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“I’ll apologize to her when she gets up, but it’s not the only reason…” he began, but Tono cut him off.
“You won’t because she’s not here.”
“What do you mean? How can she have gone anywhere?” Syrus asked in surprise.
“Well, despite you tearing her off a strip and throwing her out, she spent the night checking on Blaze, since you weren’t of a mind to listen to her, when she tried to tell you. When I passed back through, she asked if I’d give her a lift to her vehicle, since it’s parked up at mine, because she didn’t want to stay here any longer.”
Cody threw a quick glance at the dresser. Both the envelope and something else were missing. The latter made him frown and sift through his memory. The books were gone.
“Where are Cora’s recipe books? Did Ellie take them?”heasked in disbelief.
Tono slapped his palms against the table and lifted half out of his chair.
“You really don’t have half the sense I credited you with boy! Why in God’s name would you think those were Cora’s books?”
Cody’s eyebrows hit his hairline in surprise at the vet’s outburst. Then he glared right back at him.
“Because Cora used them to make the wellington thing and the pancakes,” he said slowly, as if he were talking to a child.
“No,Ellieused them to make the dinner and the pancakes and the muffins and the flapjacks and theotherstook the credit,” Tono replied equally slowly and probably with the same analogy in mind. “The books belonged to Ellie’s Gran. One of them’s a kinda scrapbook. It even has photographs in it of Ellie and her family, which I have seen with my own eyes. Not to mention that I was here, if you remember rightly, when Ellie made the pancakes that day & she was kind enough to feed me breakfast before coming outside to help me. Struck me as how you were a mite rude to the lass when we came back in; polishing off what she cooked and berating her for not being there on time. But I let it go. Obviously a mistake on my part. I should have spoken up right then, might have saved that little girl a shed-full of upset.”
“She’s upset?” Syrus had always been the tender hearted one.
“Well now, what do you think, son?She’s tended to you three like a proper little housewife; cooked and cleaned and mended and not only did the others take the credit, but you tore her a new one and sent her on her way after everything she did. She even mentioned how them young ‘uns claimed to have shared the housework when all they did was arrangea fewflowers and how she thinks someone messed with her chili.”
“Well, at least she took the cash I left to reimburse her,” Cody said with a sigh. He felt sick to his stomach, but at least he had the comfort of knowing he’d paid back any out-of-pocket expenses and probably extra besides. He’d been more than generous, regardless of how angry he’d been.
“Hate to tell you this, Cody, but she didn’t take it. She told me how she didn’t want your money and that wasn’t what she came here for.”
Cody’s head twirled around to take another look at the cabinet. “Then where’s the envelope gone?” He looked to each of hisbrothers, but all he got was a shrug in return.
“But… I don’t understand why she said nothing,” Ezra said, spreading his fingers out wide.
“And what was she supposed to say? She only had suspicions, and most of those were after the fact. And look how you treated the poor filly when she got locked in Blaze’s stall,” Tono retorted without remorse.
“Oh, come on now,” Cody argued. “That must have been an accident. I’m sure none of the girls would have done something that dangerous.”
“Seriously, Cody? You know as well as I do how stiff that latch is. How do you figure it locked itself on its own? You ask me, them others don’t have the first clue about the realities of stuff like that. According to Ellie, one of ‘em’s reckoning on having you put in a whole fancy modern kitchen once you’ve tied the knot.”
“A new kitchen?” Ezra scoffed. “Don’t they realize…”
Cora, Carly, and Sheri chose that moment to put in an appearance. It didn’t skip Cody’s notice that they all three looked around as if they expected to find food already made and not like they expected to be working on it themselves.
“Did I hear you mention a new kitchen?” Carly said, scooting up close to Ezra and batting her baby blues at him. “That is just the best idea!”she continued as if she was stroking his ego… little did she know. Cody sat back in his chair, half amused, half horrified to see where this would go. “That old Aga needs replacing with something from the twenty-first century.”
“You know we live off-grid,” Ezra said, and if Cody wasn’t mistaken, his brother was trying hard not to roll his eyes. “We need to consider the draw everything has on our turbine and solar electricity sources.”
“Well, I’m sure we can have proper electric installed, can’t we?” She carried on, completely oblivious that what she was saying was in direct contrast with how they had chosen to live their lives.
“Um, it’s not that easy, since we’re in the roadless area.” Syrus came to his younger brothers rescue with a sardonically raised eyebrow. He might have been trying for sarcasm, but if he was, they certainly didn’t pick it up.
“Don’t be silly,” Sheri chimed in. “It’s only roadless until you guys put some tarmac down. How hard can that be?”
Carly beamed and nodded her agreement. None of them seemed to notice how all three brothers had fallen silent and now looked at them in shock and astonishment as they chattered away about getting their own cars and being able to go shopping.
It was Cora who had a little more about her. Cody could almost see the gears ticking over in her head as she overshadowed Carly and Sheri’s conversation by proclaiming, “Where’s Ellie? I told that lazy girl breakfast was her responsibility after she let us all down with dinner last night.”
So that was how she was planning to play it, huh? Well, two could play at that game, he decided, coming to a snap decision on how to pursue things. Little did she know it, but Cora had just given him the perfect opening.
