his siblings, the torture he and his brothers put his sister through and anything that might make her laugh. He figured the more she laughed, the more she’d learned to trust him. Besides, he liked the sound.
After the garden, he took her to the zoo where she fed giraffes, delighted when they tried to lick her hand with their purple tongues, and then drove up to Pike’s Peak. When they reached the top of the mountain, he grabbed the blanket from the picnic and wrapped it around her. They were pretty high up and, even this early in the season, snow was on the ground.
As they stood at the edge of the rock plateau, she looked out at the view, holding her breath at the beauty. “Oh my, this is really amazing,” she told him. He hadn’t said anything but she could feel him right behind her.
Davis wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Thanks for coming up here with me.”
She laughed. “Did I have a choice?”
He squeezed her slightly. “No.”
“But thank you anyway for bringing me up here. It is pretty spectacular.”
“I try and get up here as often as possible. It reminds me of how small I am and how insignificant.”
Kate turned in his arms, looking up at the man who towered over her. “You? Feel insignificant?” she laughed.
“I’m not small compared to the rest of the world. I acknowledge that I’m a bit bigger than average.”
She snorted and turned back to look at the view.
“Well, you haven’t met my brothers yet.” He groaned. “You will though. And then you’ll understand why I like this mountain. It puts everything into perspective.”
Kate could definitely understand that. Up here, with just Davis’ arms around her, the vitriol from her father’s past rants was very far away. And it didn’t mean a whole lot to her while she stood here on this magnificent mountain.
“Come on, we’ve got to get down the mountain early. There aren’t lights on the descent and they don’t let people drive down in the dark. Too dangerous.”
She sighed, not wanting to leave this place that put the whole world so far away. Maybe if they could just stay here, she could forget about all the worries.
Of course, there weren’t any painting supplies up here, so that wouldn’t work. She laughed at herself, at how silly she was being about something she couldn’t even admit to doing.
She slipped back into his powerful car and, as they rode back down the mountain, she wondered what it would be like to live out here in the mountains. Some place where no one knew where they were. It might be nice for a while but…she looked over at Davis, smiling at the confident way he was concentrating on the sharp turns and steep incline. No, she wouldn’t have missed her time with him for anything. Even isolation.
“What’s next?” she asked, almost afraid of the answer. If they were heading back to Boston, she really didn’t want to know.
“Seattle,” he replied and Kate breathed a sigh of relief. She still had some time with him. That would be really nice, she thought. Frustrating! Possibly exhausting. But still nice.
No, nice was too mild of a word for what she felt when she was around Davis. Wonderful, ecstatic, exhilarating….yes. Those words were much more accurate.
She thought about mentioning her painting, wondering what he might say. Would he ridicule her for what she loved to do? Would he even care?
His strong jaw and intelligent eyes told her that he wouldn’t be mean about her passion. In fact, everything about Davis seemed to be the exact opposite of her father.
So why didn’t she just tell him? Maybe he could offer her some advice on how to live on the money she’d made from the art showing. Could she do it? Could she tell Davis about her secret passion?
Kate looked out the window and sighed. No. That was one step too big, she thought. Only one other person knew. She had no idea how long things would last with Davis. She couldn’t risk it.
Chapter 9
Kate looked at the numbers again, not sure if what she was looking at was real or just a figment of her imagination. Surely it couldn’t be this easy, was it? Or maybe she was just so exhausted after the past week that she was seeing things that weren’t there.
Davis had been in and out of Seattle, dealing with the final negotiations on a big acquisition. Every few