Free The Mighty Quinns: Eli by Kate Hoffmann Page A

yesterday in her garden and replayed it, her gaze focused on Eli. He’d discarded his shirt and wore just his hiking shorts and his boots. A shiver skittered down her spine as she paused the video to take a closer examination of his chest and belly.
    â€œGod,” she murmured. It might be a lot easier to put her feelings aside if the sight of his body didn’t send her into paroxysms of desire. Her fingers twitched as she remembered the feel of his bare skin beneath her hands.
    Searching for something to distract herself, Lucy tossed the camera aside and crawled out of bed, grabbing an old T-shirt to pull over herself. Riley lifted his head from the other pillow, then yawned and went back to sleep.
    Rubbing her eyes, she crossed the room and set the teakettle on the woodstove then opened the front door and carefully rebuilt the fire. Then she put some granola into a bowl and mixed some powdered milk and water to pour over it. As she ate, Lucy went over her list of tasks for the day. She was two logs behind on the cabin, she still had more of the garden to dig up and she needed to erect a rabbit fence.
    By the time she was finished eating, the teakettle was boiling. She made herself a cup of coffee, added powdered creamer and sugar, then opened the front door and stared out at the morning sky. Exhaustion seemed to drag her down with every step and she sighed in frustration. She’d been hoping for rain, but the sky was clear.
    This was exactly what she didn’t want. She’d spent the entire night tossing and turning and thinking about the last words she’d said to Eli and now she was too tired to work.
    It really hadn’t been fair to burden him with all her insecurities. He’d walked away as confused as she was. But she was quickly reaching a point of no return with him and she had to do what was right for this project.
    He’d become too important to her. She spent too many hours daydreaming about him, wondering what he was doing when they were apart. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d wondered how to get ahold of him, aching to hear his voice for just a minute or two. The computer had become a looming temptation and, had she known his email address, she might have given in.
    But loneliness was a sign of weakness. She’d lived almost her entire life by relying solely on her own wits and resources. She’d had parents once, and then foster parents, but they’d given her so little that she’d learned to expect nothing from other human beings.
    Only now Eli had walked into her life. And in just a few short encounters, he’d managed to make her want more. She used to revel in her solitude but now all she could think about was having him here with her. As a friend and a companion. Maybe even a lover. One day a month just wasn’t enough.
    She understood why she was so attracted to him. He was sexy and charming, of course, but it ran deeper than that. There was an intellectual connection as well. He understood what she was trying to accomplish here; he got that it wasn’t just some reality TV show, it was deeply personal to her. She’d never felt that kind of understanding and acceptance with anyone before.
    She wasn’t an easy person to get along with, she didn’t trust people enough to make good friends. But with Eli, the walls just seemed to disappear. There was an ease to their conversations that she found comforting. They’d enjoyed the same books and laughed at the same jokes. They were both a bit cynical yet secretly optimistic.
    There was also the physical aspect. She couldn’t deny the way he made her feel when he touched her or kissed her. And in the hours before she fell asleep, the desire she’d been trying to bury all day long would surface and she would construct wild sexual fantasies about the two of them, fantasies that sometimes made her blush.
    But the most startling thing that she’d found in Eli was an