“This is really it. Unless you count the wine cellar in my basement, the hot tub on my back porch, or the bathroom with heated floors and a towel warmer.” The words flowed out of me like Emilia turned on my internal faucet.
Her mouth dropped open, and I loved how expressive she was. How easy she was to impress.
Dammit, who was she morphing me into?
A happy, nice guy?
There was no way. It wasimpossible.
“Are you serious?”
“About two of the three. Guess the lie.”
“What is this, a spontaneous round of two truths and a lie?”
A smile crept across my face. “Maybe.” A playful, goofy side of me, one I didn’t know very well, seemed to creep its way out of me.
It was her.All of her.
“Okay. I think the wine cellar is a lie.”
Now I really smiled. A warmth came over me, a happy, content feeling, the very one that disappeared so long ago.
But now, here she was. Reawakening my heart. My soul. My mind.
There was no way I was ever letting her go.
CHAPTER THREE
Elora
“Didyou sneak down into the basement when I wasn’t looking?” Beckett asked, a teasing look on his face. “No wine cellar.Yet.”
“Future project?”
He nodded. “Among others.”
“Well, they say when you own a house, your to-do list never ends.”
“It’s true. But this was my grandparents’ place and where they raised me. I’ll never leave.” Beckett’s mouth drooped, and his shoulders sagged, his voice softer. “I’ll fix it up, make some additions. I built the porch myself, installed the hot tub, and hired a landscaper. I kind of suck at gardening.”
A loud giggle burst from my throat at the thought of the big, burly mountain man planting flowers.
“What do you do for work?”
“I designed a couple of computer programs and sold them. I’m working on my third one.”
“That’s cool. A smartie tech nerd. I like it.” I wiggled my eyebrows, enjoying the flirty banter.
Beckett showed me around the rest of the cabin, including the upstairs, where there were two bedrooms and two bathrooms. One inside the primary bedroom and another in the hallway. The floor warmed up with the flick of a button, and a towel warmer sat by the shower, just like he said. The best part was his backyard. A large wooden deck took up about half of the backyard space, complete with patio furniture, a grill, and a fire pit. Hanging lights hung along the outside, and a hot tub sat off to the side.
“The place looks great, Beckett. Thanks for showing me around. I’ll delete those pictures I took,” I said as we walked back inside.
Lifting my camera strap over my head, I held it with both hands and was flipping through the album until his large hand landed on my arm. “Wait.”
I looked up at him, and his icy-blue eyes hold me in a trance.
“You don’t need to delete them.”
