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Scarlett crossed her arms. Her dirty look was priceless. Or it would have been if he didn’t feel it penetrate him right to his core. “Well? Are you coming or not?”
He tossed his rag over his shoulder and then gestured toward the house. “After you.”
She rolled her eyes, then spun around and strode toward the house. Elijah shook his head. The next several weeks were going to be interesting, to say the least.
Flashes of memories flooded his thoughts. Memories of a younger version of Scarlett—an outgoing and bubbly woman who could captivate anyone she came in contact with. It wasn’t any wonder why he’d had a crush on her. How many times had he brushed off the interests of another girl because he’d been hung up on Scarlett?
Well, those days were long gone. Just because he’d felt something for her before didn’t mean those feelings would return any time soon. He wasn’t interested in her any more than he was interested in getting the business end of a bull charging toward him.
His boots creaked on the steps leading to the front door. Scarlett disappeared inside, leaving him to enter and close the door behind him. He’d only been in this house once in his life, though Scarlett probably didn’t remember it.
He’d done his best to forget it had ever happened—because who wanted to remember a time when a girl was drunk enough to think he was his brother?
The memory still stung more than he’d ever admit to himself.
Scarlett simply never had any interest in him, and he’d come to accept that.
Plates and cutlery clanged or thunked against a table in the kitchen toward his right. Neither Carlos nor Scarlett gave him any mind when he entered the house, and he wasn’t sure whether or not to remove his boots. Back home they hadn’t started doing so until they’d fixed up the place. But in the Perez residence, he couldn’t help but assume they had higher standards. At least that was how it had always felt when he was younger.
Scarlett was the little princess who got everything she wanted, and he’d been the pauper who had only wanted her to give him one chance to prove himself.
Elijah shook off those memories, reminding himself once again that he didn’t want anything to do with Scarlett. He needed her to lose interest sooner rather than later. That was what needed to happen so no one got too attached.
Least of all himself.
He pulled off his boots one by one and placed them by the door. Then he headed farther into their home. Carlos took a seat at the kitchen table, then pulled a linen napkin from his plate and unfolded it. His eyes connected with Elijah’s briefly before he placed the napkin in his lap.
Elijah paused, momentarily unsure what to do, but then Scarlett motioned toward the sink. “There’s some Dawn soap in the cabinet there. It’s gonna be the best thing for that grease under your fingernails.”
He glanced down at his hands, turning them over to find the dark substance covering not only the creases in his hands, but also stuck under his fingernails just as she’d mentioned. It wasn’t unheard of for him to go several days of work with such a thing. A little dirt never hurt anyone.
However, he was a guest in this house, and he wasn’t about to get on Carlos’s bad side.
Elijah nodded and moved in that direction, though his ears perked up when Scarlett started talking to her father.
“I got all the supplies I noticed you were out of, but I’m sure I missed something. I was hoping you’d write up a list of everything you know we’ll need for the harvest so I can make sure we have it. I don’t want to have to make several trips to town.”
“I’m sure Elijah can handle that. He’s done enough harvests to know what’s needed and what isn’t.”
There was a silence so loud that even Elijah felt like his ears were ringing.
“While I appreciate that Elijah is here to help, I’m not going to learn anything by passing everything off to him. I know I wasn’t around to help out much, but I’m here now. I want to learn how to run this place with you. Why can’t you understand that?”
The desperation in her voice tugged at him—almost making him want to tell Carlos that he needed to think of some other way to get help. Elijah might not like Scarlett that much anymore, but he wasn’t willing to steal something from her.
He heard shuffling movement and a chair scratching against the linoleum. Then Carlos’s heavy voice. “Sweetheart, I know you think you want to run this place, but it’s just not something you’re going to stick with.”
“How can you say that?” Scarlett muttered with indignation. “Everything I’ve put my mind to, I’ve succeeded.”
“You went to college. You spent thousands on a degree. You don’t want to lower yourself to working this farm. It’s… beneath you.”
Elijah stiffened. He’d never thought running a farm was degrading, and yet that was how Carlos was selling it to his daughter. Is that what Carlos thought of him? What if he still had a thing for Scarlett? Would he find Elijah not worthy of his daughter?
Probably.
That was always how it had felt when he’d come around with Annabel.
He yanked a hand towel from the counter and dried his hands with a vengeance. Balling the rag up into a wad, he tossed it on the counter, ready to give this man a piece of his mind no matter the consequences, but Scarlett beat him to it.
