by Imani King
“She won’t hurt a flea. And once we get the guest house running again, you won’t have to worry about her.”
“Seriously, it’s fine. You can let her greet me. She seems pretty well-behaved. Besides the licking.” Rowan gives me a doubtful look, but he guides Eliza Doolittle over to me again and lets her go. Her rump wiggles uncontrollably, and she puts her big white head in my lap, her deep brown eyes looking up at mine. She whines once, and I put a tentative hand to her ear and rub it. Her short hair is silky and soft under my fingers. She leans hard into my hand, and I laugh.
“You got a friend for life, there. That’s the thing about dogs, especially rescues. They’re so grateful when you give them attention, and they’re loyal as hell.” I might be imagining it, but Rowan’s voice cracks a little when he says the last part of that sentence. I look at him, but I keep my mouth closed. I’m not one to pry in someone’s personal life, but it seems like Eliza Doolittle is the only other creature who lives in this house. She snorts and presses into my hand again, wagging her stump as hard as she can.
“You’re just a big sweetheart, aren’t you?” I look down at Eliza and stroke the black spot on top of her head. Her nose is spotted pink and brown. Even if she’s big as hell, she might be the sweetest-looking dog I’ve seen in a long time.
“Oh she is. She’ll sleep next to your bed all night if you let her.” He pauses, and the silence makes me remember how tired I am. “Speaking of which, I think we’d better get you upstairs. If I were organized at all, I’d have my secretary here getting you situated in your room, but I’ll just have to trust that everything is as clean as it’s supposed to be.”
“I’m not too hard to please.” The heat rises in my cheeks when I say the words because it makes me think of Rowan’s long, muscular body. No, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to please me. The heat rises even higher at that thought, and Rowan catches my gaze. It looks like there’s a spark there too, but I know I must be imagining it. This shit doesn’t happen. The whole boy meets girl thing, the meet cute with me nearly falling down the stairs.
This isn’t real life, is it?
“Then you might like the blue guest suite. It’s my favorite one. It’s at the end of the hall, opposite end from where I sleep. So... nothing improper about that, right?” I laugh nervously, and he offers his hand, helping me up from the step. When his strong, weathered hand touches mine, a jolt of sweet, delicious heat travels through my body, pooling between my legs. Scared of what it means, I pull my hand away nonchalantly and follow him up the stairs. Eliza walks between us, her tail stump wagging the whole time. Rowan leads me down the hall, over more soft, thick oriental rugs, all in blues and reds. It’s dark, so I can’t really tell what the paintings on the walls look like, but I can feel how expensive they are. For the first time, I wonder how he picked me, and why in the hell he did. Walking behind him makes me feel hyperaware of my body, every brush of my skin against my clothing.
Better not. You’re no good with a man, Cadence. And this one has so much money it’ll hang over you every day you’re with him. Just paint and try not to look too deep into his eyes.
He opens a door at the very end of the hallway and ushers me into the room. When he flicks on the light, I gasp. On the far wall, there’s a huge painting, maybe seven or eight feet wide and just as high. If I look at it one way, it looks like the ocean, but if I turn my head to the side, it looks like the sky with pricks of white light mixed through the deep blues and aquas the artist used. The quilts on the four-poster bed match the painting almost exactly, and the rug in here is a light sky blue, contrasting with the dark floors.
“I had the designer just put things in here to match the painting. I know more about painting than any other type of artsy stuff, so I let her do what she wanted. Thought an artist might like this room. Occurred to me when you walked in.”
I smile. “I do. It’s beautiful. Is the guest house this nice?”
“Oh. Oh yeah. It’s nice too. It just needs some TLC. Should be up and running in about a week.” He runs his fingers through his thick, dark hair and turns to walk out. “I’ll let you get some sleep. I’ll take you by the building tomorrow. Go on and get comfortable, Miss Cadence.” He winks at me and walks toward the door, Eliza following close behind. His departure is abrupt, but I guess it’s appropriate since it’s almost one in the morning. I gulp, though, and wonder if I did anything to offend him. “Night,” he says.
“Night. Thanks for the room.”
“My pleasure,” he says.
The way he says it sounds almost dirty, and that simple word threatens to undo me completely.
Later, after putting on a nightshirt and brushing my teeth in the grand, marble bathroom, it takes me a long damn time to fall asleep.
Because I’m thinking of Rowan and wondering exactly what his pleasure might be.
CHAPTER FOUR
Even after I’ve tended the horses and ridden up over one of the trails with the new mare, unsaddled and brushed her, Cadence is still asleep. I check my watch.
“Eight in the morning, nearly. Dammit, and it’s later in New York.” I laugh. She’s a city girl and an artist, probably used to setting her own schedule. I take my boots off and set them in the mudroom next to the kitchen. I should probably see about the quarterly taxes, or the damn fundraising event next week for Coming Home, but hell, I can barely see straight I’m so hungry. Normally, it’d be a green shake and protein for the day before heading into Ruidoso to meet with the board of directors. But the week after Thanksgiving is always quiet, even for a nonprofit.
And maybe Cadence’s mural can wait, at least until she’s been fed. They might have served her dinner on the plane, but it wasn’t my jet so there’s no way of knowing if she ate good or not. Even if she’s an artist, she might need a little nourishment to get her gears going.
Eliza Doolittle greets me with a little bark at the door of the kitchen and then comes to settle in at her bed under the table. Joanna had that bed made for her and embroidered with the dog’s full name. Hell, Eliza loves that damn bed, but she never could stand a hair on Joanna’s head.
“You got more sense than I have, Liza,” I say. She looks at me quizzically and then glances at the refrigerator like she’s reminding me I need to make breakfast. “You’ll get a slice of bacon out of this, just maybe.” I open the door to the fridge and pull out eggs, Eliza’s favorite bacon, and the bread dough that I started the other day.
“And this bread mix should be just about ready, girl, but you don’t get any bread. Just bacon. Never thought I’d have a gluten-intolerant dog, but that goes to show you that I don’t know everything, do I Eliza?” I set the dough on the island in the middle of the kitchen and step into my Uggs. I think back to Cadence’s reaction and stifle a laugh. Who says a billionaire can’t keep his feet warm? We don’t all wear smoking jackets and have a full closet of Armani or whatever the hell my brother Dylan has.
I get out the cast iron skillet and turn on the flame of the gas stove. I empty the rasher of bacon in the pan and listen as it starts to sizzle. That smell ought to wake anybody up, and if it doesn’t, I bet the smell of fresh bread will do the trick. I knead the dough out and form it into a loaf before placing it into one of the many Le Creuset dutch ovens that Joanna bought but never used. I rub it with salt and olive oil and put it into the oven to do its thing and rise like it should. The dog gets up and comes to my side.
“This’ll get Miss Cadence right out of bed, you wait and see, Miss Doolittle.” I fiddle with the bacon until it starts to crisp up just how I like it, and I whip up some eggs with fresh jalapeños and shallots from the garden. “And I’ll top the omelet off with some goat cheese from that farm down the road. No cheese for you either, Eliza. Don’t look at me like that. But don’t you think it’ll impress our resident artist?”
I hear a yawn in the hallway outside of the kitchen and turn around to see Cadence, still in her nightshirt and one of the terrycloth robes I keep in the clo
set. “I’m already impressed,” she says. Her hair is a mess again, and she lifts a hand to it. The way she does it, puts that hand to her head like she’s self-conscious, it’s all sexy as fuck. That slightly messy look makes me almost lose my composure, like she’s broken wild after only a day of being here. For a moment, I forget I have my bacon cooking. It starts to sizzle and pop, begging to be turned over. “I forgot my kerchief. I wear it to sleep,” she says. She looks down like she’s embarrassed.
“I wouldn’t have noticed.”
She yawns again. “Is that fresh bread?” She takes a long sniff of the kitchen. “And bacon? What if I’m a vegetarian?”
“That was a risk I was willing to take, I guess.” I flash a smile, but inside, I’m hoping like hell that she doesn’t hate me for cooking bacon. “It’s all local, organic, grass-fed, sustainable.”
She laughs and puts her head in her hands for a second. The robe falls open for a split second, and I’m left staring at the deep V of her night shirt. “I’m definitely not a vegetarian. Don’t worry. I’ll gladly have some local, organic, grass-fed bacon.”
“And sustainable. The guy has wind on his farm.”
“Well then. I guess I’m in for a treat. You need any help? I’m all thumbs in the kitchen, but I can put out plates and butter for the bread. You got any jam?”
“I have fig preserves and honey.” I gesture to the fridge. “And plates and cups are up on the shelf by the Kitchenaid.”
“The Kitchenaid, huh? So you’re not just a billionaire—you’re a chef, too?” There’s a flirtatious tone in her voice that wasn’t there last night. I saw that spark, like it could be there. She cuts her eyes at me, a golden brown flicker under those dark lashes. And God help me, something in me feels like it’s being unlocked... or cut open, more like. My eyes wander down to her bare legs, to the bright red polish on her toenails. The whole picture is careless and wild.
Fuck work for just now, I think.
“Yeah I got a Kitchenaid. And Uggs. What of it?” I flip over the bacon and start whipping up the eggs. “The bread will be done in about four minutes—I can smell it forming up like it’s supposed to, and I’m about to die to slather a piece with butter and fig preserves.”
And to watch Cadence’s face when she bites into hers.
“I didn’t mention the Uggs this time.” Cadence gets two plates and sets them out on the table, moving around the kitchen lazily, like she owns the damn place. Eliza gets up from her bed and presses her head into Cadence’s hip that she almost knocks the poor girl over as she closes the refrigerator door. She stumbles and laughs, still holding the honey and fig preserves and Eliza pushes her hard, demanding her attention.
“Liza! Stop that. Let Cadence get that food on the table, or you’re getting no pieces of bacon. None!” Eliza looks back at me like I’m the cruelest, rudest man on the planet and backs off of Cadence for just a bit.
“I’ll give you attention when I sit down, girl,” she says, and the dog follows her right on over to the table. Cadence sits down on the window bench, and Eliza pushes against her again, wagging her stump hard. The dog drifts off into a state of ridiculous bliss as Cadence massages her ears and scratches the top of her head. I watch the two of them, watch as the smile forms on Cadence’s face.
“She really likes you.” Before I lose myself completely and let the bacon burn, I set the pieces out on a plate right before starting the omelet. The egg crisps up almost instantly in the cast iron skillet, the shallots on the bottom turning golden brown as I let the edges turn crispy and top it with dollops of fresh goat cheese.
“I really like her. I didn’t think I even liked big dogs. But I think she’s about to change my mind.” Cadence smiles, and I catch that glimmer again. I feel her eyes on me as I finish up the omelet and pull the bread out from the oven.
“She has that effect on people, especially the children we work with at Coming Home.” Her eyes lock on mine as I walk over to the table.
“Children?” She nearly chokes out the word, but she keeps scratching the black spot on the top of Eliza’s head. A shadow seems to pass over Cadence’s face, but she recovers quickly. “That’s your nonprofit, right? Coming Home?” Her tone is uncertain, but her face brightens when I bring the bread, eggs, and bacon over to the table. I start doling out large portions for each of us and watch her face as she starts buttering a slice of my bread.
“It is. I take it you didn’t look it up before signing on?” I raise an eyebrow as I sit down and try not to smile. I wouldn’t have guessed such a good artist would come out to New Mexico on a whim without looking at the project she was offered, but here she is. Everyone has their stories, I guess.
She looks down at her hands, her fingers flying around with nervousness. “I—uh—I did—but—”
“But you didn’t. That’s okay. We’ll let you stay, won’t we, Eliza?” Cadence won’t quite meet my eye, but she’s digging into the fig preserves and slathering it across the bread with gusto, so my guess is that she’s not going to dart out of the door any time soon.
“I needed a project. I needed to get out of the city,” she says, still looking down at her bread. She takes an enormous bite and adds, “I’m sorry, Rowan. I don’t even know you and—”
I put up my hand to stop her. “It’s fine. I was just giving you a hard time. I guess it just give us something to talk about here at the breakfast table.” She looks skeptical, but she keeps eating. And so I don’t get lost in watching her eat, I launch into talking. “New Mexico, just like every state, has its underprivileged populations. And here, we’ve got the Mescalero Reservation. Apache people. There’s a lack of resources, social services, that kind of thing, especially with an understanding of their culture. There’s also runaway kids down from Albuquerque, kids born addicted to drugs. It looks like heaven out here, and really it is, but even in the resort town of Ruidoso, there’s need for people who will care about these children—and their parents too. The ones who have parents. We do therapy of all kinds, and experimental stuff too. Animal therapy, art therapy, music therapy. We provide housing and a safe haven for all domestic abuse victims—”
“So Coming Home basically does everything?” She laughs. “Big goals, right?”
“That’s it. Big goals. My family has money, lots of it. And my brothers all do big important things. But if I can do this little important thing for this little population of people—”
“Then you’ve really done something.”
“Something I can rest my name on. That’s right. You get it. It’s something that counts. I give a lot of my own money to it, but in order for it to work, it has to have people from the community interested in keeping it going. People interested in working there, the best and the brightest. There’s a sister site starting up in New York City, so we wanted a muralist from the city, someone to weave the tale of Coming Home. You did that with your mural for the Children’s Scholarship Fund.”
“What about a local artist—why not someone from the reservation?”
“We do have an artist in residence, and she did a mural on one side of the building. You’ll do one on the other. You really didn’t read any of the documents I sent you?” I laugh out loud. “You are straight crazy for coming out here, but I like it. I really do. Why in the hell did you?”
That same look flashes across her face again. I want to pry it open, figure her out like the little mystery she is. But I stay silent and just watch her face while she thinks. “I needed space,” she says simply.
“We got plenty of that out here. Plenty.” I let it rest at that. I’ve learned from experience not to ask more when a woman clams shut like that. It’s best to come out all in its own time. And usually that time doesn’t happen within twelve hours of meeting someone. I rip off another slice of bread and smear it with butter and honey. We sit in silence for minutes—I don’t know how many—and the only sound is that of Eliza snoring underfoot.
Hesitantly at first, Cadence starts to tell me a
bout her process, the nonprofits she’s worked with before, why she decided to become a muralist in the first place. Her words weave the tale of why she is who she is—the artist mother, the lawyer father, the sister who’s a practical pharmacist. She doesn’t say it, but to her, that family is everything. I can see her face light up when she talks about it.
