“Like what?”
“Like creating a studio space, where I can paint, with room for a gallery.” She paused. “I want to offer art classes, too—workshops, retreats, things like that. I’m even thinking of adding a wedding venue.”
“Are you planning to live in this place, too?” He probably sounded a little testy, though he was actually worried instead.
“Not unless the man I’m crazy about fails to propose to me in the near future,” she replied.
“Well, I can tell you this—the man who’s crazy about you is definitely going to propose very soon.”
She beamed. “Good,” she said. “How soon?”
“Soon.”
Brynne sighed heavily, but it was an act.
After a few more moments, she shifted to her knees, straddling Eli’s thighs, took his face in her hands and kissed him, softly at first, then with more intensity.
He figured another round of lovemaking might just kill him.
But what a way to go.
* * *
“OOPS,” ELI MURMURED, an hour later, when he lay spooning with Brynne, both of them spent.
She tensed in his arms. “What do you mean, ‘oops’?”
“I forgot something.”
“What?”
“A condom.”
She turned, warm and fragrant, and nestled closer still. “Yikes,” she said.
It was his turn. “What?”
“I forgot something, too. I mean, we weren’t making love, since you were in the hospital and everything, and I—well—I forgot to take the pill a few times.”
He slid down a little, nibbled at the side of her neck. “Uh-oh,” he murmured.
“Eli,” Brynne protested, fitful now, but putting up no resistance whatsoever to the nibbling. “This is serious. Suppose I’m pregnant!”
“Nothing would make me happier.”
She turned to look into his face, hopeful and scared. “Really?”
“Really. We both want kids—we’ve agreed on that already.”
“But—”
“But what?”
She sniffled. “Call me old-fashioned,” she replied, “but shouldn’t we be married first?”
“Probably,” Eli said, kissing the tip of her perfect nose. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past few weeks, it’s that life plays by its own rules, on its own timetable. There’s what should happen and what does happen.”
Brynne sighed, wriggled closer still. Yawned.
“Hmmmm,” she said, and immediately drifted off to sleep.
* * *
SHE WOKE TO DAZZLING sunlight and the sound of Eli’s shower running.
Briefly, she considered joining him, but Festus ambled into the bedroom, gave her a pleading look and whimpered.
With a laugh, Brynne got out of bed, shivered in the cold and pulled Eli’s T-shirt, discarded the night before, back on over her head. For good measure, she put on her jeans, too, not bothering with underwear.
“Relax, doggo,” she told Festus. “Your breakfast is coming right up.”
They were in the kitchen when Eli came in, looking scrubbed and very glad to see her. He was barefoot, wearing black sweatpants that had seen better days and no shirt.
Brynne smiled and saluted him with her mug. “You made coffee. Extra points for that, mister.”
Eli grinned, crossed the room and kissed her lightly. “Where you’re concerned,” he said, “I’m a point-gathering fool. If they’re good for what I think they are, that is.”
“You’re insatiable.”
Eli poured coffee for himself. “When it comes to you, Bailey, yeah. I am.”
“I love you,” she told him.
“I bet you say that to every sheriff you meet, provided they have staple scars under their hair and a hole in their skull.”
“Every single one,” Brynne replied.
He kissed her again, and this time, he lingered a little longer.
Finally, she laughed and shook her head. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said, laying her hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat under her palm, strong and steady. “We are not going back to bed. Not yet, anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want to show you a building I like. Get your opinion.”
“Here’s my opinion—as long as it’s not a cottage meant for one, I’m good.”
“It’s a barn, actually,” Brynne said. “Or it was.”
He frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re talking about the one on the McCall place,” he said, clearly worried. That, of course, was where he and Melba had found Freddie Lansing’s body.
“I won’t, because it isn’t. J.P. wouldn’t sell that monstrosity anyway, since it’s smack in the middle of his ranch.”
“He ought to burn it down,” Eli said.
Brynne pretended frustration. “Stop talking about J.P.’s barn. I’m trying to tell you that the property I have in mind is the Anderson farm.”
Eli looked nonplussed. “The barn on that place is probably going to collapse under the next heavy snow, if it hasn’t already.”
He wasn’t wrong. The farm had been abandoned for many years, and its owners, living on the East Coast, ignored it, keeping the taxes up but doing nothing in the way of maintenance.
“I know,” she admitted wistfully, “but it’s a beautiful old place with a romantic history.”
“It’s a teardown,” Eli insisted.
“Don’t be stubborn, Sheriff. Of course it’s a teardown.” She paused, remembering her sketchbook, and went to find her purse and retrieve the book.
Inside, she’d sketched the buildings she’d already erected in her imagination: a large, lodge-like space with many windows and long balconies, surrounded by several rustic cabins. The finishing touch was a gazebo made, like the cabins and the main building, of logs.
Eli studied the drawings carefully, let out a low whistle of exclamation. “I’d forgotten just how talented an artist you are, Bailey.”
“What do you think?” Brynne prompted, unable to contain her eagerness. “Of the idea, I mean. Not my art skills.”