when I returned after doing you a favor. If it looks like you had something to do with the escape and Lucy acts like she’s trying to evade the person responsible…” He raised his brows, and Delaney responded with an exasperated eye roll.
“Um, hello?” Beth interrupted. “Anyone remember the one who almost got pecked to death?”
Eli cleared his throat, and Delaney sighed.
“I saw her through the fence, and she looked lonely,” Delaney admitted. “Thought she and Bethy would have this amazing meet-cute, and Beth would fall in love with her and not be sad about her injury anymore and want to stay in Meadow Valley forever.” Delaney turned toward her sister and batted her lashes as she offered Beth a nervous smile.
Beth lifted her hand from her ankle to reveal a small but more significant cut than Eli had thought.
Delaney winced, and Eli slipped between the two women, setting the small plastic box on the counter next to Beth. “Can I see it?” he asked, nodding toward the palm that covered the wound again.
Lucy squawked at Beth.
Beth glared at the hen. He half expected the woman to squawk back.
Eli glanced at Delaney over his shoulder. “I don’t think your plan is working. Would you mind tossing her back in the coop? Promise you can try again tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Beth cried. “I don’t think so.”
Delaney sighed. “She’s not usually like this, Bethy. I swear. Only when she…”
Eli’s shoulders tensed as Delaney trailed off.
“I mean, I’ll be right back,” she sputtered. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Beth rolled her eyes. “Where am I going?” she mumbled. “I’m just getting back on my feet in this stupid cast, and now there’s a chicken trying to hobble me for good.”
“Lucy’s harmless,” Eli told her as he pulled a chair from the table and sat down in front of her.
“Wait…” she started.
He glanced up at her.
“That was Lucy? You were comparing me to a violent chicken?” She raised her brows and set her jaw.
Eli bit back a smile. He noticed himself doing that a lot today, which oddly made the hair prickle on the back of his neck.
“Can you hand me that?” He nodded toward the first aid kit, and she gave it to him with her free hand. “And she’s not violent,” he continued as he opened the small box and retrieved an antiseptic wipe. “But some folks around here believe she’s psychic.”
Beth snorted, then covered her mouth with both hands, which was when Eli swooped in. He lowered her foot to his lap, and she hissed in a breath between clenched teeth as he cleaned the small wound.
“Sorry,” he told her. “But that’s the worst of it.” Then he blew softly on the affected area before covering it with a small bandage. “Good as new,” he added, then met her eyes as he closed up the kit and set it on the ground.
She was staring at him, mouth open, still like the air before a storm creeping in.
“Are you…breathing?” he asked.
She pressed a hand to her chest, and he watched the shallow rise and fall as she did, in fact, circulate air through her lungs.
She nodded.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “But why did you… I mean, how did you know…”
“I’m baaack,” Delaney singsonged as she bounded through the door again. She shook out her floral sundress and pulled the elastic from her ponytail, refashioning her hair into a bun atop her head. “When is this heat supposed to let up? I moved to the north for snow.”
Eli laughed. “Northern California is hardly the north, but it’s more temperate than Vegas. That’s for sure. And you’ll get your snow. We always do. But spring is spring, and summer is summer, and you’ll have to find a way to survive both before we get our first frost.”
Even he could feel the room grow warmer every time Delaney opened and closed the front door. Or was it just that he wasn’t used to being this close to another human, to skin-on-skin contact even if it was only a matter of first aid.
Delaney turned to her sister. “I see Dr. Murphy made sure you weren’t mortally wounded.” She nodded toward the foot that still rested in Eli’s lap.
Beth jerked it away almost as fast as Eli tossed it toward the floor and sprang from the chair.
Delaney held up her hands. “Whoa. Not like I caught you two making out under the bleachers. The doctor’s allowed to take care of the patient.”
Eli cleared his throat and took the first aid kit with him back to the kitchen.
“Did you tell him to blow on it, Bethy, like Mom always did when you were little?”
Eli froze in front of the sink, arm stretched upward and his hand on the cabinet pull.
“Ever since a particularly bad knee scrape when we were kids—if I remember correctly—Bethy’s been terrified of injuries that involve any sort of bloodshed, but our mom had the magic touch.”
He heard Delaney sigh, and he forced himself to turn around.
Beth hopped off the counter, wobbling on her left foot before steadying herself.
“I’m a big girl now, Lanes,” she remarked coolly. “I’m certainly not afraid of a little scratch. Thanks to the pandemic, I made it through surgery and a night in the hospital all by myself.” She brushed off her T-shirt even though there was nothing on it. “I’m going to finish drying my hair so Eli can show me around the clinic.” She backed toward the bedroom. “Pick me up later for dinner?”
Delaney nodded, and Beth disappeared into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.
Eli tossed the kit back into its cabinet and turned back to Delaney. “She went through the surgery alone?”
Delaney nodded, pivoting to face him.
“And she’s a dancer?” He’d been trying to piece it all together without asking. He knew enough from experience not to ask someone about their trauma when it was still so new. If they wanted to talk about it, they would.
Delaney nodded again.
Behind the closed bedroom door, he heard the muffled sound of a hair dryer as Beth turned it on.
Delaney glanced over her shoulder and then moved closer. “This is it, Eli,” she whispered even though there was no way Beth could hear them over the sound of the dryer. “The doctor told her that because of her age and the severity of the tear, this is a career-ending injury.”
“Age?” Eli asked. If he had to guess, which he never would out loud, she couldn’t be more than twenty-five.
“Her thirtieth birthday is next month. You know how there’s dog years and stuff like that for animals with shorter life spans than humans?”
He nodded.
“Well, the same goes for dancers and the hell they put their bodies through. She was this close when…” Delaney held her thumb and index finger an inch apart, but then she trailed off.
Eli crossed his arms. “So Beth was right. You don’t believe she can come back from this.”
Delaney’s eyes widened. “You’re a doctor. Are you telling me I shouldn’t trust the medical professional?”
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up again. He was a doctor, and he had no idea why he was tossing logic out the window when he was sure Beth’s surgeon knew what the hell they were talking about. But Eli tossed it nonetheless.
“Trust the doctor, sure. But it’s also okay to trust your sister. I’m not saying I believe in mindset over science or the psychic abilities of chickens…” He raised his brows and glanced toward the front door and the direction of the coop. “But there’s something to be said for a patient’s attitude and how it contributes to their healing. I’ve seen horses with leg breaks I thought I could heal who just seemed to give up after the injury, leaving euthanasia as the only option.” He scrubbed a hand across his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing images of Fury out of his head. “All I’m saying is that no matter what the future holds for your sister, don’t let her give up on herself. She’s got a shit ton of fight in her still, and that’s coming from someone who’s known her for a matter of hours.”
Delaney raised her brows.
Eli slid past her, suddenly needing a change of location.
“I need to check on the new horse Boone brought over this morning. Can you tell your sister to meet me inside the clinic in twenty minutes?”
He was already backing toward the front door.
Delaney crinkled up her nose. “Was someone cooking with bananas? I swear I used to love them before I got pregnant with Nolan. Can’t stand them now.”
Neither could Tess.
He spun on his heel and called over his shoulder, ignoring her question, “Twenty minutes, okay?”
“Okay,” Delaney called back. “Also, I don’t care if you don’t believe in psychic abilities! You know Lucy is always right, and I think maybe the reason she went vampire on Beth was…”
But he was already out the door, hightailing it to the barn, before he heard the rest.
Chickens weren’t psychic.
The pillow thing and the blowing on the wound thing… God, why had he done that? It was all coincidence.
You like her! Tess’s voice teased in his head as if she was thrilled with the news.
Not that there was news. He’d just met the woman. He knew nothing about her other than she was dealing with a huge setback, and the last place she wanted to be was Meadow Valley, yet here she was.
Also, Beth didn’t hate bananas. Still, that was coincidence. Most people didn’t hate bananas.
Eli made it to the barn, heart hammering in his chest as he passed Cirrus’s stall and made his way to the one at the other end.
Midnight whinnied and took a step toward her stall door as soon as he approached, but when she attempted to put weight on her injured leg, she limped back, almost cowering against the wall.
Eli’s eyes locked on hers, and his stomach lurched. He had to brace himself against the door. Even for a logical man like himself, this was too much coincidence for one day.
With every hammering beat of his heart, he felt the pounding of hooves beneath the saddle, felt every muscle in his body working in tandem as he rose and fell in rhythm with her gallop. The stagnant summer air vanished, and instead the wind threatened to whip his cattleman from his head. Eli let go of the reins with one hand just in time to catch his hat as he whooped and hollered with an indescribable joy.
Not real, a voice inside his head whispered.
He squeezed his eyes shut, the sudden vertigo making down feel like up and up like down. He’d never experienced anything like it, and he was beginning to think that maybe, if there was some sort of universal higher power, it had chosen today to fuck with Eli Murphy.
When the room seemed to stop spinning, he finally looked up again and straight into the mare’s dark and frightened eyes, the familiar pattern of a white star on her black coat splitting the distance between them.
“Fury?” he muttered, his voice hoarse. Then he fell to his knees, emptying the contents of his stomach onto the dusty and gritty floor.