to show the wood grain, the chair had wide armrests and a curving back. A matching leg rest angled down and looked just the thing for relaxing on a summer afternoon.
Beside it was a small round table of the same cedar, the perfect size for holding a pitcher of lemonade and a paperback novel.
She traced a hand over the wood, smooth as chocolate ganache. Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
He had made this. She knew it. Warmth burst through her like fireworks over Hope’s Crossing in July and she quickly peeled away the ribbon in the half light of the moon.
That owl—probably the same one who had been keeping her company on her late-night walks—hooted from the treetops of the cottonwoods along the creek. For once, the sound didn’t leave her melancholy. She was too busy being delighted at the gift.
He’d left a note, she saw, taped to the back of the chair. It was too dark to make out the words, even with plenty of moonlight, so she held it up to the glow from the light fixture beside the back door.
With all your hard work today, I figured your bones would probably need a place to rest. Now, this is a sanctuary.
She clutched the note to her chest. Oh, she was in trouble. Sam Delgado was becoming very good at sneaking his way under all her defenses. She was beginning to forget all the reasons she needed to keep trying.
All evening, she hadn’t been able to resist peeking through the kitchen doors every once in a while and somehow her gaze had always seemed to fall on Sam. The only thought that had played through her mind whenever she had seen him was how right he looked, laughing and joking with her family and friends, just as if he had been part of the group forever.
She eased into the chair cushion he had thoughtfully provided. The chair was ergonomically perfect, providing exactly the right support. Her weary bones definitely needed this.
She smiled and then laughed out loud as she sat on her back patio while the creek rippled over rocks, its song an endless comfort.
Yes. Finally, here on her back patio, came the joy and happiness that had been missing all evening. How had Sam instinctively guessed what would make the night perfect?
And how on earth was she supposed to be able to resist a man who was capable of such sweet thoughtfulness?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
EVERYTHING SEEMED TO BE falling into place. Well, nearly everything. Tuesday night, four days after Alex opened her restaurant, Sam turned onto his street just as the sun sank down behind the mountains. He was starving and exhausted but also filled with a great sense of achievement.
The recreation-center work was ahead of schedule, on schedule to be finished on time for the Giving Hope Day. His four-man crew from Denver had been working double shifts to finish the job, in addition to six temporary workers he had hired on to help.
Like Alex’s restaurant, the work had been nearly done at the rec center before he had been hired on. He felt a little like a cleanup batter in baseball. His job had been to come in and wrap up all the little details—finishing the trim in a few rooms, hanging some doors, putting in cabinets for the administrative offices.
The town leaders, through a generous grant from Harry Lange, had spared no expense on the facility. From the exterior landscaping to the enormous exercise facility to the meeting rooms spread throughout, the building seemed to be a labor of love.
The vast indoor pool, especially, with those full-length windows overlooking Silver Strike Canyon, should be a huge hit during the long high-mountain winters when it was finished.
Ethan would love it and Sam had found unique satisfaction working on something he and his son and the rest of their adopted town could enjoy for years to come.
He smiled thinking of his son. He had ended up staying at his brother’s house in Denver all weekend, helping Nicky with a few last-minute repairs on his house in preparation for renting it out while they were in Europe.
Ethan had helped him, proud as punch to wear his miniature tool belt. This morning when he left to drive back to Hope’s Crossing, he put the pickup in gear and started to hit the gas to back out of the driveway and heard a noise coming from the backseat of his king cab.
Upon investigation, he found Ethan hiding under a jacket he had tossed on