Page 41 of Elijah

“Elijah!”

As I shouted his head turned to me and watched as I stormed towards him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his hand paused in throwing on another branch.

“You. You’re what’s wrong. The house stinks of damn smoke and Sophie is due here in about half an hour.”

Elijah looked to the house and then back at the fire. “Shit, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”

“No, you didn’t.” I gripped at my hair and looked up to the pale blue sky. “The bloody doors and windows are all open, Elijah, surely you must have seen.”

“I didn’t. I’m sorry.” He threw the branch onto the floor. “I’ll come and help you close them all.”

I heard a window slam shut and we both looked to the house to see Claudia’s arm reaching out and pulling another one closed.

“Forget it,” I snapped, turning back to him. “We’ll do it ourselves.”

I swivelled on my heels and marched back inside, slamming the doors behind me. I then went into the family room and began closing all the windows in there. The smell in there wasn’t as bad, seeing as it was around the corner from the fire; but the stench of smoke was still there.

When I went into the hall, to go and do the same in dining room I heard the noise of an aerosol and the smell of manufactured lavender reached my nostrils.

“What the…”

As I strode into the hall, I came face to face with Elijah, liberally spraying a can of air freshener around. It caught at the back of my throat it was so pungent.

“Shit, Elijah, stop.”

He turned to me and grinned. “I had it in the truck,” he replied, looking more than pleased with himself.

“Why the hell would you have a can of air freshener in the truck?” I asked, taking it from him and shoving it behind my back. “Especially one that stinks that bad.”

“It’s lavender,” he stated, his brow furrowing.

“As a gardener, I would expect you’d know what lavender smells like and it most definitely isn’t that. And why do you have it?”

“We get sweaty and that cab is small,” he explained. “It’s not that bad.”

“Really?” I arched my eyebrows, inviting him to reassess his sense of smell.

After sniffing the air, Elijah’s shoulders sagged. “It is a bit rank.”

“You’re not kidding.” I shook my head. “It’s worse than the bloody smoke.”

“I’m sorry, Amy. I just thought it would help.”

I closed my eyes and counted to ten. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll think of something. Hopefully, the smell will fade.”

Elijah scratched his head. “Can you put Sophie off for a half an hour?”

I looked at my watch and shrugged. “I’m going to have to try. I don’t want her smelling this. I know she’ll understand but I just wanted everything to be perfect.”

“Go and try,” he said. “I can’t put the fire out, but at least there’s no more smell coming inside.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

* * *

I’d managed to put Sophie off by another hour, telling her that something had come up that I had to deal with, and thank goodness she was fine with it. I’d nipped out to buy to reed diffusers and just hoped that they’d do the trick, but when I’d left the smell of smoke still hung heavy in the air.