Layla smiled and resisted the urge to pull her scrapbook from her carry-on bag. She’d been clipping pages from magazines for years, carefully filling in the white space with her dream home. She winced.
Lamentably, there was no man in any of the pictures at the moment—according to her sisters, she was too picky—but her floor plans called for his-and-her walk-in closets and she’d bought a king-size bed. She was willing to make room in her life for the right guy, but would be lying if she denied her faith in his existence was waning. Layla wanted a guy with an artist’s soul and a farmer’s attachment to the land, to a home and family.
Tall order.
In fact, she wasn’t altogether certain that the artist’s soul could inhabit the farmer’s body, in which case she might as well settle for one or the other, but was unwilling to do that either.
Picky? No. More like…particular.
She’d rather be alone than fill that slot with a man who would ultimately make her miserable. There wasn’t much point in putting in all this hard work and planning to build her dream home only to have it turn into the armpit of hell with a guy who didn’t fulfill her. Someone who didn’t want the same things she did. She’d spent the bulk of her childhood wandering. She wanted to settle. She wanted a fancy mailbox with her name on it and a yearly bill from the county courthouse for her property taxes.
She also wanted sex, but didn’t see that happening anytime in the near future. It had been more than a year since she’d broken up with her last boyfriend—nicknamed Bitter Disappointment #3—and while she was perfectly willing to consider the idea of a little casual sex, she hadn’t met a single guy in the interim who’d inspired her to do so.
Inspiration was important.
She felt the plane jolt as the wheels hit the ground and her fingers tightened around the armrests. Going up never bothered her. Coming down, on the other hand, was a different kettle of fish.
As the plane taxied to a stop, Layla mentally girded her loins for the coming evening and gathered her things. She didn’t have much. Just an oversize overnight bag, a tote that housed her small purse and her mandolin, of course. Though she could play almost any stringed instrument, this was the one that owned her. True, you could get a more sustained sound from a guitar or violin, but there was something about the sound this particular instrument made that simply spoke to her soul. The mandolin was finicky, required a fast touch and being able to wind its melody through the other instruments gave her a high that no chemical could ever induce.
She loved it.
She took a deep, bracing breath and stepped off the plane.
And it was a good thing she’d just inhaled all that oxygen, because the ability to put air into her lungs promptly vanished when she saw the man standing on the tarmac.
Bryant Bishop. Ultimate inspiration. The inspiration to end all inspiration.
It had been years since she’d seen him. At least two, if not three. But she’d recognize the shape of those shoulders anywhere, and the head that rested upon them wasn’t too damned bad either.
He was the only man she’d ever dreamed about, and in those dreams, he was alternately rocking above her, gloriously naked, or parked in a chair beside her, rocking on her front porch.
Only an idiot would misinterpret the significance and Layla was no idiot.
Despite the freezing temperatures, her body felt as if it had suddenly landed in the Sahara. There wasn’t a molecule inside of her that wasn’t keenly aware of him, and her joints—particularly her knees—were undergoing some sort of chemical change that rendered them almost useless. Fire licked through her veins, concentrating in her nipples, and an inferno burned low in her belly. The sensation was so startling that it jolted the breath out of her lungs, making her gasp like a floundering fish. Gallingly, her cheeks blazed right along with the rest of her.
He smiled, almost knowingly, and her mortification was complete.
Bryant had a face that was more interesting than handsome, a series of planes and angles that held character rather than beauty. High cheekbones provided the perfect structure for the lean slope of his face and smooth angle of his jaw. An intriguing cleft bisected his chin and there was something overtly carnal about his mouth. His eyes were the color of smooth butterscotch and held a heavy-lidded quality that gave the illusion of either boredom or sleepiness, whichever he preferred.
Right now he looked bored.
Excellent.
The lightning bolt to her libido and alarming dreams aside, she couldn’t say she was overjoyed to see him either. According to her little sister, Rita, he’d once made a play for her and hadn’t reacted kindly when she’d rebuffed him. Layla had been disappointed on two counts, the first being that he’d preferred her sister, and the second that he’d behaved like a boor. Honestly, the latter was actually more of a letdown. Rita was pretty. Layla wasn’t surprised that he’d liked her. But she’d never taken him for an arrogant ass.