The Delivery of Decor (Shiloh Ridge Ranch in Three Rivers #7) - Liz Isaacson Page 0,52

only detoured into the bathroom because his mouth felt like someone had stuffed it full of dirty cotton. He brushed his teeth and drank a big glass of water before returning to the nightstand for his phone.

Our house needs a humidifier on the furnace, he sent to Bishop. Hard to do? Could I do it myself?

Cowboys rose with the sun, but Ace hadn’t seen that in a couple of days now. He opened the door to the scent of coffee and cream, his stomach already growling. Holly Ann stood in the kitchen in her blue and silver pajamas, a billowing, silk robe on her shoulders that moved like water when she moved.

“Hello, my love.” Ace ran his hand along her waist and kissed her neck. “Do you think we’ll be able to leave the house today?” He needed to get out, though Holly Ann had been showing him where the guest towels were, and he’d enjoyed seeing his wife interact more with his mother.

“Go check,” Holly Ann said, waving a whisk in the general direction of the front door.

He started that way, leaving behind the massive kitchen with yards and yards of counter space, double ovens, and a cavernous fridge that had more cubic feet than any other refrigerator on the market.

She’d gotten her hardwood lookalike flooring, her solid oak dining room table that seated twelve, and a new sectional couch that faced the fireplace. She hadn’t wanted a television in the main room or their bedroom, and Ace was fine with that. Holly Ann was the one who spent most of her time at home, and he’d wanted her to have the house of her dreams.

They’d put a den on the main level, on one side of the foyer that housed a wide, eight-foot-tall door with two window panels, one on either side. On the other side sat an office, where Holly Ann put her corner desk and her computer. She ran Three Cakes from there, and one of the sexiest things Ace had ever seen was the beautiful brunette bent over a paper calendar. When she looked up and peered at him through her reading glasses, Ace’s pulse accelerated.

He didn’t use an office or a computer that often, but she’d put a desk in the office for him too. His laptop sat there, dormant the way it usually was.

Ace put his hand on the front door and allowed the chill to move through him. It would probably be cold for another six weeks or so, and then February would arrive. Sometimes Mother Nature could pull a mean trick on the Texas Panhandle and send snow in the shortest month of the year, but she usually didn’t.

This Christmas was one for the books, that was for sure.

He didn’t feel any vibrations in the fiberglass door, and he unlocked the deadbolt and then the doorknob before opening the house to the outside world.

Cold air hit him in the face and chest, but the one thing he did not feel was wind.

“The wind has stopped,” he called over his shoulder. The ceilings in the foyer and living room were vaulted, and his voice got stuck up in the rafters. “The wind has stopped,” he repeated just for his ears.

Despite the cold, he stepped out onto the porch. Holly Ann had made him put a couple of empty planters there, though she wouldn’t get anything planted until spring. She loved porches, and theirs faced west. Ace could admit to wanting to sit there in the evenings with his wife and watch the day end.

They’d ordered patio furniture for that exact purpose, but it hadn’t come in yet.

Ace went past the empty spaces where all of their big plans would go and paused at the edge of the steps. The cold cement burned his bare feet, but he didn’t care.

The wind had stopped blowing.

The clear sky sat before him, a dark gray that surely would grow more golden as the minutes passed and the sun rose.

“Maybe we can have our family party today,” Holly Ann said behind him.

He turned, but she stayed inside the house. “Probably not, sweetheart. We’ll have to be out on the ranch all day, checking the animals and buildings and fences. Ward and Preacher will work us to death today.”

Holly Ann smiled, but Ace wasn’t kidding. He wanted to get out on the ranch and see what the wind had done to his fields. To the barns. To the fences and stables. He hoped the cold hadn’t cost them