Then, faintly, from the other end of the house: a sound. Low, rhythmic, unmistakable. The creak of a bed frame, and thenKelly, muffled but audible, a sound that Ellie recognised well enough because she'd heard Kelly make it before, albeit in very different circumstances.
Becca lifted her head from Ellie's shoulder. Ellie could feel Becca's grin when she lay back down again even though she couldn't see it.
"Well," Becca whispered. "At least we know they have a healthy relationship."
Ellie clamped her hand over her own mouth to stop the laugh from escaping. Becca buried her face in Ellie's neck, her shoulders shaking with suppressed giggles. Through the house they heard Kelly get louder, accompanied by a lower tone that must have been Colt, the creaks faster, and then a shared laugh from their room that was so natural and happy that it dissolved any lingering awkwardness entirely.
"They're good together," Ellie whispered when she'd recovered from her giggles.
"They really are." Becca pressed closer against her. “It reassures me about what we’ve done with Kelly. She goes home to that. To someone who loves her like Colt does."
"Yeah." Ellie kissed the top of Becca's head. "Tomorrow, though. When he's gone."
"Tomorrow," Becca confirmed, and Ellie could hear the smile in her voice. "When he's gone."
The crickets sang. The stars burned overhead. The house settled into its own quiet, all four of its occupants finding sleep, andEllie lay there holding Becca and thinking about being in the middle of nowhere and what the next day might bring.
Chapter 20
Ellie woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of a low, repetitive clinking that seemed to come from outside. She lay still for a moment, disoriented by the unfamiliar room, the white linen, the wildflowers on the nightstand, and then the previous evening came back to her and she smiled.
Becca was still asleep next to her, face-down, one arm hanging off the bed, her hair a dark mess. She slept like someone who'd been switched off at the mains, completely, thoroughly, unreachably, and Ellie had learned years ago not to even attempt conversation before Becca's first, and preferably second, coffee.
She slipped out of bed, pulled on shorts and a t-shirt, and padded barefoot through the living area towards the coffee smell. Through the window she could see the source of the clinking sound: Colt, out by the paddock fence, working on something with a hammer, the horses watching him with benign disinterest.
The kitchen was clean and bright, the early light coming in low through the windows. A pot of coffee was on the counter with a handwritten note:
Help yourself. Mugs above the sink. I'm fixing the gate.
Ellie poured herself a mug and went out to the porch.
The hill country in the morning was a different beast to the hill country at night. Where the darkness had been vast, star-filled and slightly overwhelming, the morning was gentle and reassuring. Clear sunlight on greenish-brown hills, a slight mist in the low places that was already burning off, the air cool enough to feel fresh but warm enough to sit outside in a t-shirt. The horses were beautiful in the early sun, and hummingbirds were hovering at a feeder hung from the porch.
She sat in the wooden chair that she was already starting to think of as hers and drank her coffee. She felt a peace that she didn't often feel in Austin, where mornings were about alarms and traffic, not to mention the anxiety of opening her work email and seeing what dramas her day had in store. This was completely different.
After ten minutes Colt came up from the paddock, wiping his hands on his jeans, and smiled when he saw her.
"Morning. Sleep ok?"
"Amazingly. I don't think I've slept that well in months."
"The quiet does that. Takes a night to get used to if you're a city person, but once you do..." He poured himself a coffee and came to sit in the chair next to hers, stretching his long legs out andcrossing them at the ankle. "You must be a country girl at heart. Kelly's still out cold. Your girl too?"
"Becca doesn't function before coffee. It's pretty much a medical condition."
Colt laughed quietly. "Kelly's the same. Must be something about the type."
They sat in silence for a while, drinking their coffee, watching the world wake up around them. It was funny, Ellie reflected, she'd expected being one-on-one with Colt to feel loaded.My wife and your girlfriend are in all likelihood going to sleep together later… weird, huh?But instead it felt like exactly what it was, two early risers sharing a porch and a pot of coffee, enjoying something that the two later sleepers could never fully appreciate.
Colt broke the silence first, and when he did it was with a directness that Ellie was learning was a Texan trait rather than a personal one.
"Can I talk to you about something?" he said, not tensely but with a slight change in his posture that told Ellie that something had been on his mind.
“Of course.”
“Kelly came home after the first night with you two and she was…” He turned his coffee mug slowly in his hands, searching. “Lit up. That’s the best way I can put it. Not just the sex, though obviously that was part of it. The whole thing. You and Becca and how y’all do what you do. She said it was a privilege. Her word, not mine. A privilege to be part of it.”
Ellie nodded her understanding. “That means a lot.”
