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“That’s the way it has to be,” Dallas stated firmly and abruptly laid the towel aside. “I’ll take care of the rest of these dishes in the morning. My last test is tomorrow, and I need to do some studying for it.”
Quint didn’t try to stop her. There wasn’t any reason to try. Everything had already been said. Yet he sensed that nothing had changed.
How could it when he hadn’t forgotten the feel of her warm lips against his or the sensation of her body pressed tightly to him?
That line had been crossed, and the memory of it would always be there to remind them of it every time they were in each other’s company.
Chapter Ten
Quint awoke to the smell of bacon frying. It took him a second to remember he was no longer the only one in the house. A check of the clock on the bedside table showed it would be another five minutes before the alarm would sound. Reaching over, he switched it off and rolled out of bed.
Realizing that the days of padding to the bathroom in his underwear were gone, Quint tugged on a pair of jeans before heading down the hall. The dampness of the two towels hanging on the bathroom rack indicated he was far from the first one in there, and the tepid temperature of the water coming from the shower nozzle confirmed it. In record time, he showered, shaved, and changed into a clean set of clothes.
When he entered the kitchen, Empty was already seated at the table, digging into a plate of bacon and eggs. Dallas stood by the stove, a spatula in hand and something sizzling in the skillet before her.
“You two are early risers,” Quint remarked and walked straight to the coffeepot.
“Habit,” Empty said just before he shoveled in another mouthful of fried egg.
“How do you like your eggs?” Dallas asked.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had them this early in the morning,” Quint told her. “I don’t usually sit down to breakfast until after the morning chores are done.”
“I have two here that are over easy,” she told him, nodding to the skillet.
“You eat them,” he said. “I’ll fix my own after I’ve had this cup of coffee.”
Taking him at his word, Dallas used the spatula to lift the eggs out of the skillet and onto a plate, then carried it to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. As she reached for the salt and pepper shakers, she glanced at her grandfather.
“You know we still have to drop the trailer key off and cancel the telephone and utilities,” she said. “If I leave here no later than three-thirty, I should be able to get all of it done before I have to go to my class tonight.”
“Might as well,” Empty agreed and scooped strawberry jam onto his slice of toast. “No sense paying for a service we aren’t using.”
When Quint wandered over to the table, she glanced up, a sudden uncertainty flickering in her expression. “Sorry. I should have asked if it was all right with you if I left early.”
“I don’t have a problem with it,” Quint replied.
“Right after breakfast, I’ll put a roast in the slow cooker, along with some carrots and potatoes. You two can have that for supper tonight.”
Quint wasn’t ready to face the thought of breakfast and she was adding supper into the mix. Rather than comment on that, he asked instead, “How late will you be tonight?”
“I probably won’t be back until around eleven or so. Just leave the door unlocked.” Dallas snapped a slice of crisp bacon in two and sent a sharp glance at Empty. “Don’t wait up for me. I don’t want to walk in and find you sitting in the recliner with a shotgun on your lap.”
“Those times you found me that way I had cause,” Empty insisted.
The good-natured squabbling between the two reminded Quint of his own grandfather and his occasionally irascible ways. It made him smile.
“The shotgun’s locked in the gun cabinet,” Quint told her. “I’ll see that it stays there, so you won’t have any worries on that score.”
With a loud harrumph Empty expressed his opinion of that. “You’ll change your tune real fast the first time somebody comes snooping around here.”
Privately Quint couldn’t argue with that and responded with a noncommittal smile. But he knew his troubles with the Rutledges had only started.
A thin cloud drifted in front of the waning moon, dimming its light and intensifying the star-twinkle in the night sky. But Dallas took no notice of it, her senses dulled by a fatigue that was both physical and mental. At the moment all of her attention was focused on locating the Cee Bar’s entrance gate.
But the truck’s headlight beams were slow to separate the gate’s tall posts from the roadside shadows. It suddenly loomed on the right, forcing Dallas to slam on the brakes. As the truck fishtailed nearly to a stop, Dallas swung the wheel and drov
e through the gate, sending up a silent prayer of gratitude that no one had been behind her.
