“Is that a good thing?” he asked with a teasing smile.
“It is. It’s a really good thing.”
He grinned at her. “Let me show you inside.” He led her around the opposite side of the house so she could get a look at it from all sides. “You see that enclosed area underneath onthe ground level? That’s my hut. Tempest made sure that she incorporated it.”
“I love that,” she said. “She’s made sure that your old home is a part of your new home.”
“I have to admit, it made me really happy,” he said as he guided her around the house, then up the stairs that faced the bayou. When they reached the top they stepped onto the wraparound porch.
“You don’t realize how large the porch is until you’re standing on it,” Angelle said.
“It’s kind of like Maverik’s porch. It’s a deck actually — too big to be just a porch,” Boon said.
“Exactly. And it goes all the way around?” Angelle asked.
“Yes.”
Angelle walked over and ran her hand across the glider rocker that Tempest had put there, then she smiled at the twin rocking chairs just past it. “It’s ready to be enjoyed.”
“It’s ready to be lived in. It has everything.”
Angelle turned to Boon, who stood waiting for her to open the door.
“Go on. Open it,” he said, gesturing to the door.
Angelle smiled as she walked back to him and reached for the door. She turned the doorknob and stepped inside with Boon entering right behind her. Angelle took a few more steps into the family room and looked around, taking in everything she saw. She took a few seconds to look out of the windows, even. “I love this room. It’s so welcoming.” She walked over to the windows and pulled back one of the gauzy white curtains to better see. “And I love the view. It’s perfectly angled so you can see the bayou as it flows around the property on both sides of the house.”
“That’s my favorite thing, too,” Boon said. “And that reminds me, Tempest put a cement embankment in the bayouwhere it makes the curve around our property to make sure there won’t be any erosion in the future.”
“You two have certainly thought of everything.”
“We tried. But if you want anything changed, all you have to do is say so.”
She turned away from the window and saw the kitchen against the far wall. “The open concept is great. It lets whoever’s cooking still be in the room with whoever they’re cooking for.”
“Exactly,” Boon said.
Angelle’s gaze wandered to the two hallways leading from that side of the house. “Two hallways?” she asked, looking back at Boon.
“Down the one on the right are the bedrooms. Down the one on the left is the dining room, and then a smaller sitting room that houses some of my hunting and fishing equipment at the moment. In the middle between the two halls are the bathrooms.”
“Bathrooms?” she asked.
“Two. One has a door opening on the bedroom side. One has a door opening on the kitchen and dining room side. And there’s a short cross hall running between the two if you want go from the bedroom to the kitchen without walking through all the rest of the house.”
“And I see there’s an opening between the kitchen and dining room, too,” she said, walking through the arch in the kitchen wall that connected the dining room. From the dining room she stepped into the hallway and looked into the bathroom, then continued on to the smaller sitting room. She took a second to look at the hunting and fishing equipment Boon had artfully displayed on the walls. “Your man cave,” she said with a grin.
Boon chuckled. “Unless you want it for a reading or an art room or something.”
“I can read just fine in the family room. Or in here if you’re puttering around in here and I just want to be with you while I read.”
“Yes, you can,” Boon said.
“The bedrooms are through there?” she asked.
Boon nodded.
Angelle started down the hallway the bedrooms were off of and Boon followed closely. She took the time to walk into each bedroom and get a feel for them, looking out of the windows in them as she had each room so far. When she passed the bathroom whose door opened toward the bedrooms she looked in it, too. “Exactly like the other.”
