The McEllis Boys

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ian was sleeping peacefully on the sofa and dreaming about big breasted women when the shrill ringing of the telephone had him jerking awake. He tried hard to ignore it but by the third ring he was sitting up and throwing his legs over the couch irritably.

"Is somebody gonna get that?!" he called out and then it rang a fourth time and he cursed when he remembered that Cavanaugh and Nicole had gone to town to run errands and Andrew was outside moping.

Ian got to his feet and went into the kitchen. He jerked the phone off the wall and held it to his ear and tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for whoever it was to speak.

"Hello....?" a woman's voice came to his ear.

"Hello," Ian mimicked.

"Um...Is Nicole home?"

Ian shook his head, "She and Cav went into town to run some errands."

"Does she have her cell phone with her? I tried calling it and she didn't answer," the woman asked.

Ian frowned as he scratched at his stomach and looked longingly back at the couch, "What's a cell phone?" he questioned. He heard a long sigh on the other end of the line.

"Never mind. Do you know what time she may be home?"

"Soon I hope. She was bringing food," Ian replied as his stomach growled.

"Okay well, I'm just going to come over then and I'll wait for her if she's not back. If she gets back before I arrive can you tell her that Leslie is coming over to talk?"

"Leslie?" Ian asked with a frown. "The working mom who has someone else caring for her child and likes to accuse women who are doing her favors of whores who are having wild parties with lots of different men?"

There was a loud cough on the other end of the line and the woman's voice was barely more than a squeak when she said, "Yes."

Ian shrugged, "Okay, I'll tell her." He hung the phone back up and flopped himself back down on the couch to continue with his beauty sleep.

***

"I'll tell you what, it sure would be nice if fresh fruits and vegetables were this easy to come by back in 1875," Cavanaugh stated as he grabbed a bag of green apples and put them in the cart.

"I miss the way things were when my mom and dad were both alive," Nicole admitted with a sigh as she moved the cart down the aisle. "We always grew huge gardens and we would plow, plant, hoe, harvest and then spend weeks canning what we weren't going to use right away. We had a huge cellar full of enough food to last for months."

"I believe you'd fit right in back in 1875. You're more frontier cowgirl than most of the women from that time," Cavanaugh said with a smile.

Nicole felt pride fill her. She liked knowing that Cavanaugh was impressed by her, "I've actually always said that I was supposed to have been born back then. I've always felt a bit out of place with technology. Though I would probably miss indoor toilets and XM radio the most if it was gone."

"XM radio?" Cav asked with a frown.

Nicole laughed lightly, "They play music all the time." she replied Cavanaugh nodded, "I play the guitar and the piano," he admitted and then he grinned and leaned closer to her ear. "Just don't tell my brothers." Nicole tried desperately to ignore the trembling in her legs that his breath on her skin caused, "It'll be our little secret," she assured him. "So where did you learn to play?"