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She was just crisping the baby crushed potatoes in the oven and keeping everything else warm when the sisters finally made another appearance.
“Wow, something smells good.” Sheri sniffed appreciatively.
“It certainly does!” Cora agreed. “I’m so sorry I had to bail on you earlier. My hand just bled for so long.” She waggled her bandaged finger in justification and smiled sweetly.
“I tell you what, why don’t you shower quickly before dinner to make up for it? You’re still covered in flour and I’m sure you want to make your best impression after all the effort you’ve gone to today.”
Ellie looked at Cora suspiciously. Why was she being so nice suddenly?
“Well, I was going to lay the big table in the dining room…” she began.
“Oh, I’ll do that for you,” Carly offered. “It’s the least I can do after you’ve spent all day cooking.”
Ellie looked down at herself and had to admit that she could do with cleaning up. Even the end of her braid looked like it had been dip-dyed in white.
“Well okay, I guess, but…”
“Don’t worry about a thing,” Cora said encouragingly. “We’ll take care of it all for you.”
Ellie left the room feeling a little nonplussed and not quite trusting of the turn of events, although she wasn’t sure why.
She stripped off her soiled clothes while she waited for the shower to heat. She’d remembered to bring a change of clothes with her this time, to speed things up, but it still took time to rinse all the flour out of the heavy length of her hair.
Sighing as she let the stresses of the day wash away, she took things at face value. Everything would be much smoother if she got on with the other three girls. So maybe they’d gotten off to a rough start, but they must have been surprised at finding out they had competition, so perhaps it wasn’t so strange after all. It looked like they’d put it all behind them, and if they could do that, then so could she.
Forty minutes later, she made her way back to the kitchen. Not knowing if there was a specific time the men came in for dinner, she’d left her hair damp instead of taking the time to blow dry it and just twisted it into her customary plait.
When she reached the dining room, Ellie stopped short and just stared at the six people in front of her who had already started eating the meal she had slaved over all afternoon. Without even bothering to wait for her, it would seem.
“Ah, there you are at last, Ellie. I served up since I didn’t want anything to go cold after Carly set the table.”
“Dinner’s at six thirty, sharp,” Cody added brusquely. “If you didn’t know that before, you do now.”
Cora gave her what appeared to be a conciliatory shrug, and Ellie opened her mouth to say something, but Cora deftly cut her off.
“Come and sit down and let me serve up for you.” She stood, pointed to a chair and grabbed the remaining plate.
“Sit down and eat your own dinner while it’s hot, Cora,” Cody grumbled. “If she can’t be bothered to be here on time, then she can serve herself.”
“Oh, but…” Cora made as if to argue, but still sat down so meek and compliant that Ellie actually raised an eyebrow.
Sucking in a breath, she made up a plate for herself. So much for the good impression she’d hoped to make with her cooking. Jeez. Talk about a tough crowd.
The rest of the meal mostly happened in strained silence and Ellie couldn’t help feeling like that was her fault, even though she couldn’t, for the life of her, work out why.
When everyone had finished, Syrus pushed back his chair and rubbed his stomach appreciatively.
“That sure was good!”
“First class,” Ezra agreed.
Ellie beamed. Maybe her efforts hadn’t been in vain after all.
“Yes, thank you for a wonderful meal,” said Cody. Except when she turned to him, he was looking at Cora. Surely, he didn’t think… no, of course not. She was just being oversensitive.
As they stood and excused themselves, Ellie remembered all the washing she’d done that day and quickly brought it up before they left the table.
“Oh, the laundry…”
