a nearby tree. “He’s never around when I cook and he eats much later than we do, so I’m generally already upstairs in my room when he walks in. We really don’t run into each other in the house.”
Ronny eyed her friend suspiciously. “I’ll grant that it’s a huge house. With fifteen bedrooms, it pretty much qualifies as a mansion. But you two seem to know what the other is doing whenever you two are in it. Want to tell me something?”
Elissa blushed. “There’s nothing to tell, I promise.”
Ronny eyed Elissa suspiciously. “Uh-huh. Okay, you’re secrets are yours. What would you like to do today? I don’t have any papers to grade until tomorrow night.”
“I have no idea. I’ve been getting into a routine of going to town to get groceries each morning. I get back here in time for my riding lessons with Jake, then I cook and clean all afternoon until you get home.”
“You still have riding lessons with Jake?” Ronny said, an astonished look on her face.
“Yes, why?”
“So Jake has been teaching you all week?” she asked, laughing at the idea.
Elissa nodded. “What’s so funny about that?” she asked, feeling like she was missing something significant.
Ronny threw back her head and laughed harder. “What’s so funny about Jake taking the time to teach you how to ride? If you don’t know the answer to that, you’re in worse shape than I realized. But I’m guessing that everything will work out perfectly in the end. Come on, I feel a huge need to clean the baby’s room. Can you help?”
They spent the rest of the morning cleaning her house from top to bottom. It was odd because whenever Elissa thought they were finished, Veronica came up with one more item that she desperately needed cleaned and off they went to scrub.
By lunchtime, Elissa called a halt. “Ronny, you could eat off the floors in this house. Let’s take a break and go have some lunch,” she said.
Veronica looked at her nice, clean kitchen and relented. “Okay, I guess we can clean the kitchen again afterwards.”
Elissa laughed. “Oh, no we won’t. Come on,” she said, grabbing Veronica’s hand and pulling her out of her house. “We’re going up to Jake’s. He’s never there around this time of the day anyway so it will be safe.”
“What do you mean by ‘safe’?”
Elissa bit her lip, wondering how she was going to cover up that flub. She’d meant that it was a safe bet that they wouldn’t run into Jake, but she didn’t want to reveal that to Veronica. The woman was too perceptive already. “I meant that you won’t care if it gets dirty,” Elissa quickly fabricated.
“Oh, okay. You’re right.”
But as soon as they walked into the large kitchen, Veronica started cleaning the counter tops. “Sit,” Elissa said, pointing to a chair.
“I’ll just clean this one while you make us a sandwich.” “Sit,” Elissa repeated and pushed her gently into a chair. “Relax.”
Elissa put Veronica’s feet up on the chair next to her. “Your feet are all swollen. You know better than to push yourself this hard,” she said.
Elissa turned and started pulling sandwich food out of the refrigerator. “How many sandwiches should I make?”
“Six or seven for me, darlin’” Rick said from immediately walked over to his wife and kissed her cheek. had a pretty rough night last night.”
the kitchen doorway. He
“You taking it easy? You
Veronica nodded but didn’t let go of his hand. “I’m okay.”
“You need help with those sandwiches?” Jake said from behind her.
Elissa had seen him come through the door right behind Rick but had turned away, frightened by the feelings he stirred within her. She’d only seen him out at the barn in his dusty jeans and cowboy hat. She could barely breathe with him standing there so sexy, his leather gloves in one hand as he leaned against a cabinet, his arms crossed over his broad, muscular chest.
Elissa blushed, realizing that she was staring at him. She quickly looked down at the counter. “No, no. I can handle it. I’m sorry I’ve taken over your kitchen,” she said, “but Ronny and I were cleaning and she didn’t want to get her kitchen messy and since I’d been in here already so much, I didn’t think you’d mind and I didn’t think I’d be in your way…” she said, her voice trailing off. She was rambling and didn’t know how to stop. If he would just stop staring at her with those dark, blue eyes of