Mouth open, she drifted to the nearest wall and touched the framed image there. “You and your family at your sister’s wedding. What a beautiful photo.” Her gaze drifted. “And your parents’ house. Was this taken back when we were in high school?”
He nodded. “I’m glad my parents moved someplace nicer, but I still think about that house. I always felt more comfortable there than I did anywhere else.” After a pause, he forced himself to keep talking, keep exposing himself. “When I was in college, I’d drive five hours each way to come back on weekends.”
“Because you missed the house?”
“Because I missed my family.” He swallowed. “A lot.”
“I didn’t know that.” Her voice was hushed, as if she feared disturbing whatever was occurring in this room. Whatever had changed between the last time she’d seen his bedroom and now.
He braced himself. She hadn’t spotted the most revealing decorations yet, but she was moving closer.
“Is this picture…” She swiveled to face him. “Is this the creek where we used to go after school and during the summers?”
“The Marysburg stream. My favorite place in the world.” He gazed at the grass, the sparkling water in the photo.Anything not to meet her eyes. “I think about you every time I see it. I think about sitting with you by the water every time I need to calm and comfort myself.”
“I had no clue. None.” A twinge of hurt sounded in her voice, but also wonder.
Then she reached the wall near the bed. Even if he hadn’t been watching her progress, he’d have known where she was from the sudden silence.
“Lucy…” He trailed off, unsure what to say.
She touched a gilded frame. “You kept my senior pictures all these years.”
“You had bangs back then.” Embarrassed and exposed, he lifted a shoulder. “It was cute.”
“How…” Slowly, she turned in place, scanning all the walls of the room. “How did you get all these photos of the two of us?”
“My parents took some when we weren’t looking. I asked them for copies.” He let out a slow breath. Might as well tell her all of it. “There were a couple of us from the back of the yearbook. I scanned those.”
She wandered to the left of the bed and sucked in another harsh breath. “Oh, my goddess.”
“The crew must have rolled their eyes at us. But they gave me a still frame from their footage without telling me you’d done the same thing.” Forcing his legs to move, he stepped next to her. “Holding you, having you beneath me, made that horrible, claustrophobic loft the most wonderful place I’d ever been.”
He’d positioned the photo next to his bed for good reason. The way her heavy-lidded gaze met his, the ease with which she cradled his body between her legs, the possessive claim of his hands in her hair, the parting of her lips…
It incinerated him. Every time.
She blinked, her brow creased. “You almost smushed yourbrain in that loft. Like, two seconds after the picture must have been taken.”
“Holding you was worth every lost bit of gray matter.” Despite his anxiety, he couldn’t help but smile. “Which isn’t to say I wanted you to buy the Pot Palace.”
“Don’t worry. I didn’t.”
The words sounded absent. She was working through what she was seeing and hearing, testing out the implications and reaching conclusions.
“That’s what the crew said.” He’d known in his heart she would stand her ground, but he was glad anyway.
“Seb, what does this m?—”
He laid the frame on his bed and strode for the door, lightheaded from the rapid beat of his heart. “Let’s put your picture on the wall later. You should take a look at my gift before we talk more.”
The rolled sheaf of papers was lying on the kitchen island, tied together with a satin ribbon. Rainbow-colored, her favorite.
After he handed it to her, everything in his body seemed to freeze in place. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. He could only watch her unroll his heart, which he’d offered her in schematic form. He was an engineer, after all.
She scanned the top blueprint first. “You…” Her head gave a little shake. “You found designs for a yurt? I don’t… I don’t understand.”
His paralyzed vocal cords finally unfroze a fraction. “I want you to have everything you need in your new home. Everything that would make your life easier and happier. I couldn’t find one yurt design that encompassed all the necessary features, so I combined a couple of different plans. Then I ran them by the custom-built-yurt company to make sure they were feasible.” He rolled his eyes. “And then I ran them by an architect and a structural engineer too, because I thinkthose yurt people were high when I talked to them. I wanted to make sure you’d be warm, safe, and able to transport the yurt easily.”
