Page 78 of Statler

“Don’t encourage him,” Hazard groaned.

“Sorry,” Eliza gave a shrug, then moved toward the porch stairs, a grin she couldn’t suppress still wreathing her face. “My bad. I guess I’ll take that walk, after all.”

Statler stood, abruptly. “I’ll go with you.”

She was hoping he’d say that.

“Okay.”

Damn. Had her one-word answer come out as breathlessly as it had sounded to her own ears? She hadn’t been able to help it because…

She was finally going to be alone with Statler.

* * *

When they reached the road that ran in front of the cottages, Statler tipped his head in one direction, then the other.

“You know these parts better than I do. Which way should we walk?”

Eliza already had their trajectory in mind.

At one time, she and Holden had enjoyed after-dinner strolls to an open field a half mile down the road that afforded a lovely view of the stars. Despite not having gone there in a couple years, Eliza had a yearning to visit, now.

“Have you taken the left fork on the road as you go down this hill?” she asked, as they turned companionably in that direction and began walking. “The one that doesn’t bring you to your worksite or into town?”

“I haven’t,” Statler told her. “During our morning run, we prefer the paths you showed us in back of the cottages.”

“Which is perfect for your work-outs,” she agreed. “This little place of interest isn’t for exercise. It’s not very far, and there’s only a gentle slope leading to it, so there wouldn’t be any heavy breathing involved.”

Ooops. Should she have said that? It sounded…suggestive.

If she wasn’t mistaken, Statler was sneaking a peek at her non-heaving chest.

Her lady-parts stirred, as they’d been doing every time she thought of Statler since the minute they’d met.

“Uh, lead the way,” Statler responded gruffly.

It took less than ten minutes of strolling in comfortable silence before the trees around them began to thin and the field of her heart came into sight.

It was just as she remembered.

The summer grasses, waist high, swayed in the evening wind like an undulating sea, but unfortunately their beauty was also a hiding place for ticks. The field had only just begun to die back, and the one frost they’d had wouldn’t likely have killed the little buggers. Still, Eliza didn’t hesitate to plunge in.

She would, however, warn Statler.

“This field, when you’re in the middle of it, gives a fantastic, one-hundred-eighty-degree view of the night sky. But I have to caution you. There are a lot of ticks, so you’ll have to do a full body check once you get home.”

It was a shame they couldn’t help each other out with that.

Statler raised a brow in the moonlight. “Do you think it’s worth it?”

“Absolutely.”

Now that she was here, she couldn’t hold back her excitement. She headed right to the spot in the middle where a huge, flat rock sat. She and Holden would always flop down on it, on their backs, gazing upward and trying to outdo each other naming constellations.

Eliza let out a sigh.

That had been a very long time ago; at the start of their relationship.