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Davis lifts his broad shoulder. “I didn’t know. It’s a lot.”
I laugh a little, feeling my cheeks flush. “Myfamily is a lot. This?” I glance around the room, out the windows, at the big rolling hills, at Stevie. “This is not a lot. This is just… life.”
Davis looks relieved. Happy even. He gives me a long up-and-down, with a smoldering desire in his eyes, before looking away, like it’s just too much and not the right time for now.
Tell me about it.
“So,” he begins, clearing his voice of its husky desire, “Who wants coffee?”
“I’m good. Thanks though, brother,” Stevie says.
I sit down on a sofa near Stevie’s chair and Davis looks at me with such warmth in his eyes, such tenderness. “Yes, please,” I say softly. “Lots of cream and very sweet.”
And Davis narrows his eyes at me, licking his full lips before mouthing,Just like you.
Oh my goodness.
* * *
I spend the day with them, and time whizzes by.
It feels weird. Amazing and liberating, but still weird. It’s the first Sunday in my entire life that I haven’t spent five hours listening to a preacher roar about sin. It’s relaxing and comfortable. And I feel more at home here than I’ve ever felt at my own house, with my grandfather. Even Janie, who seemed alittlesuspicious of me at first, warms up to me after a while.
She even hooked me up with some clothes that were a bit more appropriate for hanging out in a mountain man’s house. She also insisted on washing out my dress… but I drew the line at the panties, doing a little sink wash in the bathroom and leaving them between some towels to dry.
So, right now, I’m in a pair of old Levi’s secured with a belt, commando mind you, and a gray hoodie of Davis’s that’s eight sizes too big, but I love it. It smells like him and I never want to take it off.
And Stevie is like a ray of sunshine. Full of joy and sass. He worked on his painting while I watched and then let me add a few strokes when he got tired.
We discover a shared passion for Scrabble, which—much to our shared delight—Davis can’t playat all.But after hours of double-letters and triple-triples, my stomach lets out a growl so loud that it might as well be a caged beast living in the basement.
With his good hand, Stevie tinkers with the tiles and looks at Davis who is coming in from outside where he’s been loading up the wood burner that’s hooked up to the boiler system keeping the house as warm as spring sunshine. “Someone needs to get this lady a square meal. Those grilled cheese sandwiches from lunch were killer, but sounds like they’ve worn off.”
Davis enters the room from the back hallway with a big leather saddle propped on his hip and drops into a wooden chair next to the fireplace where he’s kept a few logs burning since our return. He settles the heavy leather saddle onto a stand pulled out from behind the stone fireplace and starts fiddling with the leather straps.
“You have horses?” I perk up, my attention moves from the game as Davis eyes me with the certain smolder that makes my inside all gooey.
“We do. Five of them. Two came with the property from my grandfather. I’d never ridden before we got here, but now, can’t say I’d want a life without a horse. I ride pretty much every day if I can.”
“Is that so?” I tease, pinching my tongue between my teeth and raising my eyebrows. “Love at first sight.”
Stevie snorts, a huge smile cresting his face as he looks between us.
“Seems I’m a love-at-first-sight kind of guy. Thought it was just the horses, but maybe not.”
“Whaaaaatdid you just say?” Stevie chimes in with a bust-your-nuts brotherly laugh. “What a difference a day can make. You feeling okay there, brother? You got a fever?”
“Shut up,” he barks back, but Stevie shrugs my way as Davis sit in the chair, all man-spread, rubbing the leather with some sort of oil, making me gush into my Levi’s. He gives Stevie a kind of lovingfuck youglare. “Anyway, where were we? Right. I was going to askthe ladywhat she wanted for dinner as soon as she whooped your assagain.”
Stevie laughs and adds SOUP to the board, off the S in my SPELUNK. “Might as well ask her now, because she’s got me again.”
Davis turns to me, warmth in his eyes. “You hungry, beautiful?”
I nod, with my stomach growling again. “Definitely.”
“I think you should take her to Mastriano’s, brother. I think you should have a night in the town. Janie can stay a little late, can’t she?”
“Can do!” We hear Janie’s response from the kitchen.
