Page 43 of Shielded Hearts

It took her a second to make her eyes focus on the texts from the client.

“Great news! He loves the place and says it’s perfect. His wife is going to adore it.”

“Good to hear.”

“I’m going to set up the dates, then we need to go into the nearby town.”

His stare lingered on her mouth for a long heartbeat before lifting to her eyes. “Do we need to fill the place with supplies for them?”

“No, I need to go to any quaint shops I can find. Bespoke and artisan.”

“What does that even mean? Is that anything like rustic?”

She let out a laugh that was a little throatier than she intended. “Kind of. I need to buy things for a personalized gift basket for the couple.”

“All right. When do you want to go?”

She paused. They’d been right in the middle of making out, and her flustered senses werenotfinished with Colt Malone.

A fifth text from the client made the decision for her.

“Now. We need to go now.”

All the travel was getting to be a lot, even for her. She wanted nothing more than to throw on her coziest sweats and curl up in front of that fire with Colt beside her. But she didn’t have much time to set this up for her client, and she did need to run her business.

With a sigh, she gave Colt an apologetic look. “I know we’ve been traveling all day.”

“It’s no big deal. The fire will be fine while we’re gone.” He pulled a screen in front of the flames.

She hesitated. Wishing they could pick up where they left off, wrapped in each other’s arms, well on their way to the bedroom.

The faster she shopped for this gift basket, the faster the job was complete. And the sooner she and Colt would be parting ways.

She wasn’t ready for their time to be over.

Colt met her stare. Several long heartbeats stretched between them.

“Let’s go into town. We can grab some lunch while we’re out.”

Lunch meant more time spent in his company.

“Let me grab my coat.” She returned to the bedroom where she’d removed her coat while snapping wide angle views of the king-sized bed and the view of the mountains through the window behind it.

When she found Colt by the front door, he stood with his back to her. His head was bowed, and his shoulders appeared to be slumped. But he quickly spun when he heard her and slapped a small smile on his face.

“Ready?”

Why did she get the feeling that he wasn’t talking about going into town?

She nodded, and he ushered her outside before him. On her way past Colt—her lover—she sucked in a deep gulp of the fresh mountain air mingled with his scent.

They said that smells were the biggest trigger of memories, both good and bad. She could attest to this herself. She knew the smell of her mother’s cookies and her dear friend Vivian’s perfume. She knew the market in Spain carried notes of spice and fresh lemons.

Colt was man and pine and all things warm and good…and she wanted to remember.

Chapter Ten

Aspen dragged Colt on a relentless march through store after store in search of the “perfect” items for her welcome basket. Shopping ranked below getting a tooth drilled or a family birthday party on the list of things he wanted to do less—unless the store sold hunting equipment.

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