see for miles in every direction: swaths of bright green mountains beneath a flawless Carolina blue sky. The colors are so vibrant and the light so ardent, it makes my eyes water to take it all in.
My heart twists with longing. This is it. Or could be, anyway.
The good life.
The life I was told over and over again didn’t exist for someone like me. An artist (of sorts), making a good living off her passion. Her art.
How wonderful it would be to prove the world wrong.
While my career path may be somewhat unconventional, my hopes and dreams aren’t. I want to own a home. I want to work at a job I love that also provides the stability I crave: a good salary, benefits that include health insurance and a retirement plan, and hours that aren’t insane. I began my career as a cellar rat at twenty-one, and I’ve been working restaurant hours (at an hourly wage) in the ten years since. The combination of seventy-hour weeks and night and weekend shifts has left me burned to a crisp.
Never thought I’d say this, but I’d love a regular old nine-to-five job. And being director of Blue Mountain’s wine and beverage program affords me exactly that. Not at first, granted. I have to learn the ropes here at the restaurant, which means I’ll be on the floor more often than not. But Beau promised I’d eventually get that sweet eight-or-nine-hour workday.
Climbing out of the golf cart, Samuel glances up the hill and lets out one of his aggrieved sighs.
“What is it now?” I ask, meeting his eyes over the roof of the cart. “I had some pointers for your wine list. But I’m legit blown away by your resort. Y’all are clearly the experts there.”
He grabs my tote bag and jacket from the back seat. “It’s nothing,” he grumbles, and starts walking toward the cottage.
“I can carry that.” I scurry to catch up to him, our footsteps crunching on the pea gravel.
“I got it,” he says, keeping his eyes trained on his feet.
“Really, I—”
“I said I got it.”
I roll my lips between my teeth. “Thanks.”
I put the key into the lock on the front door—no key cards at Blue Mountain; they use old-fashioned brass ones with gorgeous silk tassels attached to them—and Samuel and I reach for the knob at the same time. The back of my hand collides with his palm, and we immediately pull back, like we’ve singed each other.
“Sorry,” we blurt in tandem.
“You always in the habit of not letting people help you?” he asks.
“It’s not that I don’t let anyone help. It’s that I don’t expect it. Or need it.”
He’s looking at me like that again—like he doesn’t know what to make of me.
This time, I let him open the door for me. Samuel may be a jackass, but apparently he’s a jackass with manners. I’d say the combination intrigued me, but that seems like a bad precedent to set.
I devour things that intrigue me. Wine. Books. Men.
Samuel isn’t available for me to devour. Not in the naked sense, anyway.
Still, my nipples prick to life as Samuel’s gaze follows me inside. The heat of it pins a circle to my back as warmth seeps through my blazer and into my skin.
A target.
Angling my body away from him, I gape at the impeccably furnished room that opens up just off the cottage’s entrance.
It’s a large open-concept kitchen/breakfast nook/family room combination with high ceilings clad in reclaimed wood. A fire blazes in the fireplace on the farthest wall. Cozy sofas and armchairs surround a leather ottoman nearby while an antique metal lantern holds court just above a TV hidden in a painted bookshelf. A big wooden dining table, presumably for those family meals Beau was talking about, is set in front of the kitchen island.
The kitchen. I don’t have time to cook, but if I did, I’d want to do it in there.
An industrial-style range, complete with six burners, a griddle, and two ovens, is set into a wall of gleaming white tile. Copper pots of every shape and size hang from strips of brass set into the tile. Cushy upholstered barstools line one side of the island.
Through a doorway to my right, I glimpse a massive four-poster king-sized bed. It’s made up with crisp white linens, a fluffy duvet, and a small mountain of even fluffier pillows.
The whole place is chic and comfortable, and it clearly cost a fortune to construct and decorate.