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She couldn’t get back to sleep again afterwards, no matter how hard she tried. Her dreams and everything they might mean just kept swirling around in her head. She decided to make herself a drink. Perhaps a hot cup of cocoa would help her settle.
She would have really liked to shower, but with the bathroom being on the middle floor, close to all the bedrooms, she didn’t dare, just in case she woke anyone. She was already in all their bad books without adding to it further.
Sitting quietly at the table with a hot mug of cocoa didn’t have quite the desired effect, and in the end Ellie decided to do some baking. That always helped her think. She could make breakfast muffins for the morning.
Ninety minutes later, she had three different batches of muffins cooling on trays; Bacon, Cheese and Spinach, Banana and Blueberry and Double Chocolate Chip.
Okay, so those last ones weren’t a breakfast muffin, but surely everyone loved chocolate. They could be put away for snacks or packed lunches. The men had been talking all week about how they might have to go up to one of the far pastures and move the cattle closer since there were some typical June thunderstorms forecast for the following week.
With that thought in mind, she made up a batch of flapjacks, since they would keep and pack well as well as provide plenty of energy and carbs for a hardworking cowboy.
When she’d finished, it was still a way off dawn, but she thought she might be able to sleep for an hour or so.
Except in the end, it was way more than an hour.
Ellie groaned as she looked at the sun, high in the sky. By the time she’d showered, dressed and made her way downstairs, the muffins she’d baked had been decimated and there was no sign of anyone.
Oh well, at least they’d clearly enjoyed their breakfast, she thought to herself as she stored what was left in a couple of airtight containers.
Looking around for something to do, Ellie found a pile of mending that looked like it had been long neglected and took it up to her room. As she made her way up to the attic she wondered, not for the first time, whatthe trifectawere doing? She slowed as she passed what she assumed must be their rooms. No sound came from the first five, but as she crept down the hall a little further than she had any need to go, the distinctive sound of female laughter and a background of daytime television could be heard.
Ellie shook her head. How could they do that day after day? Weren’t they bored witless? She certainly would be.
Escaping up to her own private sanctuary, she dug out her Gran's old-fashioned sewing box and tackled the mending. There was nothing too difficult. A patch on a pair of jeans that must have been comfortable and well loved, since they had various other patches already sewn on inarather more haphazard manner than her own. She tried not to wonder which brother they belonged to, although she ventured a guess that they might be Ezra’s. Possibly Syrus’, but certainly not Cody’s. She couldn’t imagine him wearing anything so jazzed up. She tried not to imagine how that butter-soft fabric would mold and shape his sexy ass and muscled thighs. Her mouth went dry just thinking about it, and snippets of this morning’s dream came rushing back and her face heated just from the thought.
Next there was a smart western style shirt with a button missing. Luckily it still had the spare attached to the side label, so she sewed that back on and tried her hardest not to imagine - Cody, she suspected - with a smile on his often serious face, and the fabric stretched across his defined pecs.
She found a pair of socks with a small hole in the toe and decided they were safer. Nothing to get her panties in a wad about darning socks. Pity she couldn’t say the same about the two plaid shirts, one with the breast pocket coming unstitched and the other with a frayed seam down one side. The flannel was soft and warm, and her mind wandered to the chests they would be covering. Wondered if they were as muscular and hair roughened as she thought they were. What they would feel like under her roaming hands and exploring fingers. Taut, well-developed muscles forged from hard work and manual labor. She’d noticed their tanned forearms when they sat at the dinner table with their sleeves rolled up. Would they have the same tan all over? Would they lose their shirts in the heat of the summer sun and work with those magnificent chests slicked under a sheen of honest sweat?
Ellie closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to get her thoughts - and her raging hormones - under control. It was one thing for them to fill up her subconscious at night, but to daydream about them too? And not just one of them either. Oh no, all her thoughts and fantasies featured each and every one of them equally. And more often than not, all at the same time. What kind of floozy did that make her, that she fantasized about three brothers together? She’d obviously been reading too many saucy books.Elliewas surprised she didn’t hear Gran's voice lecturing her on propriety.Sheusually had an opinion on everything else.
As her thoughts heated and became decidedly X-rated, she realized there was no way she was going to be able to face them at lunch after the way she’d been objectifying and fantasizing over the three of them. Better to wait until the coast was clear, so she didn’t embarrass herself again.
Damn it all, how did she get into these messes? Sometimes it seemed like life had just decided to bite her ass, and she sincerely felt like she was paying for someoneelse’ssins. Someone who had had all the fun, enjoyed all those sinful pleasures and then left her holding the bag.
‘Good things come tothosewho wait.’
Yeah, she should have figured Gran would have something to say about that kind of thinking. But how much did she have to go through to get her own happily ever after? She’d rebuilt her life when her parents died, in the way that only a child can do, by grasping and holding tight to the only home and family she had left in the world. And she had been beyond grateful for that. Knew it could have been so much worse.
But then Gran had been taken too, and with her the only home Ellie had known her entire adult life, leaving her with nothing but a few hundred dollars and a car that had seen better days. No family, no home, no financial security, no job, no work experience, no references.
No place in the world.
Ellie sighed and flopped back onto her bed. Was it really too much to ask for just a little bit of security? Not necessarily money, though god knew that would at least give her a leg up on the ladder that, right now, she wasn’t even on the bottom rung of. Just a home. That’s what she wanted more than anything else in her life. Somewhere she could call her own. Somewhere she might be appreciated. Somewhere she could at least try to build a life for herself. She had hoped it might be here.
She didn’t expect to be handed anything on a silver platter, or to wave a magic wand, not by any means. She was more than willing to work for it and work hard. But it would be a nice change if fate would just give herabreak and stop knocking everything she picked up, right out of her hands repeatedly. That was getting old now, and she felt like she was losing the resilience to keep picking herself up and putting herself back together after another setback; another blow. In a lot of ways, she felt old before her time, but despite everything that had happened, she’d never been prone to feeling sorry for herself.
But as the thought of having to move on from here loomed large in her mind, a wave of melancholy swept through her.
She really didn’t have anywhere else to go. Not only that, but there was a pang right close to where she imagined her heart was at the thought of leaving behind Cody, Syrus and Ezra. It may have only been a few days, but she had been content looking after them, and her blood had surely run a little hotter… okay, a lot hotter, when she thought of them.
‘Then the world is your oyster, my girl, there are no ties to hold you back or hold you down. You can do anything you want to do.’
Ellie closed her eyes and smiled, even if it was a little sadly. She could always count on Gran to look at the bright side of things.
Now she just needed to believe it for herself.
Picking herself up and metaphorically dusting herself down one more time, Ellie collected up the mending and took it all downstairs.
