“But there’s no one here to tell me not to wear my lambswool slippers, is there?” My voice echoes through the empty hallway, and I start up the stairs. Just before I walk up, I hear a car pulling up in the driveway outside. The headlights pour in through the glass windows on either side of the front door. Panic strikes me for a moment.
It’s her. It’s that woman again. She’s supposed to be hiding out in the beach house and it’s been a whole month since—
But it’s the limo, not Joanna’s Aston.
Who in the hell? Who’s out in the mountains north of Ruidoso the Monday after Thanksgiving? Dammit, who in the hell?
Oh fuck. That’s right.
There was that artist girl I was going to have shipped out here for the mural. The one from New York City. Candy? Callie? Something like that. I’d told her personal assistant that she was my favorite artist on the phone, but I only saw one piece she’d done, and it was damn good, so I’d fudged the truth a little bit—all for the sake of the nonprofit. I turn to see my driver and one of the porters standing at the door. The man looks like he’s about to freeze, and his gaze reflects all of the confusion that I feel.
Such a goddamned idiot, Rowan. The guest house with its plumbing all fucked to hell. What on earth are you going to do with some artist girl?
“Christ on a goddamned bike, not now. How did I forget about this?” I walk over to the door and hold it open.
“Sir,” the driver chirps. “Cadence Albright is here to stay for the evening. She said you hadn’t set her up in a hotel—”
“Oh goddammit,” I say, grabbing one of the girls’ bags from the driver’s arms. With all of the Joanna shit in that past month, I never thought about getting a hotel for the girl—and hell, I didn’t even ask my assistant to do anything for her except get the flight booked. The porter lugs a gigantic bag out of the trunk and the poor girl steps out of the limo, shivering in a gauzy purple tunic and skinny jeans. She probably thought that New Mexico wasn’t cold in December. She turns to the porter and grabs the suitcase from him with a look of pure exasperation, pulling it out of his hands as he looks on in complete confusion. I can see her rolling her eyes even ten feet away, and she pulls the whole rickety rolling contraption up the stairs.
Her deep brown eyes meet mine for an instant and she stands there, just looking at me, waiting at the top of the last step—for what I don’t know. After a long pause, she opens her mouth and then stops. “I’m really sorry. I don’t remember your name.” Her voice is deep and husky, sexy like she’s almost out of breath. The muscles in her arms are visible under the gauze of her shirt, and I wonder if she’s that cut from painting murals and putting up sculptures. And damn, her curves don’t quite match the muscles in her arms, but they make for a perfectly beautiful sight. She smiles, and for a second, it’s like the whole wide porch lights up in front of me.
“Rowan,” I say. There’s a warmth that expands in my chest for an instant, even as the cold wind whips down from the mountains and across the grassy flatlands of the ranch.
“Cadence. I’m Cadence.” She doesn’t extend her hand, but she smiles again, and it lights up her whole face—all the exquisite details of it—her rich, dark skin, full red lips, and the long curling lashes accenting her deep golden-brown eyes. She purses her full lips for a moment, and I find myself staring at her as she stands there. Her pixie-cut hair is slightly messy, presumably from the plane ride and the long-ass commute from the airport, but there’s a sparkle deep in her eyes, like some part of her is ready for mischief, or fun, or art. I can see the curves of her breasts beneath the shirt she’s wearing and the matching roundness of her hips in her jeans, paired with a completely perfect set of long legs, shown off in those damn tight jeans. It’s probably lewd for me to stare at her like I am, but I can’t help studying the supple expanse of her body.
A long moment passes, and I’m still looking at her, my brain drawing a complete blank on what to say next. “So, is there a place for me to stay? My PA told me that you had a guest house on the ranch,” she says. She looks around like she’s confused and drops the handle of her fraying green suitcase. It clatters down one step, and she keeps giving me that quizzical look, and I’m not quite sure what to say to her.
There’s nowhere for her to stay, except right here. The guest house is out of electricity and the plumbing is shit, and the hotel is twenty miles away in the wrong direction, and she’s standing there, wind whipping over her, looking beautiful and lonely. She looks distant, like her heart is somewhere else, her hands clenched into tight fists. She knits her eyebrows together like she doesn’t quite understand why someone isn’t taking her to the guest house.