Chapter 20
The next morning Chelsea woke and stretched, feeling an unfamiliar ache in places she had long ago forgotten about.
When she felt a warm breath and heard a voice against her ear, she came awake faster.
She rolled over to find Joel standing beside her bed, with a cup of coffee in his hand for her.
She looked at him in surprise and then shifted upright.
“Hey,” he greeted her.
“Oh my God, am I late?” she cried out.
“No, it’s Saturday, and you don’t have a shift today.”
She looked at him in shock and then sagged back. “Oh, thank God.” She yawned. “I wasn’t even thinking that when I went to bed last night.”
“No, you weren’t thinking a whole lot about anything else,” he stated, with a note of amusement in his tone.
She looked up at him and flushed. “Still not sorry,” she quipped, with a cheeky grin.
“That’s a good thing,” he noted. “I would hate to think that would be your first reaction in the morning.”
“Nope, absolutely not,” she said, as she gazed at him. “How long have you been up?”
He checked his watch. “About an hour. I’ve been talking to Sterling downstairs, mostly about what our options are and what the danger level is.”
“Right, because we don’t really know, do we?” she asked, as she shifted upward, leaning against the headboard and accepted the cup of coffee, sniffing appreciatively. “I could get used to this kind of treatment.”
“I don’t think you’ve been spoiled very much in your life, have you?”
She raised one eyebrow and then shrugged. “No, I don’t imagine I have. Yet I don’t have anything to compare it to, so it’s really not an issue.”
He smiled. “Might not be an issue but it certainly won’t hurt for you to get spoiled a little bit now.”
“No, it won’t hurt, but I doubt it’ll happen very much.”
“And why is that?” he asked, as he sat down beside her.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve just never really had any experience with that.” He nodded. “Do you think he knows?” she asked Joel.
“Sterling? Yeah, he knows,” he stated calmly, “and we’ve talked about it.”
When her eyes opened wide, he smiled at her. “We’ve been brothers at arms for a very long time. … I would never try to hide anything from him—or you. Also he’s your family.”
“I understand, and I’m not upset about that. … I guess, in a way, it clears the air.”
“He knew perfectly well where we were heading, so I think he’s just happy for us.”
“Good, I’m happy for us too.”
He laughed. “That is really good news.”
“Do we have anything to do today?” she asked, groaning as she shifted again, wincing at the ache in her back.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, just some lifting from yesterday,” she shared. “The end result is my back is a little sore this morning.”
“And that is something you’ll have to watch pretty intently when you’re at work.”
“I didn’t try to do it wrong,” she replied with a smirk. “You rush in to help someone, and you don’t even think about it. You bend and lift. Unfortunately, the end result sometimes is that some patients are not so easily lifted.”
“You probably just react more than think about it,” Joel suggested.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I did,” she admitted. “Hopefully it will be okay.” She smiled up at him. “I’ll have a shower before I come down.”
“Okay. I think he’s making pancakes.”
Her eyes widened, and she carefully put down the cup of coffee and threw back the covers. “In that case,” she said, “I’ll hurry up and get into the shower right now, so I’ll be ready. I wonder if he knows how much I love pancakes.”
“I suspect he probably does,” Joel noted, with a laugh. “It happens to be one of his favorites too.”
She smiled. “We do seem to have an inordinate number of things in common.”
“I don’t think it’s inordinate,” he countered, with a smile. “I mean, you two are family.”
“I know,” she muttered, as she looked over at him with a sigh. “I really feel shitty about my mom and what she did to him.”
“Don’t worry about it because Sterling doesn’t.” And, with that, he gave her a kiss and stood. “Hurry up and get your shower.” And he walked out.
She took advantage of a few minutes to herself and showered and washed her hair. She hadn’t had time for a special conditioner treatment or anything extra recently. So, by the time she came out, she felt a hell of a lot better.
When she walked into the kitchen, she shared a wry smile with Joel, then sniffed the air. “It smells incredible. Pancakes, really?”
Sterling nodded. “Well, I figured you probably weren’t going to cook again.”
She groaned. “You’re not going to let me forget that, are you?”
“Oh, I will,” he teased, “but not for a while.”
She laughed. “Didn’t realize you could cook this much.”
“It’s not hard to make pancakes,” he said, staring over at her in surprise.
“Maybe not, but it sure wasn’t a common dish for me, growing up.”
“That’s too bad,” he noted, with a shrug. “It’s a pretty easy one.”
Joel kept silent, just enjoying the banter, watching them engaging—like family.
She nodded and grabbed a platter full of pancakes and three plates and sat down beside Joel. “It looks lovely,” she murmured to Sterling.
“Good. Eat away. Then we’ll figure out what’s going on today.”
“Yeah? So, tell me what’s going on today,” she urged him, as she grabbed several pancakes and put syrup on them, nudging Joel to help himself.
“I have some security stuff to set up. I could use a hand with that,” he noted, looking over at Joel.
Joel immediately nodded. “That’s a good idea.”
“What kind of security stuff?” she asked.
“I bought a little bit more sophisticated security system, you know, with cameras and other stuff for here,” he shared, “just in case we do have any visitors. That way, we might catch them somewhere on camera. Oh, and Richard actually has a steady stream of black-and-whites patrolling at night. One of our guys took note of it and told me about it.”
“Wow.” Joel glanced at Sterling. “I guess the sheriff wasn’t doing patrols or the sheriff agreed to this? So Richard actually stepped in and did something. That’s good to hear.”
“Right, only because his chief is probably here, watching his every move,” she muttered, staring down at her pancakes, suddenly not feeling quite as hungry.
Joel nudged her plate closer. “No matter what happens,” he reminded her, “we still need our strength. And you need to eat your favorite food.”
That immediately made her laugh. “Right, so eat in case we encounter the shit show, so I can run or otherwise get through it. Is that it?”
“Something like that,” Joel confirmed, with a smile. “It might not be quite so clear-cut, but definitely it’s better to be ready.”
As the two men discussed the options for the day, she thought about whether she needed anything. “I think we need groceries. Is that something we can do though?”
Joel shared a look with Sterling. “Yes, if we’re alert.
Getting staples is not something we can put off forever.
Plus, I don’t think we can hunker down in this house for days on end either.
I know you will still go to work tomorrow.
While Grandpa is itching to come home, he’s safer with Lindsey in town, for now.
” He paused, turning to Sterling to see if he had anything to add.
Sterling nodded. “Yeah, it’s a risk, but we know the drill. So, yes, Chels, food is on the list. If you guys are heading out, I could give you the list.”
She laughed. “I think you guys all spent too much time with Toby and Dwight. This whole list thing is crazy.”
“Maybe,” Sterling conceded, “but it works, and it stops everybody from having to drive around doing errands. Just the one guy instead for the day. Hopefully just once a day.”
“Oh, I’m not arguing the point,” she replied, taking a mouthful of pancakes before speaking again. “Just be prepared for the day that I hand you a list.”
He grinned at her. “Not a problem.”
Then they all ate, while working out groceries for the next week.
It was all the normal everyday mundane stuff, and she loved it.
It was a sign of normalcy, a sign of things to come, and she was all for it.
By the time breakfast was over, the men headed off to deal with the security stuff.
One of the two farmhands was always on security detail.
She cleaned up the kitchen, then sat down and spent a little more time refining the menu plan for the next week to ensure quantities and essential items were correct on their list. When the men returned a couple hours later, she was ready to head out.
As soon as she saw them, she walked over and announced, “I’m going to town.” She looked back at Joel. “Do you want to come?”
“Absolutely, because you’re not going anywhere alone.”
“Right,” she muttered, with an eye roll. “I kind of forgot that.” When both men stared at her, she frowned. “Okay, so I just didn’t think about it for a little while.”
“Well, you’re thinking about it now.” Sterling glared at her. “You can’t let your guard down, Chels.”
“Yes, I know,” she admitted, “but it’s just easier if I don’t think about it though.”
“Of course it’s easier, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best answer.”
“Well, I’m ready to go with the easiest,” she stated, with a smile. “Yet I realize it may not work long-term.”
Very quickly, they were on the road heading into town.
Joel looked at her and asked, “Where are we going?”
She wanted to hit two grocery stores and the mall. “I need to grab some socks, as I’m going through them way too fast, simply by working on my feet all day. Plus, I need a couple more uniforms.”
Joel nodded. “We’ll do the mall first, then the groceries next, and hit home after that to put stuff in the freezer and the fridge, as needed.”
By the time they finished the mall shopping, he asked her, “How about lunch, my treat?”
She looked at him in surprise. “Sure, or we can also go home and eat some of the groceries we’ll be buying in a bit.”
“Yeah, we could, but we could also grab something here and spend a little more time together.”
She beamed. “I won’t say no to that.”