There’s no mention of why she needed that space, and I try not to assume any damn thing. There’s hurt there. Since I started Coming Home, I’ve seen all types of hurt to the point where I can see it on people. She’s been through something dark, and something recent.
Maybe she’ll tell me, and maybe she won’t. I’ll bide my time.
I like this girl. I like her. The words repeat in my brain like a chorus, and I just watch her and listen.
I’d thought this month might be the worst of my life.
But things are looking up. Oh yes. Things are looking up.
CHAPTER FIVE
Coming into this, I knew that Rowan lived in the middle of nowhere, I just didn’t know exactly what that meant. New Jersey doesn’t have much in the way of middle-of-nowhere places, and there’s exactly zero middle-of-nowhere places in Manhattan. But from the great flat sprawl of the plains the expand behind Rowan’s estate to the snow-capped mountains jutting from the horizon, this place is about as out-in-the-sticks as a person can get.
Au milieu de nulle part. The thought comes to me randomly after ten years of being out of high school French class. In the middle of nowhere, but prettier. That’s what this feels like. It’s not that there’s nothing here. There’s more here than I’ve seen in a long time, more than I’ve seen walking down the crowded streets and alleyways of Manhattan.
The city will always have my heart, I think as Rowan’s driver takes us down the winding driveway, down into a valley and then up over another mountain. But all this might grow on me.
“You’re quiet,” Rowan says. Eliza Doolittle is snoring in the backseat, and she’s just about the only sound that either of us can here.
I nod. “Just thinking. And hey—how do you know I’m quiet if you’ve only just met me? I could be quiet all the time.” I glance at Rowan. He’s staring openly at me, and I’m not sure if he knows he’s doing it. It’s been years since a man has looked at me that way, and I’m not sure if Eli ever looked at me that way.
I’m imagining things. I must be imagining things. Billionaire cowboys don’t look at girls like me. I might be going slightly insane with Rowan’s eyes roaming over me like they are. With any other man, I’d call him out and tell him to fuck off. Like the construction workers by my office—they’d gotten an earful more than once. But the way his eyes meet mine, the way he listens when I speak, the way he’s looking at me… it makes me want more, not less. And damn, that’s a terrifying thought.
If I were in my early twenties—skinnier, more confident, makeup and brows fierce as hell—I’d probably have slipped him the key to my hotel room, or my number at the very least. I wasn’t shy back then, and I never hesitated when it came to getting the man that I wanted, the man that I deserved. I might not have ever been runway material, not in New York, but I had that flame, the passion that Eli said had driven him wild. But the flame’s been put out by the intervening years, and all this attention is making that flame try to awkwardly re-light itself. I’m too far out of practice, and I don’t even want to see what happens when that fire starts, sputters, and fizzles in a big puddle of gooey shame.
I wonder if I can get this mural done in two weeks and then just go home before Christmas. That way, we wouldn’t be stuck together on Christmas Day. No chance for hanky-panky or any of him sweatin’ me so hard.
I gulp and look back out of the window. There are snow-capped peaks around the town of Ruidoso, and come to think of it, Anna had mentioned offhand that Rowan lived near a ski resort. I just hadn’t put two and two together and figured out that it might actually be cold here.
“People ski here?” The icy blue sky makes the white mountaintops stand out like something from a movie. I want to rub my eyes it’s so bright, but I’ll mess up the makeup I hastily put on.
Probably to impress Rowan. Basic as hell.
“From all over the state. And from Southern California, Arizona. They say there’s skiing in Cali, but I never seen anything to beat the skiing outside of Ruidoso.”
“You ski?” I raise an eyebrow and look back at him. He’s wearing a plaid shirt today. I’m sure it was hand-tailored and made from Egyptian cotton or whatever, but he seems a little down-homey to get on a set of skis. And I’m a little too city, come to think of it.
“Not exactly. But I’ve seen a lot of skiing. I’ve paid for private lessons five—no, six—times. But I’m pretty damn sure horseback riding is my only sport. My dad tried to get me into golfing. But you know what?”