Life After Wife (Three Magic Words Trilogy, #3)(53)

Elijah raised his hand.

“I’ve got two, let me hear three, come on now, that’s for the trailer and the load,” he started his fast-talking.

Sophie noticed Elijah nod a couple of times, but had no idea that he’d bought the whole mess of stuff until the auctioneer said, “The lot goes to number thirteen standing back there by the pretty red-haired lady for four hundred and fifty dollars.”

“Why’d you buy that?” she whispered.

“You might want the fruit jars.”

“You idiot! There’re dozens and dozens of those in the cellar.”

He patted her on the shoulder. “We need another trailer. There’re only two on the inventory. With all that land, we’ll use at least one more every day. Think about hauling fence posts and barbed wire.”

“And what would a new one cost?”

“Up over a thousand.”

She nodded. “Then I guess you did good.”

“Next item is this riding lawn mower. Good condition. Bought two years ago from Sears. What do I hear? Can we start at two hundred?” His speed-talking started but Elijah didn’t raise his hand or his card.

“Sold for three hundred dollars!” he yelled in less than five minutes. “To the lady behind the pretty red-haired woman with the man who bought the trailer. Now moving right along to this plow.”

“Buy it,” Sophie said.

“Thought I might try,” Elijah said.

At the end of the day they owned a trailer, a plow, a small square hay baler, a pickup truck, and all three tractors. Sophie wrote the biggest check on the ranch account that she’d ever written before and handed it to the cashier. But strangely enough, it didn’t make her nervous or anxious. The thing that surprised her was that she trusted Elijah so much, when she’d vowed that she’d never trust another man in her entire life.

“We’ll deliver it to your ranch tomorrow morning. I expect you’ll be driving the truck home, won’t you?” the cashier asked.

“Do they always deliver the equipment?” Sophie asked on the way to the truck.

“No, it’s a courtesy of this auction. They had it printed on the sale bill that they’d deliver up to two hundred miles on the big equipment. Let’s stop in Abilene and get some lunch. What are you hungry for?”

Elijah’s voice was full of excitement, like a little boy at Christmas. Just his tone said he could hardly wait to get home and tell the other guys what good deals he’d gotten. He’d gotten all three tractors for the price that he thought he’d have to pay for two, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that his feet were about six inches off the ground when he walked beside her.

“Cheap, fast Mexican. Nothing fancy. Just a fast-food place that makes those little dollar tacos. I could eat about eight of them,” she said.

“Nervous over spending that much money?”

“No, I am not. When are we going to buy more cows?”

Elijah threw an arm around her shoulders. “One thing at a time, partner.”

She flinched.

Not because she wanted him to remove his arm, but she wanted to be more than a partner to Elijah. He darn sure wasn’t Prince Charming, but his kisses had awakened her to life and the possibility of love, and “partner” didn’t cover nearly enough.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


Sophie dreamed about Aunt Maud for the first time since the funeral. Her aunt had come to whisper in her ear at the most inopportune times, but she’d never actually dreamed about her in Technicolor until Saturday night. They were sitting at the kitchen table having morning coffee as the sun lit up the sky.

“It’s been more than a month now. You stayin’ or sellin’?” Aunt Maud asked.

“Well, I dang sure ain’t goin’ nowhere. Elijah won’t budge and neither will I.”

Maud laughed like she did when something was really funny, slapping her leg and wiping at her eyes with her shirttail. “I knew I was doing the right thing. You needed something to shake you out of your doldrums. Eli is just the ticket.”

“I call him Elijah.”

That brought on more laughter. “Oh, really! Well, darlin’, I see good things in your future, and I’m glad you bought that land. This ranch is going to be something else to behold by the time you and Eli pass it on down to the next generation.”

And then the dream started to fade and Sophie awoke. No matter how tight she squeezed her eyes shut, she couldn’t bring Maud back and there were questions she wanted to ask, answers she needed. She finally popped her eyes open and inhaled deeply. Yep, coffee and bacon and male voices in the kitchen.

She hurriedly dressed in jeans and a bright turquoise tank top, and padded barefoot down the hallway to the big country kitchen. Elijah and his brothers were sitting at the kitchen table, coffee cups in front of them and the pot on a hot pad in the middle of the table. She got her favorite mug from the cabinet, slid into a chair at the other end from Elijah, and poured her own coffee.

“Sleep well?” Hayden asked.

“Dreamed about Aunt Maud,” she answered.

“Was she tellin’ you the what for?” Tanner asked.

“She was laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes.”

Elijah chuckled. “She did pull a pretty slick trick, didn’t she?”