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I swallow and wipe my face again as she turns and takes off in the opposite direction.
“You hungry?” I call out. “There’s leftover soup or I could make sandwiches.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she says over her shoulder. “I had a snack earlier.”
She walks to her RV and I watch as she takes pictures andthen goes inside, and she’s in there so long, I start to wonder if she’ll ever come out.
That night I order pizza from The Gnarly Vine and we dig into it. I’m hesitant to start conversation because A) I hate pointless chatter, and B) it’s already feeling entirely too cozy in here for my liking.
But I think the silence must make her uncomfortable.
“Pierre called this afternoon,” she bursts out, startling me.
I pause before my next bite.
“How’s he?” I ask when she doesn’t say anything.
She clears her throat and picks at the cheese on the pizza. “He feels really terrible about being gone, but…he needs to stay another week.”
Her eyes fly to mine, her apprehension making more sense.
“I’ll talk to Scarlet tomorrow about staying at the lodge…you need your space back.” She finally takes a bite of pizza. “Oh, this isso good.”
“Stay.”
Her gaze is intense when she looks at me again. “I’m already mortified that I’ve—”
I hold up my hand and she stops. “Stay. Really. I have the room. There’s no need to move unless you’d rather have a change in scenery.”
“I think this scenery is perfect.”
My lips twitch as I try to hold in my grin. “Good. It’s settled.”
Her shoulders relax and she grins. “Thank you.”
I sigh, falling into my pretend annoyance about how thankful she is about everything, but smile back. “You’re welcome.”
It’s quiet for a minute as we both dig into our pizza.
“Do you sell milk and cheese somewhere? I saw the glass bottles out in the barn.”
I nod, finishing chewing before I answer. “A guy will be here on Wednesday morning to deliver it to the stores that carry it around here. And then I get the next batch ready for the farmer’s market. Usually I do that every week, but Theo and Sofie asked if they could do this Saturday. I occasionally do another market that’s a half hour from here on Sundays.”
“Sounds like you stay busy.”
“A little too busy, but I like the work.”
“If you ever want to add some sparkle to your packaging, I’d be happy to design something.”
“Somesparkle?”
She giggles. “You make that sound like a bad thing. I happen to be decent at branding…not that you need help. Yours is—”
“Just okay. I know.” I make a face. “It could stand to be updated. And everything grew bigger and faster than I expected…not that I’ve got a huge thing going on here, but it’s all I can handle on my own.”
“I’m shocked you don’t have more help around here. I really don’t mind helping, you know. I’d enjoy it even.”
I try to read her, see if she really means this or if she’s just being nice. “So besides helping raise emus, you do branding on the side?”
