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They shook hands.
Beth’s belly waged a war of cartwheels and somersaults the moment his large hand enveloped hers.
“Food!” she blurted, light-headed now. “I. Need. Food.”
Chapter 4
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.”
