And when he got there, he wrapped his arms around me. “Not sure what I’d do, wakin’ up and not seein’ those eyes first thing.”
I loved that. I loved it.
That was my old Grant.
I leaned in to him and slid my arms around him. “Not sure what I’d do, waking up and not having your arms around me.”
He touched his nose to mine and murmured, “Not been good of late, cuddlin’ my girl.”
He hadn’t. And that, maybe more than all the rest, hurt.
“Missed that, darlin’,” I whispered.
I watched the look in his eyes change and he whispered back, “I’ve missed a lot of things about you, Cassidy.”
I leaned deeper in to him, tipping my head back.
Grant pressed me in to the door and accepted my invitation.
When he did, hope again filled my heart.
But I would find out in a variety of ways, all of them hard, that was me. Time and again, not one of them smart, I let hope fill my heart. And my head. And my gut. So much hope, it leaked out my pores.
Yeah.
I did that.
All the time.
I was a loser that way.
Chapter Two
Pie
“Yo!” a male voice shouted from the other room.
I was in the bedroom, stripping sheets.
I left the bed half-stripped and walked into the living room. When I did, I saw John Priest standing in the open front door to cabin four.
It had been five months since his last visit.
Five months and nothing had changed.
Except for the fact that Grant was in Oklahoma and I was still here.
“Hello, Mr. Priest,” I greeted, moving through the living room, which I had to say, even if it was tooting my own horn, looked fan-freaking-tastic with it’s warm mushroom-colored walls, large, thick braided rugs in muted tones covering the refinished, gleaming wood floors, and interesting prints of buffaloes on the walls.
In fact, all the prints in this cabin were of buffaloes. This was why I thought of cabin four as the “Buffalo Cabin.”
What I didn’t see, but knew was there, was the fabulous kitchen behind me.
Seeing as kitchens in the cabins didn’t have extensive countertops, I’d been able to strike a deal with a local contractor to buy his remnants. That meant none of the kitchens were the same. Some of them had butcher block countertops. Some had tile. A couple even had gorgeous slabs of granite.
The countertops in cabin eleven, though, were a glossy treated cement. I liked the rugged look of them. Actually, the entirety of cabin eleven was rugged and masculine, the only cabin that wasn’t outfitted in a warm and welcoming gender neutral.
I didn’t allow myself to think about why I did eleven that way. I just did it.