“Stupid dreams,” she muttered. “Nothing seems to be enough.”
She heard the bathroom door across the hallway open and Kristen’s unmistakable footsteps clumped down the hallway before thundering down the stairs. Teenagers, Ella thought. Not a quiet bone in their bodies. Not a one.
Ella stood and stretched. In the distance, she heard a deep male laugh and realized Dylan was here, too. She made a face. She wasn’t in the mood to watch Dylan flirting with Ava this early in the morning. Not until I’ve had some coffee. At least the bathroom was now free, which was good, as she had yet another meeting about the bake-off later this morning, this one at the library. Meetings, and more meetings. Yay.
Yawning, she slipped on her housecoat, grabbed her towel from the hook behind the door, and had just reached for her doorknob when she heard the bathroom door across the hallway close. Darn it, Sarah!
Mumbling under her breath, Ella dropped her housecoat and towel at the foot of her bed and climbed back under the covers. She’d forgotten how chilly this old house could get. Although it was better now with the updated heating system, there was still an unmistakable chill in the air this morning.
She pulled the covers up to her chin and turned onto her side so she could look out the window. The sky was turning more golden with each passing minute. Dad used to love the morning hours, getting up way before the sun rose and heading to the kitchen so breakfast would be ready when everyone got up. Ella had always hated mornings, but sometimes, as he tiptoed down the hallway, the floorboards right outside her bedroom door would creak and wake her. She’d quietly slip out of bed, dress, and follow him to the kitchen. He was always glad to see her and would set her on a stool he kept just for her, where she’d sit and watch him cook. It made her sad to remember those times. This house isn’t the same without him or Momma. It feels hollow.
Irked at the sadness of her own thoughts, she kicked off her covers and was relieved to hear Sarah coming out of the bathroom and heading downstairs. Finally!
Of the many things Ava had updated in their old house, Ella was the most grateful for the plumbing. When they were growing up, the showers had been finicky—that was what happened when seven sisters shared a bathroom—but now there was a far more plentiful supply of hot water. Ella had never been so glad of that amenity as she was this morning.
She turned on the hot water and stood in the shower for a long time before she washed her hair, the steam thick around her. To her irritation, the scent of strawberry still hung in the air despite the water pouring over her.
Grimacing, she closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the cool tile. Mere months ago, the idea of staying in Dove Pond longer than a few days had made her groan at the thought of the boredom she was about to face. But strangely enough, she wasn’t bored at all. I’m too busy to be bored. She’d gotten sucked into the bake-off drama and still had to send Tiff content for their accounts. Plus, she’d been spending time with her sisters and Aunt Jo, too. And then there was Angela and her many shopping ventures, and the time she spent with Gray.
Gray. She wished she could see him more often. He was fun. Fun was good, wasn’t it? With her eyes still closed, she blindly reached for the hot water handle and turned it up, sighing happily as the steam around her thickened.
For the life of her, she couldn’t figure him out. Their last few dates had lasted long into the night, but not for the usual reason. Instead of ripping off each other’s clothes and tumbling into the nearest bed, which was normally how she liked to spend her late hours, they’d instead done something far more unlikely—they’d talked.
Really talked. For hours and hours, too.
Up until now, she’d thought she knew all there was to know about Gray, but she’d been wrong. She’d discovered he’d changed quite a bit since their high school days, a fact she’d overlooked during their summer fling a few years ago. He now loved the peacefulness of the countryside, had become an excellent farmer and “Cow Dad,” as he called it, and was passionate about developing faster and more efficient food sources. He was super enthusiastic about hydroponic farming, something he felt was crucial to the success of their planet. He called himself a “scientific environmentalist,” which she found sort of adorable. It fascinated her how much he cared.
So much passion. But none of it’s for me. Well… that wasn’t exactly true. Their conversations had been punctuated with plenty of heated kisses, although he always stopped things right there. She might have been insulted except for times she’d caught him watching her with a hungry, longing gaze that probably matched her own.
She cracked open an eye and noticed that the sun was now streaming through the bathroom window. Darn it. She reluctantly turned off the water with fingers that had gone pruney and got out. She threw on her robe and, with her hair wrapped in her towel, returned to her room, shivering in the sudden cold of the hallway.
She got dressed in a pair of leggings with a bright purple tunic top and, her hair dried and braided over one shoulder, went downstairs. When she got to the landing, she could hear Ava and Dylan talking in the sitting room. She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t face Dylan’s sappy longing for Ava without at least two cups of coffee, and maybe three.
She glanced at the hall clock as she passed. Phew. Despite her overly long shower, she still had time to grab some coffee and breakfast from the Moonlight to take to the meeting with her.
Ella had Jules to thank for the new bake-off meeting time. It had been her suggestion that they move the meetings from the afternoons to early, early morning. She’d said something about it being the best time for her because of her tight restaurant schedule, but Ella couldn’t shake the feeling that the only reason Jules had made that suggestion was because she knew how Ella felt about mornings.
“Fine, have your stupid meeting before I’m even awake,” Ella muttered under her breath. “I’ll come caffeinated and ready to rumble.” She put on her coat and slung her purse over her shoulder, glancing inside it to make sure her meeting folder was there. Reassured, she headed for the front door, trying to hurry past the sitting room so no one would notice her.
“Hey!” Ava called.
Darn it. Ella pasted a smile on her face and came back to the door. Dylan was sprawled on the couch, his arm along the back, probably in hopes that Ava might sit beside him and lean against it. Instead, she was curled on the overstuffed chair across from him.
“Good morning,” Ava said. She was dressed in her usual work overalls, her hair tied back. “If you’d gotten up earlier, I’d have made you breakfast.”
“I’m going to grab something on my way to my meeting. Morning, Dylan. Did you come to have breakfast with your daughter?”
“I did. You just missed her. She left for school.”
“I hate to hear that,” Ella said drily. “Kristen is a delight in the mornings.”
Ava snorted.
Ella smiled. “I bet she loved having breakfast early in the morning with her super cheerful father before a hearty day of fun high school hijinks.”
“She ignored me completely,” Dylan admitted. “Fortunately, I speak grumpy morning teenager and realized that her lack of communication was in fact a compliment on my superior parenting skills.”