She walked over to it and indicated a blank spot on the wall, where he’d duck under to get to the driver’s seat. “You’re not using the loft, right?”
“Nope,” he said. “But, I mean, it could be a guest bedroom.” He grinned at her.
She giggled. “Some guest bedroom. How do you even get up there?”
“There’s a ladder that comes out,” he said. “See that knob right there?”
“Oh, right here?” Briar reached up just above her head and pulled on the knob. A ladder came shooting out, and she lowered it all the way to the ground, then climbed up a few steps to look into his “loft.”
“There’s no mattress or anything.”
“I’d put an air bed up there,” he said. “Wiggins would love it.”
“You would never get Wiggins up this ladder.” She grinned down at him as he positioned the sign on the solid wall there. “I think it’d look real nice right there.”
“I’ll have to find some hammer and nails.”
“I brought some,” she said. “I’ll go get them.”
Before he could protest and say he would get them, she hopped down from the ladder and scampered out of his RV.
Tarr gazed down at the hand-cut and sanded wood shaped into letters and glued to another slab of wood that had been lovingly stained a dark brown. The letters were more oak-colored, and she’d painted the dog and the horse with colors. He ran his fingertip around the outline of the gray dog with the black nose, his heart expanding with every breath he took and every thought of Briar making this for him.
She returned after only a minute, and as he exchanged the sign for the hammer and nails, he asked, “When did you make this?”
“In the past few days,” she said. “Now that my guest bedroom is back to being an art studio, I’ve had time.”
He hammered a nail into the wall and then turned and reached for the sign. “You’ve been staying over at the mansion until nine-thirty or ten every night with me.” He lifted his eyebrows. “So when have you had time?”
He still hadn’t kissed her, because he usually walked her out to her SUV, hugged her, and waved to her as she drove away—all while Tucker or Bobbie Jo could see them. Maybe now that he’d be living in the RV, Tarr could drive her home and kiss her there—or kiss her right here in the RV. Or he might spend evenings with her at her house forcomfort.
“I’ve been staying up a little bit late,” she said. “It’s too high on the left, Tarr.”
He lowered it and looked over his shoulder to her. “Now?”
“Yeah, it looks nice.”
She smiled, and when she did, she transformed into a pure angel. Tarr put the ladder away and went to join Briar, easily lifting his arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, that’s real nice, Briar. Thank you so much.”
“You need some art for these walls, Tarr,” she said. “This looks like a 1970s nightmare.”
“Hey, it’s from the nineties,” he said.
She giggled. “That’s still thirty years old.”
“Well, I wish I knewsomeoneI could commission for some art for a thirty-year-old RV.” He grinned at her.
Briar beamed back at him, turning fully into him. “What do you like, cowboy?”
She wore her hair back in a ponytail, so Tarr couldn’t tuck it behind her ear. He lifted his hand anyway, and he ran his fingers up the side of her jaw and along the curve of her earlobe to the ponytail. He tightened his fingers around it and then pulled them down, letting the hair slip through.
“I like you, Briar.”
She swallowed, then said, “I like you too, Tarr.”
“And I like that there are no cameras here.” His heartbeat picked up its pace, especially when Briar turned slightly tense in his arms. He leaned down and let his eyes drift closed as he drew in a breath of her hair, her skin, her perfume.
“I like that you made me that sign, and I’ll like any art you make for me at all.”
