He tilted his head to one side. “You want to see inside?”
“I’d like to see your childhood home, yes.”
He held up his hand signaling her to wait. She thought he was abandoning her until he rounded the front of his truck and opened her door. She’d forgotten about his ingrained manners.
“Come along, then. I’ll give you the nickel tour.” He held her hand as she stepped down from his truck.
At the back door was a key pad. He put his hand flat on it and then entered a long code. The door clicked open.
“Top-notch security, I see.”
“Yeah. They probably don’t need it, but Cam insists.”
There was a light on over the stove as she stepped into the large country kitchen. The faint scent of coffee filled the air. She looked to her right and saw a coffee maker on the counter. He entered right behind her and locked the deadbolt on the kitchen door behind them.
“Will you show me your old room?”
“Ah. Sure. It’s a converted attic space on the third floor.”
She nodded, even though he mentioned the location like it was an undesirable place to visit.
He took her hand, kissed the tips of her fingers and led her through the kitchen. “This is the kitchen,” he said.
“I see.”
“It’s all a part of the nickel tour.”
“What if I don’t have a nickel?”
“I’ll require a kiss at the end of the tour then.”
“Deal.”
From the kitchen, they moved into a large dining room with a lovely table big enough to seat twelve comfortably. She easily pictured a family of nine, mostly boys, and the image tugged at her heart a bit.
Next they rounded the table and went through another archway to the foyer. He guided her to a staircase leading up to the second floor. They climbed the steps together, turning left down a hallway at the top. As they walked along—and as he’d done downstairs—he pointed to the first partly open door on the left to announce what it was. “This is my little sister’s room.” Further down on the right there were two more doors to rooms that had been shared by four of his brothers. “Jack and Gage were in one room. They were the two youngest. And the other had Axel and Wheeler.”
“Don’t you have five brothers? One named Cam, right?”
He nodded. “Yep. But when Cam turned twelve, he decided three boys sharing one bedroom had two too many boys in it, so my parents fixed him up a small space over the garage where an ancient efficiency apartment used to be.”
At the end of the hallway was another door. He opened it, flipped a light switch on and revealed a narrow staircase leading to the third floor.
“Up there is where I was.”
“You got your own room?”
He nodded. “While it’s a good-sized space up there, it’s mostly unfinished, just wood and beams.”
“Can we go up and look at it?”
Diesel tilted his head once, gesturing her to follow him. She couldn’t help but watch his backside as he climbed. He really filled out a pair of jeans well.
The staircase was short, leading to a small landing, another turn to the right and they climbed the rest of the way into the attic space. A small railing at the top opened into darkness. Diesel turned the light on just as she got to eye level with the attic space. She saw his massive bed first. Her heart skipped a beat for some reason.
Juliana climbed the rest of the stairs and went to stand next to him in the middle of the room.
“What do you think?”
