The older woman working with one of the welders looked over at the group approaching her house and she smiled seeing who was also there.
"BILLY!" Meg grinned and started towards him.
"MEG! Come on, honey! Meg, how are you?!" Bill asked and they hugged.
"Oh, it is so good to see you!" Meg stated simply and then smiled at Elizabeth. "And Ellie Harding you amazingly muddy!" Meg laughed seeing Elizabeth caked in mud.
"Good to see you too." Bill laughed at the pout his cousin now had.
"Day before yesterday, I was telling Jo, how much I miss you!" Meg mentioned making Bill and Dusty laugh at her display of drama. "You haven't seen any of my new work!" Meg complained to Bill when she saw Jo and beamed at her. "Jo! Oh honey! Seen some action?"
"You should have seen it" Jo was grinning widely at her aunt.
"Yeah it was windy, muddy and wet." Elizabeth offered when Dusty and the other guys hip checked her out of the way to get to Meg.
"Meg!" Dusty called and they all hugged Meg making the woman laugh.
"Hey, Boys!" Meg greeted them and saw Robert Nurick reach down and help Elizabeth stand up and smiled at them.
Elizabeth had the shower first and came out of the bathroom in a towel and looked around for her clothes and grumbled seeing that she forgot her spare clothes downstairs. She sighed in despair not wanting to go down there in a towel.
"Great, just what I need, Dusty will try to grab it offa me…" Elizabeth grumbled to herself when the door opened.
"Hey, Jo saw that you left your clothes on the couch…" The person coming through the door frozen and felt the clothes slip from their grasp before they made to grab them before they fell on the floor.
"Thanks Rob…" Elizabeth mentioned trying to sound casual but still saw the wide-eyed expression Rabbit had on his face. "A…anything else?" She asked carefully and he blinked just staring at her in the towel. "ROB!" She shouted at him and he blinked again.
"Uhm…no…" Rabbit stuttered slightly and backed out of the door and tripped over the bottom of it and stumbled out of the room.
Elizabeth was now dressed and downstairs helping Meg set the table.
"So have you two jumped each other yet?" Meg asked curiously and Elizabeth looked at her confusedly.
"What?" She asked and Meg who grinned.
"You and Robert. It's quite obvious with the way you two stare at each other when the other isn't looking."
"What looks? The ones where we're trying to find a nice place to stick a blade?" Elizabeth asked drolly and Meg laughed this time.
"I knew a boy once that tripped me, he also threw mud at me and argued with me about everything. I have to admit that I also made his life a living hell. I threw his clothes in the mulch machine and I spray painted his chair in school."
"Why are you telling me this?" Elizabeth asked worriedly.
"That boy was John." Meg informed the girl and Elizabeth looked over the photo of Meg and her late husband John. "Don't mistake hatred for something else."
"Is the food ready to come off?" Elizabeth asked quietly looking down ignoring what Meg had said.
"Yeah, it's ready go and tell the others."
Next Bill was in the shower and everybody was sitting at the table eating some food. Elizabeth sat beside Rabbit because there was no other seats available. She was eating some of her steak and she sighed in delight.
"No, in a severe lightning storm you want to grab your ankles and stick your butt up in the air." Rabbit shook his head at the conversation that started up and Elizabeth quirked an eyebrow at him.
"He's right, if you're gonna get hit, it's the safest orifice." Haynes shrugged with a grin.
"Yeah, I'd like to get hit by lightning once. Ya know, see what it's like." Joey admitted with sarcasm.
"It's not that bad, but then again I haven't been struck directly." Elizabeth admitted and everybody stopped and stared at her. "A bolt landed twenty feet away from me. The electro surge threw me back a few feet and scrambled my brains a bit but I was okay."
"Oh so that's 'what' happened to you." Rabbit admitted teasingly and she glared at him and heard the chuckles from the others.
"Hey Meg!"
"Yes dear?" Meg peeked into the room.
"Do you have any pots for some rabbit stew?!" She asked still glaring at the man beside her and he smirked at her.
"Don't be silly dear…he'd never fit…" Meg shook her head and left.
"Hey, this is real lemonade! Hey, Meg, I'm movin' in here!" Laurence shouted towards the kitchen and he drank some more.
"You guys, look out, make a space." Jo came in and was chuckling at the antics between Rabbit and Elizabeth. "Look out, look out, look out!" Jo mentioned to Melissa who was also watching the antics.
Melissa looked at the steak that made her stomach clench in disgust.
"God, Meg, you've got a lot of beef. Where'd you get all this beef?" Rabbit moaned in pleasure eating some more. Elizabeth gave him a wide-eyed look when he made that sound.
"Did you see my cows out front?" Meg asked pointedly and grinned at the unnoticed look Elizabeth had given him.
"No." Rabbit admitted and Meg grinned at him this time.
"Ohhhh!" Meg made a gasping motion and Rabbit started laughing.
"Ohh. Cool!" Rabbit kept eating.
"You slaughter your own cows, Meg! Nice." Dusty grinned at her this time as Jo gave him a bowl of mashed potatoes and gravy. "Potatoes?" Dusty asked Melissa.
"Better grab some while you can." Jo told Melissa as Dusty slopped potatoes and gravy onto her plate.
"Meg's gravy is famous. It's practically a food group." Dusty offered to Melissa who looked completely thrown for a loop and Elizabeth smiled sadly at the woman.
"Shower's free!" Bill shouted coming into the room and Jo practically ran into him.
"I'm next!" Jo shouted happily and sidestepped Bill.
"Oops…" Bill grinned at everybody and sat down as Meg handed him some food. "So what did I miss? Oh I want that…" Bill muttered when Meg handed him the food.
"Well Rabbit insulted El, and she asked Meg if she had another pot for rabbit stew." Sanders informed Bill who huffed in laughter.
"Okay then, so nothing important happened…" Bill laughed to himself and coughed seeing the dual glares from both Elizabeth and Rabbit. Bill watched the television and was watching the weather news when Jo came back to grab a towel from the closet.
"How can you watch this garbage?" She asked him and Bill huffed in sarcasm and brought the set closer while turning the machine up.
"Oh, pardon me kiddos. You guys gotta see this!" Bill shouted to everybody.
They saw the news broadcast that Jonas Miller had done.
"Careful, buddy, he'll steal your microphone." Laurence grumbled eating some food.
"Well for me, it's the thrill of the hunt." Everybody booed and hissed at the man on the screen. "Man vs. nature. Having battle with the elements." Jonas admitted and Elizabeth sighed knowing that he did look good on screen.
"So as a scientist, can you actually predict tornadoes now?" The reporter asked curiously.
"Well, no, they are very, very unpredictable, as some of my more unfortunate colleagues found out earlier today…" Jonas smirked smugly and everybody groaned in dismay.
"Oh, turn him off!" Haynes whined.
"But we hope to change all that with a system I have devised." Jonas admitted on the screen.
"God, he sucks." Dusty grumbled darkly drinking some more lemonade.
"Aw, shut up!" Rabbit threw a napkin at the television set.
"BOOOO!" Joey stuck his thumb down.
"Turn him off." Elizabeth grumbled sadly and Bill knew by the sound of her voice that she was getting upset about seeing Jonas in any vicinity.
"What a wiener." Bill shook his head and sat back down.
"He really is in love with himself. I thought it was just a summer thing." Jo grumbled to herself then looked at Elizabeth. "How could you sleep with that man?!" She asked and everybody looked at her in shock then over at Elizabeth who was still staring at the now off set.
"Temporary insanity?" Elizabeth mentioned quietly with a shrug and she felt a hand on her back rubbing it. She looked expecting to see either Billy or Meg there. She was surprised when she saw Rabbit watching her sadly and he offered a sad smile and she huffed in laughter.
"Must have been that bolt of lightning…" Rabbit mentioned quietly and Elizabeth loud louder this time and smile at him making him smile back at her.