“So, just to be clear, you are engaged but you don’t know whether it would last?”asked Annie.
“Exactly, I don’t have time for anything else.We’re not making any plans till after the exhibition, okay.”
“It’ll be Christmas by the time you’re back,” her mom said, sounding very disappointed.“You know,” she added excitedly again, “there is nothing like a Christmas wedding!”
“Mom, please!I can’t focus on other stuff now, just give us time, please?Thank you.See you all tomorrow morning!”
Quickly, she ended the call.With another groan, she rubbed her face.She should’ve known her mother would start organizing a wedding the moment she’d heard the wordmarried.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm down.The whole thing would be over by next weekend, she would just have to keep smiling until she was boarding her plane.
Her fingers touched her lips.Hunter Grant had kissed her, touched her.Inside her body, passion had coiled into a tight, throbbing ball of fire, desperately looking for an escape.Without conscious thought, she moved toward her studio.
The light in his eyes, a light she’d put there, wasn’t something she’d ever be able to forget.
Her mind already picturing what she was going to paint next, she took down the painting of Hunter on his horse against the Montana landscape and put it against the wall.It was one of the best things she’d ever done.It shouldn’t be changed.Somewhere over the last few hours, she’d come to that conclusion.
Picking up another clean stretched canvas, she put it on her easel.With her eyes on the clean surface, she picked up tubes with different colors, emptied what she wanted on her palette and picked up her favorite brush.
Within minutes her hands were moving, and the brush was flying over the cotton.
Minutes later, she was staring at Hunter’s face, at the expression in his eyes.Her heart lifted, hovered somewhere outside her body before it fell shudderingly back in place.
In that moment she knew: she’d gone and done the stupidest of things.She’d fallen in love with Hunter.
Dumbfounded she stared at the brush, then the familiar face partly covered by a cowboy hat she’d painted.When had this happened?A year ago when she’d ended up naked in his bed?Or had it been way before that?
Before she’d seen him for the first time?
*
A loud knockingon the door woke up Hunter on Saturday morning.Bleary-eyed, a part of him still in the sexy dream he’d been having about Willow, he pulled a T-shirt over his head as he staggered to the front door.It wasn’t difficult to guess who’d wake him up at this ridiculous hour on a Saturday morning.
The three Weston brothers were standing on his porch, and if the look on their faces were anything to go by, they were not impressed with what had happened the previous night.
He opened the door wider.“Come on in, I’ll make coffee.”
Silently, he waited for the brothers to into his house before he closed the door.
He started the coffee machine, took out mugs before he turned to look at them.“I’m listening.”
“You and Willow,” Hayden said.“We didn’t even know you were seeing her, let alone that you’re making plans to marry her.”
“It wasn’t planned, it just happened.”That much was true.
“Asking a woman to marry you doesn’t just happen,” Becket said.
Cooper cleared his throat.“You haven’t spent any time together.You have feelings for her?”
The coffee machine pinged.Thank goodness.He couldn’t answer that.Nothing that came to mind would be something her brothers wanted to know.
Quickly, Hunter turned his back on the brothers.“Yesterday you asked me to pick her up, Cooper.Things… happened.”
“What things?”Hayden asked.
Hunter poured the coffee and put the mugs on the table.“I’m not discussing what happens between Willow and myself with you.”
“She’s our sister, damn it,” Becket snarled.
