I looked around his cabin.Myplace would be something like this. Homey, unpretentious, connected to nature. There’d be good people and clean air.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, I guess I grew up without much of a home base. We moved a lot for my mom’s work. As an adult, I’ve found myself moving more than I ever thought I would. But I think it’s because I haven’t found my spot in the world yet.”
He shook his head and looked away, as though I’d confirmed something. Then grunted, “The grass is always greener.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Well, why’d you move to Fernwood?”
My cheeks warmed. “It was for a… relationship. But that didn’t work out.”
He took my empty stew bowl away and washed it in the sink. “So you moved to Fernwood for a man? Didn’t you vet him first?”
“Of course I did. But you can’t control relationships. They either bloom or implode. Ours… ended. And it’s for the best.”
“What was wrong with him?” Mr. Santa Grump sure was asking a lot of questions.
“Nothing was wrong with him. But I grew to realize we weren’t the right fit.”
“Why not?”
The intensity of his questions took me by surprise. I met his eyes with a fiery strength in mine. “Because I found out he was a controlling asshole. He wanted a living, breathing doll, not a partner for life. Fuck that. I’d rather be alone and broke than live like that.”
He took a deep breath. “Oh. Sorry that happened to you.” Then he got up and rummaged around in an antique wooden cupboard for a minute, before futzing around at the stove again.
Over his shoulder he said, “I dated a control-freak once. Didn’t last long. You know she wanted to change the color of myunderwear? Whatshewanted was a male model pretending to live a rustic lifestyle who would look good on her Instagram pages. Not a man who actually lives like this.”
Looking around again, I said, “It seems ideal to me.”
“Does it?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Not many women are satisfied with a one-bedroom cabin.”
“It can’t be much different than a studio apartment. That’s what I currently have. Month-to-month. Talk about not feeling attached to a place.”
Tex came back to the table with two hot mugs. “Well, I’m attached to this patch of land. It was my daddy’s, and his daddy’s before him. My uncle grew up here, too, before building his own place on the mountain. There are a lot of memories in these walls.”
“I can’t do coffee this late. I’ll never sleep. Thanks, though.”
“It’s not coffee. It’s hot cocoa,” he rumbled, as he slid one of the mugs towards me.
My lips parted. Had Tex just made me hot chocolate? He mightactuallybe my dream man. I took a sip and groaned. “This is sooo good!”
“My friend Kat has a goat herd. Every now and then she sells me some goat’s milk when she has extra. And the chocolate is German. It makes a difference.”
“This is like dessert!”
“Yeah. It’s easy to make. Fresh, whole milk and a bar of chocolate—only half a bar if I’m making it just for me. A pinch of salt and sugar. The trick is, youhaveto use whole milk. Two percent won’t work the same.”
“You might be my dream man,” I groaned after I took another sip. “Oh! I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
He grinned at me. Tex had a lopsided smile that made him look softer and less stern. He almost looked goofy. It was my favorite look on a man.
And despite being wicked hot, he didn’t seem to play the same games that some guys did. I got the feeling that Tex was genuine, through and through. What you see is what you get. And ladies, I’ve got to tell you, Ilikedwhat I saw.
