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A powerful jolt raced through his veins and Jonah immediately blamed the mouthful of java he managed to choke down. He took in her dark brown hair, a mass of curls that just touched the wide neckline of a bright purple sweater that hung down far past her hips, but still managed to display feminine curves in all the right places.
Or maybe it was her black skintight, sorry excuse for pants that did that.
He couldn’t make out what she was holding in her arms, but then she reached up and pushed a handful of those curls off her face, releasing a jangle from the stack of bracelets that slid from her wrist to her elbow as she turned in a slow circle, her gaze seemingly locked on the empty walls of the room as her ankle-high boots clicked on the newly finished reclaimed barn wood floor. Then Nate’s fiancée touched her arm and the two started to talk.
Staring was rude, gawking like a teenager was worse, but for whatever reason Jonah was helpless to look away.
“Yeah, that’s the typical reaction.” Eli reached around and waved his hand in front of Jonah’s face. “Not hard to tell Vanessa isn’t from around here, huh? Which is why she needed a place to stay. Like your cabin.”
As if she heard them, or maybe because Callie was now pointing in his direction, the beauty looked over and caught him watching her. Jonah snapped out of his dazed state and pushed his brother’s hand away, realizing at that moment the woman he’d been transfixed by was the one sleeping in his bed.
Whoa! Nope, not going there!
Yeah, he’d also built the king-size log bed that took up most of the one bedroom in the cabin, but still...
“She’s the renter?” he finally asked, turning his back on her, and his boss, to face his brother again.
“That’s her,” Eli said, then chuckled. “Can I stick around and watch you go all Scrooge-like?”
“Don’t you have someplace to be? Like the men’s room? Or the ranch?”
“I’m going, I’m going.” Eli grinned and backed away. “Gee, all the Daltons under one roof again. Not sure how Derek is going to feel about that, but the twins and the folks are going to be in heaven.”
Jonah scowled, watching his brother stop and chat with a few workers before disappearing around a corner. He should go over and let Nate know he’d arrived, but his unexpected reaction to— What had Eli said was her name?
And why did he care?
* * *
The cool touch to her arm jolted Vanessa out of her self-imposed trance. She dropped her hand to her side, noticing for the first time that the interior of the resort had gotten busy as members of the construction crew moved from room to room, the noise of their chatter and work tools filled the air while she’d been trying to conjure up something—anything—for the mural.
At some point during her daydreaming she’d handed off her cup of hot chocolate and pulled a sketch pad from her oversize leather bag, but other than grabbing a trio of pens and holding them one-handed in a familiar pretzel twist of fingers, she had...
Nothing.
“I hope your silence is a sign that you’re already brimming with ideas for the mural,” Callie said. “I think Nate’s suggestion is wonderful.”
Despite the panic ricocheting inside of her, Vanessa’s smile came easy. One of the first people she’d met after moving to Rust Creek Falls had been Callie, who was also considered a newcomer in town after she left Chicago back in January. “You think Nate is wonderful.”
Callie’s eyes were bright as she glanced at the tall man next to her talking with a member of the construction crew. “Yes, I do. It’s funny, but from the moment I saw him—oh, look, there’s Jonah.”
Vanessa’s gaze followed Callie’s pointed finger and amazingly the panic over her creative block quieted, replaced with a warm glow that surprised her as much as the way the handsome man stared at them.
At her.
Did she know him? He looked vaguely familiar, but Vanessa was sure they hadn’t been introduced before. No, she’d have remembered if she’d met this man.
Unlike the majority of the men here at the resort and in Rust Creek Falls with their broken-in jeans, T-shirts and flannel button-downs in every plaid pattern and color combination imaginable, he was dressed in black business slacks and a dress shirt.
He was tall, over six feet she guessed, and his slightly mussed brown hair showed hints of gold when the sunlight caught it as he turned away. Her gaze lingered over the way his shoulders filled the expensive cut of his dark gray suit jacket that she’d bet her last pair of Manolos was cashmere. The only thing that made him fit in was the hard hat he held in one hand.
“Who is that?”
