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“And what did you decide?”
His smile turned wicked. “It was simple. I was going to ask Jenna Peterson to watch Cody and then I was going to kidnap you and take you to a mountain cabin and hold you hostage until you agreed to become my wife.”
Dani laughed and winked at him. “Maybe I should have held out,” she said. “Sounds like I missed out on a lot of fun.”
Chase pulled her close and traced the angle of her jaw with his finger. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” His lips captured hers in a bittersweet kiss filled with the promise of the future.
“And what will Caleb say about this?” she asked.
“Let’s not worry about Caleb,” he said. “We’ve got better things to do.”
“Such as?”
He released her slightly and let his arms rest on her shoulders. “Well, I can think of a lot of things . . .” His eyes slid suggestively down her neck to the fluttering pulse at the base of her throat. “But they can wait . . . for a little while. How about a picnic?”
“A picnic—now?” She was surprised.
“Sure. Sort of a celebration. You could show me around this place.” He straightened. “I’ll shower and you can throw some things into a basket.”
Dani laughed. “You’re starting to sound like a husband already.”
He arched a thick brow. “On second thought, you could shower with me . . .”
“Then we’d never leave.”
“That would be okay.”
He leaned closer, but she pushed against his shoulders with her flat hands. “Later, cowboy. Right now, you hit the showers, and I’ll pack and leave a note for Cody.”
They walked into the house, arms linked, and Dani felt as if she were on top of the world.
The only trouble with being on the top, she told herself cynically when she heard the sound of the shower running and had begun making sandwiches, was that there was only one way to go.
Chapter Eight
The easiest way to get to the site of the original homestead house was on horseback, so while Dani fixed a lunch that could be carried in saddlebags, Chase saddled and bridled the horses. The ride across the creek, through a series of fields and finally into the wooded area surrounding the old buildings, took about twenty minutes.
Dani pulled Traitor up short and the rangy buckskin, his ears flicking backward, responded with a toss of his head. Chase rode Whistlestop, a heavy-boned bay mare. At the top of a small knoll he held his restless horse in check beside Dani.
“So this is where it all started,” he said.
“At least for the Hawthornes,” she replied. Indicating the surrounding hills with a sweeping gesture, Dani looked lovingly over the sprawling acres of farmland and pockets of timber. “This—” she pointed to what had once been a large two-story farm house “—was the spot my great-great-grandparents chose to homestead.” Dropping the reins over Traitor’s head, Dani heard the bridle jingle as the horse grazed on the dry grass and weeds.
Chase still sat astride Whistlestop, leaned forward and squinted into the late afternoon sun. With a backdrop of virgin-growth timber and the craggy Rocky Mountains reaching up to the Montana sky, the ancient house looked pitifully neglected; a skeleton of what had once been a grand old farm house now surrounded by thistles and brush.
The main timbers sagged, all of the windowpanes had long been broken, and the roof had collapsed on the second story, exposing the interior to the rugged elements of the harsh Montana winters. Blackberry vines, now laden with heavy fruit, had crawled over what had been a broad front porch and clung tenaciously around the doorway.
Some of the wallpaper, bleached and stained, was still visible where part of the second story walls had been torn away by the wind.
“It was beautiful once,” Dani said, eyeing the sad, dilapidated structure.
“I can see that.” Chase got off the mare and let the horse graze. Pushing his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, he continued to study the old house while he walked toward Dani. He placed an arm around her shoulders and some of the poignant desolation that had crept over her disappeared.
“The hot springs are over there.” She pointed to the stream seeping through the earth near the back of the house. “And since there wasn’t hot and cold running water when the house was built, the spring was a real luxury. Hot water could be carried into the house.”
“So what happened?” he asked. “Why wasn’t the house kept up?”
“Money,” Dani said with a frown. “When my grandparents were young, sometime in the thirties or forties, I think, they built the cabin that Cody and I live in because it was so much closer to the road. It was cheaper to build and make modern with gas and electricity and running water than to rebuild this place. And they always thought that if they got enough money together, they’d restore the old house.”
