Page 4 of Lonely Beard
“Thank you,” she says.
There are two soft thumps as she kicks off her ruined shoes, and then she pads barefoot across my cabin, dripping a trail of rainwater as she goes, her borrowed towel wrapped around her shoulders like a cape. She passes the coffee table I carved last spring, piled high with books from the Cloudy Lake public library, dipping her chin to scan the titles. She spots my paintings on the walls, too, her steps slowing as she goes past, and heat crawls up my neck.
Grace is the last person I want to see these parts of me. They’re private, damn it, and once she knows them, they’ll probably be noted down in my Soulmate Express file, another data point for her to chew over and wonder where she went wrong with my failed matches.
It’s no mystery.I’mthe one who messed up. Should never have signed up for the mail order program.
That’s what happens when you let the Cloudy Lake librarian slip a bunch of romance novels into your stack of books about woodcraft. You start gettingideas, but real life isn’t like that, is it?
“These are beautiful,” Grace murmurs, pointing at the nearest painting—a vivid dream-scape of the forest done in oils. Ghostly owls surround a clearing, feathers blurring into the trees, and the stars seem to pulse off the canvas.
She’s still gripping her towel, the fabric clutched between her knuckles. “Did you do them?”
Damn it. “Yeah.”
For once, she seems to get that I don’t want to chat. That, or she decides not to risk it while the storm’s going strong outside. Grace walks to the log burner, and I try not to notice her bare toes scrunching into my rug; try not to stare at the high arches of her feet.
Look, I’m not a foot guy or anything.Okay? I don’t get worked up over toes, but I’d give my right arm to paint this girl. Her bone structure is a work of art already, and those brown eyes are pure soul.
Maybe I could paint her stretched out on my sofa, tangled in a tartan blanket, or out on my deck in the golden light of summer…
Provided Grace could keep quiet, anyway. She’s way too eager to discuss my non-existent love life, and who the hell wants that?
“It’s a rental,” she tells me, teeth chattering as she warms her back by the fire. The air smells of damp fabric and wood smoke. “The car, I mean.”
“It’s a piece of shit.”
A bright grin chases across her face, then it’s gone. A split second of that spark, teasing me. “Yeah, no kidding. But I have the number for the hire company, and as soon as the storm lets up, I’ll head down to Cloudy Lake and call them. I’ll fix this, Mr McRae.”
I don’t doubt it. This woman is a force of nature, the same as those winds outside.
We both pause, listening to the storm. It’s raging out there, muffled by the thick, wooden walls of my cabin, but still deadly. There’s no way she’s stepping foot in that—not if I have any say.
I may be a grumpy asshole, but I won’t let her get hurt on my watch. Not even with mybad attitude.
“You need clothes?”
If she’s good and soaked, standing by the fire won’t do much. Grace plucks at the fabric of her skirt, nose wrinkling at the squelching noise. “Um, maybe. Or—yes. Yes please, Mr McRae.”
“Aiden.” I cross to the solid wood dresser against the wall by the bed, and pull out a heavy drawer. No point standing on ceremony, not when I’ve seen her soaked to the skin, every dip and curve of her lean form so stark, and not when she’s about to wear my clothes against her bare body. “Call me Aiden.”
The storm could last a long while, after all.
Might as well get comfortable.
* * *
“Okay, so here’s your first problem.”
Twenty minutes later, dressed in a forest green woolen sweater and not much else, Grace marches around my cabin like a general addressing her troops. Her bare legs are long and smooth, her damp hair loose around her shoulders, and though the hem hangs nearly to her knees, my stomach keeps dipping at the sight of her.
Should have tried harder to find her a pair of shorts or something. But she insisted that it was fine, that the sweater came down lower than her skirt, and I’m enough of an idiot that I agreed.
Now I can’t focus. What is she yammering about?
“My problem?”
Grace snorts and stops by the front door to my cabin, jabbing a triumphant hand at the nearest wall. My whittling knives hang on nails, arranged in a display of sharp metal. Hey, I like to whittle.
