she didn’t write his name, she focused on her boyfriend’s incredible blue eyes.”
“So that’s where you get them,” he said quietly.
She smiled and reached for his hand.
“And did you talk to him?”
“No, not yet. His eyes seemed too dark. Then there’s Hal Abrams, whom I’ve already met.”
He nodded. “Any gut feeling about him?”
“No, and I don’t remember his eyes behind his glasses, so they couldn’t have been all that memorable. We went to see Joe Sweet, another of the guys, according to your dad.”
“My dad?”
His head tilted back in surprise, but he didn’t release her hand, which made her relax.
“Yep. But Joe was headed out of town, so I didn’t even get to see him. Brooke told me about the painting in the lobby.”
“You don’t have to say anything more. Even I’ve noticed his eyes. You think he’s the one?”
“Maybe. I think so. I don’t know,” she added in a rush. “I’ll have to talk to him.”
“One of the players on my hockey team is his son, Will.”
Emily’s mouth dropped open. “Really? I wish I had known. Although it would have been strange to see him and wonder if he was . . . if we were related.”
“I know the family pretty well, and I have business with Joe.” He squeezed her hand. “Can I answer any questions?”
“Come on up and have a beer while I pick your brain.” She grinned. “Aren’t we lucky you don’t still live at home? Maybe you’re one of those guys who doesn’t want his mom to know the hours he keeps.”
Nate smiled, but he seemed . . . restrained, which echoed his behavior all evening. She let it go, fighting every impulse to ask him to confide in her. He followed her upstairs, and she brought out his favorite beer and the brownies she hadn’t taken to the ranch. As they settled side by side on the love seat, she listened to his summary of Joe.
“He’s not your average rancher,” Nate said, leaning his head back on the couch. “He’s actively involved in a coalition of organic farmers, and he’s their rep to a lot of the restaurants in the valley.”
“Organic farming? Now that sounds promising.”
His hand very gently stroked her thigh, up and down, making her brain feel fuzzy. “What else?” she asked.
“He’s a writer of local history, too, kind of a bohemian guy with a lot of interests.”
“Oh, better and better. He definitely would have appealed to my new age mother. I’ll go to the Sweetheart Inn. Maybe I’ll have better luck running into him with all his family around.”
Nate didn’t offer to introduce her, which surprised her—and didn’t. He thought his involvement would somehow hurt her, she knew, and he had a right to his feelings. But she shouldn’t let herself feel so . . . forlorn about it.
She pushed away any of her doubts and remembered that she was making a new family, including good friends she’d never neglect, and a baby sometime in her future. She smiled as she imagined Brooke and Monica as doting aunts, the widows acting as the best kind of grandparents. There was so much love here in Valentine Valley.
The bakery idea floated to the surface of her mind. She saw happy people enjoying meals together over food she’d created. Then she quickly submerged it.
Nate’s fingers dipped between her thighs and trailed higher.
Oh yes, and she had Nate—for now. She wished she could be like him, content with his life, knowing just what he wanted and what worked for him. He was watching her, his face all serious, his green eyes unusually dark as they studied her. And then they drifted to her mouth and flared with heat, and she felt an answering shiver of pleasure.
“Guess what I got yesterday?” she said in a low voice. “A persuasion gift from Leather and Lace. They want me to remember they have first dibs when I put the building on the market.”
Though the corner of his mouth turned up, he still searched her eyes with an intensity that confused her. She touched his face with her fingertips, smoothing along his brow, then dipping into the dimples in his cheeks. He caught her fingertip in his mouth and lightly bit.
“Do you want to see it?” She leaned against him, whispering near his ear, “There’s a lot of lace,” then gently bit his earlobe. “And leather.”
With a groan, he turned her across his lap, and said hoarsely, “I can’t resist you.”