“That’s just an old coyote. No need to worry,” Rowan says, carrying my bags up the stairs like they weigh nothing. It’s not like I brought a ton of stuff with me, but there’s plenty there that weighs more than he’s letting on, and oh God, I think there’s the swell of a bicep under his shirt. He brushes past me and I shiver again. I bury the impulse to reach out and grab his arm, to touch him and make sure he’s real. “Come on in the house, Cadence. I don’t want you to catch your death out here in the cold. Didn’t think New Mexico would be that cold, huh?”
I shake my head dumbly and do the only thing I can do—follow him into the house. He dumps the bags on the confused porter, and the poor little man heads upstairs, conveniently leaving the suitcase of paints downstairs.
“I can just keep this down here, if that’s okay. It’s all my paints and stuff,” I say, still openly staring at Rowan. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. He’s probably too classy for that. And what’s wrong with looking at something I can’t have?
Maybe this is good. Maybe it’s okay to stare, to look at not have. After all, I am a woman, even if I’m an infertile one. I can look at this man if I want to, and maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
“That’s just fine. I’ve got the nonprofit office just down the road in town.”
“In town? I didn’t think we passed a town.” He laughs out loud, and his dark eyebrows knit together in amusement.
“Touché, Miss Cadence. There’s not much of one, but there’s a big wall inside. And it’s a beautiful building. It’ll be just lovely once it’s all done. And I might even get you back out here in the spring to paint the inside—”
“Oh no. No. I’m only here for one month, then I’m going back to New York.”
“Well you might just find that this place has a way of getting under your skin. But I tip my hat to you, Miss Cadence. You know exactly what you want. I can tell that about you already.” He tips an imaginary hat to me, and I can’t help but imagine what he might look like in a real cowboy hat. The thought sends a tiny pinprick of heat to my belly, a place I haven’t felt it in a long time.
“I don’t think—well, I haven’t felt that way in a long time. Like I know what I want.” I’m on the edge of bursting and telling him my whole story, I realize.
Don’t overshare, Cadence. Not everyone wants to hear about all of your depressing bullshit.
“Oh?” Rowan’s deep, rumbling voice seems to reverberate from in the foyer, bouncing off the dark wooden floors and the surrounding walls. “I guess you just have that look about you. I’ve been wrong before, and I’ll be wrong again.”
I hear the porter walking around upstairs, throwing bags around in a way that suggests this is his first time handling bags. I cringe a bit and put my hand to the railing. If this man hasn’t got a hotel or a guesthouse for me, I need to get upstairs before I go and lick the side of his face. He looks like he might taste like vanilla and cinnamon, like a wintery treat in his wintery gray shirt and his dark jeans and his...
Is he wearing Uggs? I put my hand to my mouth and stifle a laugh, and he follows my eyes down to his feet.
“Yep, these slippers are exactly what you think,” he says. A big grin moves across his face. “Laugh if you want to, but you already know it’s colder in New Mexico than you thought. And I’ll have you know that these are chocolate suede. I think they’re very manly. You know what’s not manly?”
“What?” I smile just as wide as he does. It might be the first time a man has made me smile like this in a long time. Eli was serious, but there’s a twinkle in this man’s eyes, and it’s infectious, even as I’m standing here in the foyer of his estate, glancing at the obviously expensive artwork adorning his walls and the deep blue oriental rugs lining the long, dark hallway.
“Cold feet. I can’t work that way. A man’s gotta have warm feet to be productive. Or a woman. Tell me, Cadence, do you have slippers? Really warm ones?” He raises an eyebrow, his face suddenly serious. This time, I laugh out loud, shaking hard against the bannister. My exhaustion is making me giddy, and I sit down on the wide bottom stair, still laughing. “It’s no laughing matter,” he says, but there’s amusement in his voice.
“No I don’t. I—” The porter interrupts us and barrels down the stairs and out the door.