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It was more adorable than I could take.
“I messed up.” She talked fast, barely stopping to catch her breath. “I should have set an alarm. I should have turned my ringer on. Son of abitch,I missed a whole day because I was too?—”
She had to stop when I shoved garlic bread in her mouth.
“Good morning, princess.”
She slowly chewed and grabbed the rest of the slice.
“It’s not morning, which is the whole problem.” She then realized what she was eating. “This is actually delicious.”
“I’m making more.”
She groaned. “Cain, I don’t havetime!”
“Look out the window,” I ordered.
She rolled her eyes. “I know what I did last night. I still have?—”
I put my hands on her head and moved her. She tried to fight it for all of two seconds before she saw what we had worked on.
“What the—did I sleep plant?”
“No. Eric and I did it.”
Her eyes went wide. “But?—”
“He wanted to, and I knew you needed sleep. It’s not totally done, but the way I see it, I just have to work a little later with the animals, and you get sleep. It’s not a huge deal.”
“Of course it’s a huge deal. I mean ... you didn’t have to ... Why did you ...” She trailed off, looking totally lost.
“Hasn’t anyone ever done anything nice for you before?”
She blinked, cheeks going red. “Not as much as you’d think.”
I stared at her, wondering what idiots she had been around back in the city, but before I could ask, Eric came running down the stairs.
“Mollie! Mollie! Did you see what we did?”
“I did,” she said with a smile. “It looks great.”
“And we have garlic bread. This is the best weekend ever!”
He ran to the kitchen to check on the progress of the pasta. I gave Mollie one last look before I went to plate everyone’s food.
She was quiet as we ate, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw her sneaking glances at me. I could have called her out on it, but I had no idea how to tell her that helping out wasn’t a huge deal.
Obviously, it was to her.
After lunch, she got dressed and went out to the fields to work.
She gave me a smile before running off. I let Eric play ratherthan help, though he came over to assist with planting when he felt like it. We were able to finish the second field and start on the third by the time the sun had begun to set.
“Okay, I have to stop,” I said. “I need to go feed the animals and milk them. They’re gonna kill me.”
“I’ll help,” she said, getting up.
“No, I?—”