A Husband In Wyoming. Lynnette Kent
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himself up over what he couldn’t produce. He had plenty to do over the next couple of months to get ready for the gallery show, and he was comfortable with the work that had to be done. Letting go of those images would free up more energy for the tasks at hand. Artistic and otherwise.
With the remaining sketches neatly slotted inside a file folder, Dylan made his way to the mare and foal and sat down, forcing himself for the first few minutes until the process started to flow—
A knock on the door jerked him around and he swore as he dropped the piece of wood he’d just glued. What had happened now? His brothers rarely bothered him at night except for an emergency.
Through the glass, though, he could see this was not a brother. He opened the door. “Jess? What are you doing here?”
Her hair was loose again, rippling around her shoulders and lifting with the wind. She wore a bulky blue sweater over a T-shirt and what appeared to be plaid flannel boxer shorts, with sneakers on her feet. Her legs, minus jeans and tall boots, were shapely and smooth. Gorgeous.
“I couldn’t sleep.” She’d taken off her makeup, revealing light freckles over her nose and cheeks. “I thought I would come watch you.”
“Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Okay. Come in.” The last thing he needed when he was having trouble working was an audience. Especially this audience. “I was about to make some coffee. Join me?”
“Yes, please.” She drifted along the display tables while he brewed two cups. “Heavy cream and two sugars, please.”
“I like mine sweet, too.” He brought her a mug. “Is your room not comfortable?”
“Oh, no, it’s great. Flying just disrupts my internal clock.”
“I remember. Eventually you stop being able to tell what time it should be.” They were standing by a bighorn ram he’d finished a few months ago. “I haven’t missed that, the last couple of years.”
“You don’t enjoy traveling?”
“I enjoy visiting new places. My preference would be staying somewhere for a month—or six—and really getting to know the people and the environment. I’m not into ‘if it’s Tuesday this must be Rome.’”
Jess eyed him over the rim of her cup. “Not just four days?”
“You won’t know everything about this place in four days or four months or years.” He didn’t mean it as a challenge.
But she heard one. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
So they were adversaries again. Dylan didn’t intend to argue with her about who would win. “Anyway, make yourself comfortable—not that there are many decent chairs to sit in around here. I’m going to get to work.”
“Thanks. Just pretend I’m not here. I don’t want to disturb your process.”
Yeah, right. Dylan lost count of how many mistakes he made in the next hour as he tried to concentrate with Jess Granger in the room. She’d rolled his desk chair out from behind the staircase and over to where he was working. He couldn’t argue that she’d picked the most comfortable seat available. The problem was the way she curled her body into its leather embrace, knees drawn up and ankles crossed, looking all warm and cozy. That blue sweater didn’t reach much below the hem of the boxer shorts, so there was a long length of leg left to view, if he happened to glance over.
Which he did, too often. And each time he found Jess’s gaze intent on his hands. She didn’t say anything, but he was constantly aware of her presence.
Eventually, though, the spirit of the piece drew him in. Dylan found his focus, fingering through the collection of wood on the table for the next element, making adjustments, setting the fragment just right. He worked until his neck began to ache, until his back stiffened and his fingers fumbled, until his eyes burned.
“Enough,” he said, capping the glue and pushing away from the table. “I give in.”
A single glance at Jess revealed she’d surrendered before him. Arms folded, eyes closed, she’d slipped down in the chair to rest her cheek on the padded arm. She was deeply asleep.
In his studio. At 3:45 a.m. What was he supposed to do about it?
He should wake her, walk her to the house and send her to bed in the guest room while he returned here. And how painful would that be, for both of them? There was a reason he’d built the bedroom loft. All he wanted at this moment was to drop onto the bed and pass out.
He could leave her in the chair to sleep, even if she might not be able to straighten up for the next three days. That would teach her a lesson, though he was too tired to figure out about what.
Or...there was a king-size bed upstairs, a place to get some real rest without taking a predawn walk through damp grass.
Dylan rubbed his eyes and then put a hand on Jess’s shoulder. “Hey, you. Bedtime.”
Her eyes slowly opened to show him the bleary, confused expression of the very tired. “Huh?”
“Let’s go.” He took her hand and pulled.
She sat up with the coordination of a rag doll. “I don’t understand.” Her eyelids drooped.
“I’m tired. We’re going to bed.”
He’d carried her halfway up the steps before his last statement fully penetrated. Jess came awake, twisting in his arms. “No. We can’t.”
“Yes. We can.” He took a tighter grip under her soft, bare knees and her arms, driving himself to the top of the staircase. Keeping hold, he walked over to the side of the bed and set her on her feet. “Crawl in.”
“No.” This protest was weaker. When he pulled down the covers, she gazed at the pillow with longing.
Dylan was about to collapse himself. Palms on her shoulders, he sat her down, slipped her sneakers off and tucked her feet under the sheet before pushing her backward. “Sleep.”
Before he made it around to the other side, she had rolled onto her stomach and burrowed into the pillow.
He scowled at all those curls flowing across his dark blue sheets. “Make yourself at home.”
Then he grabbed the blanket folded at the bottom of the mattress and flung it over himself as he sat down in the recliner by the window. He’d spent many a night snoring at the television from this spot, and it was usually only a matter of minutes until he called the day done.
This was, however, the first time he’d ever done so with a woman in his bed.
Somehow, his favorite chair just didn’t feel so comfortable tonight.
* * *
OH. MY. GOD.
Jess didn’t even have to sit up to realize where she was. From where she lay on her side, she could see the railing of the loft in Dylan’s studio, as well as the top of the staircase. In such a comfortable position, she could be only one place.
His bed.
She couldn’t recall how she got here. Her memory pretty much blanked out around two thirty, when she’d checked her watch while Dylan pursued his meticulous work at the table. Another cup of coffee had kept her awake for a little while but not, apparently, long enough.
Not remembering how she got up here meant she didn’t remember what had happened after she got here. She seemed to have her clothes on, which was reassuring, if not conclusive. No one’s arms were wrapped around her. Or hers around them. Also comforting.
If she turned over, would she be staring into his face? Gazing into those dark chocolate eyes with their teasing glint? Was he under the same sheet—was the warmth she savored the result of sharing a small, dark, intimate space with him?
Jess didn’t consider herself