The Mighty Quinns: Eli (17 page)

Poking at the embers, she added some kindling and gradually fed the growing flames until the wood began to pop and crack. The embers in the wood-fired kitchen stove were dead and she got that fire started and then put the teakettle on to boil.

Lucy slowly looked around the interior, a place that had become so familiar that it felt like home. From the cracked tile on the hearth to the deep scar in the wood floor in the kitchen, she knew every detail of Trudie's cabin. When she'd arrived, it had all seemed so strange and new, and now the thought of leaving made her heart ache. She'd never missed a person or a place in all her life and Lucy worried that she'd miss both before long.

She wasn't sure what time it was. It was still dark outside and dawn would probably be obscured by the snowstorm. But they'd crawled into bed early the night before just to stay warm and now she was wide awake with nothing to do.

If she didn't start to get outside more, to put in a hard day's work, she'd be fifty pounds heavier by the time the snow melted. Lucy walked to the kitchen sink and stared at the cupboards above it.

When she'd moved in to the cabin there were supplies in jars and cans and tins that had probably been there since Trudie's day. During the summer and fall, she'd been occupied with building her cabin, but now she had the chance to clean and organize.

She pulled over a chair and got up on it, then began to remove everything from the top shelves. When she ran out of space on the counter, she filled the kitchen table. The last item she removed had been tucked into a corner of the cabinet. It was a small photo album. Lucy grabbed it and pulled it out, then stepped down off the chair.

She hadn't bothered to light any of the lamps, so she sat down on the edge of the hearth and flipped through the book by the light of the fire. “‘What I did on my summer vacation,'” she murmured. “‘By Elijah G. Montgomery.'”

To Lucy's delight, the album was filled with photos of Eli and his grandmother, enjoying a variety of activities around the cabin. There was Eli picking blackberries and Eli watering the vegetable garden. There was another picture of Eli holding a baby rabbit and Eli standing in a rainstorm in just his underwear.

Though his childhood had been unconventional, it was clear from the photos that he was deeply loved. She stood up and wandered over to the bed, her gaze moving between the boy in the pictures and the man in the bed. He looked so young when he slept, his hair falling over his face, his features smooth and relaxed.

How had this happened to her? She'd gone for so many years not needing another human being in her life. She'd learned to exist all on her own and be quite happy with that. But sometime over the past few months, she'd become half of a pair. She wasn't sure exactly when it had occurred, but she was sure of this—she was a better person when she was with Eli, more complete as a half than she'd ever been as a whole.

She was happier and more optimistic. Less cynical. Content.

Maybe it wasn't Eli, Lucy mused. Maybe it was living in the wilderness with nothing to do but reflect on the choices she made in her life. But how was she supposed to be sure?

Kneeling down beside the bed, she studied him, taking in each perfect feature. His face was so familiar to her, the smile that warmed her heart, the lips that warmed her blood. Would it be possible to live without him? Lucy felt as if she may have already reached the point of no return. No matter how hard she tried, she might not be able to forget him.

“Do I love you?” she whispered. There was no way she could answer that question on her own. Someone had to tell her how love was supposed to feel. There had to be a checklist or some guidelines she could follow. A test she could take.

Lucy glanced around and saw the laptop sitting on the small desk across the room. Smiling, she walked over and grabbed it, then turned it on. As she waited for the satellite link to connect, she thought about what search terms to use. “How do I know I'm in love?” she murmured, typing it into the search bar.

She noticed the email flag in the corner of the screen and clicked on it. A few seconds later, her mailbox opened and she saw a new email from Anna. Her gaze scanned to the subject line and she was shocked to see the word
SHUTDOWN
in bold capital letters.

Drawing a ragged breath, she clicked on the email and began to read. It began with an apology that the network had decided to pull the plug on the production, then thanked Lucy for all her hard work. Neither Rachel nor Anna thought there was a market for the program as a series but encouraged Lucy to try to buy the rights from the company and sell it as a special to public television or put it up on the internet.

The email kept referring back to an earlier notification from them and Lucy slowly came to suspect that Eli had already seen the email and had decided to hide it from her. It was exactly what he'd do—he was always trying to protect her. But what right did he have? This was her project, not his. She was the one who made the decisions, not him.

This was exactly what happened when a woman turned her life upside down for a man. He expected to call all the shots. But Lucy had run her own life from the time she was a teenager, and she wasn't about to change now.

This
was her test, her checklist, Lucy thought to herself. In one simple example, she'd found a reason why she couldn't possibly fall in love with Eli. He wasn't special. He was like every other man she'd ever known. He expected to be in charge.

Cursing softly, she picked up the laptop and carried it over to the bed. A shake to his shoulder woke him up and Lucy stood over him, watching him rub the sleep out of his eyes. “When were you going to tell me?” she asked.

“What?” He sat up, then stretched his arms over his head and smiled at her. “What's wrong?”

“When were you going to tell me that they pulled the plug?”

He stared up at her and his smile slowly faded. “How did you find out?”

“I had to look up something on the internet and I noticed a note in my mailbox. How long were you going to keep this from me?”

“As long as I could,” he replied. “You haven't been checking your mail lately and— Wait, what were you doing on the internet? Isn't that against the guidelines?”

“What guidelines? The project is over. No more guidelines. I'm done. They're sending a helicopter for me tomorrow. They expect me to be packed and ready to leave.”

Eli swung his legs off the edge of the bed, dragging one of the sleeping bags along and wrapping his naked body in it. “No, you don't have to leave. We'll figure out a way to fix this, Luce. Trust me, there's no need to give up. Not yet.”

“How?”

“We can buy them out. Pay back the production costs and find someone else interested in the show. We could probably offer them fifty cents on the dollar and they'd grab it.”

“Where am I going to get that kind of money?”

“I have that kind of money,” Eli said.

“No.” She shook her head. “No. This is my project.”

“It's my grandmother,” he countered.

She opened her mouth to reply, then realized that he was right. Trudie belonged to him more than her. But that wasn't the point. By accepting his help, she was admitting she needed him, admitting she'd failed. And needing someone was just a trap. Sooner or later, the relationship would end and she'd be alone again and broken.

He grabbed the laptop and closed it, then set it on the bed next to him. “I'm sorry,” Eli said. “I was trying to buy some time to see if I could fix this. And I didn't want you to worry.”

“You didn't want me to leave,” she said.

“Of course I didn't. I love you. I never want you to leave. I want you to stay with me forever.”

“Don't say that,” Lucy cried, covering her ears.

“Just because you don't want to hear it, doesn't mean it isn't true,” he said.

Lucy crawled off the bed. “And how do you know you love me? Did you love me last week, or are you only saying that now to keep me from leaving? That's not love. That's possession. You don't want to give me up.”

“Don't tell me how I feel!”

“So when did you realize it? Tell me.”

He cursed softly. “Right this moment.”

“That's kind of convenient, don't you think?”

“You're right. I don't want you to leave...because I can't imagine living a day without you.” He paused. “But I also want you to be happy. And if you can't be happy with me, Luce, then you have to leave.”

“And then you'll stop loving me,” she said.

Eli shook his head. “No, I don't think that's going to happen. I'll probably love you for the rest of my life. That kind of thing is in my family DNA. There's no getting away from it.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand, drawing it to his lips. “It's all right if you don't love me in return. I understand. But if you ever change your mind, you can always come back. The cabin will always be here.”

Tears began to gather in Lucy's eyes and she drew a deep breath to keep them from falling. She refused to surrender to her emotions. “I'm going to LA and I'm going to talk them into finishing this project,” she said. “I'm not going to give up.”

“That's a great idea.”

She slowly untangled her fingers from his. Lucy wanted to ask him to come with her, to help her fight this fight. But in her heart, she knew it was time to put some distance between them. When she left the mountain tomorrow, there was a chance she wouldn't be returning. And she didn't want to say goodbye without the certainty that it was going to be forever.

* * *

T
HE
NEXT
MORNING
,
Eli stared out at the pristine layer of snow that blanketed the meadow. It glittered in the early morning sun as if diamonds had been scattered across the surface during the night.

He'd hoped that the snowstorm would go on forever, but the weather had cleared yesterday afternoon and the helicopter would be arriving in about two hours.

Riley woofed softly and Eli caught sight of a red fox leaping through the snow at the edge of the meadow. He took a sip of his coffee, then turned and walked back inside the cabin, Riley pushing through the door ahead of him.

Lucy had spent most of the day yesterday gathering her things and cleaning the cabin. Though Eli had insisted there was no reason to clean, she did it anyway in a blatant attempt to avoid him. When it had come time for bed, she'd decided to sleep on the floor in front of the fireplace. Eli couldn't let her do that so he'd volunteered to give her the bed and he'd ended up sleeping by the fire.

“If you forget anything, I can always send it to you,” he said softly as he watched her rummage through the desk drawers.

“I know,” Lucy replied. She paused and looked around the cabin, then met his gaze. A blush crept up her cheeks and she glanced away, grabbing a T-shirt from the back of a chair and folding it carefully. “I appreciate what you said.”

He stood beside her next to the bed. Eli wanted to touch her again, but she hadn't allowed that since the night before last. “I've said a lot of things over the past six months,” Eli said.

“About how you loved me. And I want you to know that if I was capable of loving someone forever, then it would probably be you. Definitely you. But...I'm just not ready...prepared—I'm not prepared to fall in love.”

“I don't think you really can prepare yourself,” Eli said. “It just kind of happens and there's no going back.”

“And you wouldn't want me,” she continued. “I'm pretty messed up when it comes to emotional commitment. I'm...damaged.”

“Why don't you let me decide what I want and what I don't want,” he murmured. “You and I understand each other pretty well. And I know why you're doing this.” He slipped his arms around her waist and slowly turned her toward him.

“I'm leaving because this...” She glanced around the cabin. “This is over. At least for now. I don't have any choice but to go.”

“Oh, you have all the choices in the world, Lucy. You can do anything you want. I mean, anything. Most people have family obligations, friends, commitments to think about. But you have nothing tying you down. For you it should be simple.”

“Love is never simple,” she said.

“Yes, it is.” Eli pressed his hand to Lucy's cheek. “Just tell me how you feel. Deep, deep inside, in all those dark corners where you hide your true feelings, I know you want to stay.”

“I can't,” she said.

“You don't have to say it out loud,” Eli insisted. “I know it's there. I can see it.” He leaned forward and brushed a soft kiss across her lips. “You love me.”

“No,” she said.

This time, Eli kissed her with a sense of purpose. He ran his fingers through the silken hair at her nape and pulled her into a long deep kiss. “Feel that?” he murmured. “The way your heart is pounding? That's what love does to you. You're breathless and dizzy and exhilarated. And you want to rip off your clothes and ravish me until there's no more doubt in your mind.”

“That's lust,” she said. “Not love.”

He let the sleeping bag drop to the floor, revealing his naked body and the flesh-and-blood evidence of his desire. Eli knew she was close to capitulation but Lucy was also incredibly stubborn when it came to admitting her weaknesses. And to Lucy, love was a weakness that she wouldn't tolerate.

“Touch me,” he said.

She shook her head. “Why are you doing this?”

“To prove a point. You can deny it all you want, Luce, but this is what you'll miss. Me and you.”

Eli reached out and grabbed her hand, placing it on his chest, just over his heart. Her touch sent currents of pleasure racing through him, but he kept his focus on her. When he grabbed the hem of her sweatshirt, she sucked in a sharp breath, but didn't protest when he pulled it over her head. “Tell me to stop.” He waited a moment before skimming her fleece pants down over her hips.