Knowing that she was happy with their kiss, he dragged his attention to the housekeeper who was opening up the window shades. “Sorry for fogging up the windows.”
Gladys’ round body jiggled as she moved from window to window. “It’s just nice to see love in the air again, especially in this house.”
Whitney chuckled and moved off his lap. Once she was on her feet, she rubbed her butt and then looked at his lap. “No wonder I felt cold. I was sitting on your ice-pack.”
He laughed and lifted the ice-pack up to show Gladys. “I think I need to replace this now. The heated kiss Whitney and I just shared melted the ice.”
Whitney quickly snatched the pack from him. Her cheeks were darkened with a blush.
“You’re just awful, do you know that?” she told him before going into the kitchen.
Satisfaction filled him and he sighed.Lovewas definitely in the air.
ELEVEN
Humming, Whitney walkedon clouds the rest of the day. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to Zack alone since their steamy kiss, but she needed that time to think about how that kiss made her feel.
Taking a deep breath, she placed her hand on her chest. The fluttering in her heart hadn’t stopped since this morning. Actually, she didn’t want it to stop. She enjoyed the power it gave her. Never in her life had she finished kissing a man andknownthat he’d liked it just as much as she had. After seeing the passion on Zack’s face and the tender way he gazed into her eyes, it was hard not to know his feelings.
But why had he enjoyed it so much? She wanted to blame the pain pills, but she knew they hadn’t taken effect when they’d kissed. Was he really just lonely for a woman’s affection? It was difficult for her to believe that he actually wantedher. Zack Greyson had so much money, he could get any woman. So why her?
Joe was taking up much of Zack’s time after supper, so Whitney wandered back up to the attic. Since the kiss, she’d wanted to paint her feelings on the canvas. By painting her thoughts, she’d be able to refer back to the picture and remember this moment in her life. A moment she never wanted to forget.
Whitney put the paints and brushes together, found a smock, and began. Time seemed to stand still as she painted. Yet her mind spun with emotions from her past. She’d been so happy at the ranch before the divorce. But once she and her mother had returned to city life, everything changed. Mother wouldn’t allow her to paint. Whitney received the impression that her mother thought she wasn’t any good even though other people had praised her paintings.
Mother hadn’t approved of anything Whitney tried to accomplish throughout the years. When she finally entered college, she was relieved to be away from her over-critical parent. However, Whitney tried hard to please everyone in her life no matter if they trampled her heart.
Zack had wondered why she didn’t believe in herself. It was because she’d never thought she was any good. It seemed that everything she tried to do had failed. Relationships with men were a joke. And now that she was an FBI agent, even that was a ridiculous farce. Zack had mentioned once how terrible she was at her job. He was right. She was the worst agent in the unit.
Was there anything she could do well?
She paused in her painting and studied the way the colors blended so well together, and the way the landscape of the ranch nearly jumped off the canvas. Nodding, she concluded that she was pretty darn good at painting, even if her mother thought differently.
How was it that being with Zack lately made her feel good about herself? True, that feeling hadn’t come to her until they’d left his mother’s house in Manhattan, but being with him on the ranch was just magical. Heaven. Dare she say...paradise? No, she wouldn’t use that term just yet.
“I’m glad you’re painting again.”
