Wind River Wrangler (Wind River Valley #1)(33)
“See that cabin?” she said, pointing in that direction. “Who lives there?”
Roan pulled his black gelding up alongside her paint. “I do.” He saw her eyes widen enormously as she looked at him, then at the cabin, and then back at him.
“But,” she stammered, “you live at the employee house.”
Smiling a little, he saw the confusion in her eyes. “It’s a shell of a cabin,” he explained. “Taken me a year of working on my days off to get it this far. Would you like to ride over and see it?”
“I’d love to,” Shiloh admitted. “It looks like it’s glowing gold in the morning sunlight. So pretty,” she sighed, giving him a warm look. “You’re a man of many surprises,” she added in a teasing tone as their horses walked beside each other through the grass.
“What? That I’m building a cabin?”
“Yes. This looks a lot more like you. Raw, natural. Beautiful.”
He snorted. “Men are not beautiful.”
She grinned broadly. “Sure, they can be beautiful.” He was to her. What he’d done for her earlier was an incredible act of kindness. Love. Love? Well, maybe she was going overboard. Roan certainly felt sorry for her and probably felt like he had to do something to help her. She saw him grimace and then shake his head. “Men are beautiful in their own way,” she proclaimed archly, enjoying his sudden chagrin.
“You’re a writer. Can’t you come up with a better adjective than that for us?” he griped, giving her a teasing look in return. Shiloh had settled the baseball cap on her hair and it gleamed in the sunlight. Roan found himself wishing she’d wear it down all the time, understanding that long hair got in the way at times for a woman. Still, he itched to take off his gloves and tunnel his fingers through that thick, soft mass of red strands.
Chuckling, Shiloh shrugged. “In my books, I sometimes refer to the hero as beautiful. Seen through the eyes of the heroine, who loves him, of course.”
“Call me anything, even late for dinner, but do not ever call me beautiful.”
Her lilting laughter surrounded him and God help him, Roan felt his heart blossom with such fierce feelings for Shiloh, it left him stunned.
Chapter Eight
Shiloh noticed how the large, two-story cedar cabin logs had mortar between them and she saw thick posts standing around half of it. There was a gravel driveway leading up to the cabin and a hitching post nearby. Tall cottonwoods, their leaves a spring green color and still growing out for the coming summer, surrounded the cabin on three sides. The only side that wasn’t hidden was the eastern side, the main entrance. She saw a large wooden door with a brass door knocker on it, gleaming in the sun’s rays. Everything about the cabin had a warmly old-fashioned, nineteenth-century kind of feeling except for the steeply sloped dark green tin roof. There was a two-car garage off to one side that had already been built on a concrete slab, both dark green aluminum bay doors closed. Keeping in mind that Roan had said he was building this by hand, she couldn’t help but be impressed with his workmanship.
Halting at the hitching post, they dismounted. Roan showed her the type of knot to put through the iron ring so that she could easily pull the reins out of a knot. He didn’t think she’d want to know much about his house building. Most women couldn’t care less about something like this. And yet, Roan saw interest in her eyes as she walked at his side toward the front of the cabin.
“Why is the roof so steep?” she asked him, gesturing upward.
Roan stood close to her, his hands on his hips. He could smell her feminine scent and it went straight down to his lower body. Damn. “It had to be steep to force snow buildup to slide off the roof, preventing the weight of it from caving into the cabin itself. We get two or three, sometimes five feet of snow in a blizzard piling up on a roof. If it’s steep like this, the snow will slide harmlessly off, maintaining the integrity of the cabin.” Roan glanced over at her. “I don’t suppose New Yorkers get that kind of snow dumped on them?” he teased, and he couldn’t help but grin. Shiloh’s cheeks colored and her eyes sparkled as she met and held his gaze.
“We get snow, but not like Wyoming.” She felt her heart open as he smiled. Roan didn’t do that often and it sent her heart spinning wildly with yearning. Her lips tingled just thinking about kissing this cowboy. Tearing her mind from her lower body’s wants and needs, she pointed to the large posts in concrete on the front and sides of the cabin. “What are these huge posts for?”
“You really want to know?” Roan was having a tough time taking her seriously about the construction phase.
She snorted. “Why wouldn’t I?” Giving him a challenging look, Shiloh added, “What? Women don’t build houses? So we shouldn’t be interested in them? Is that it, Roan?” Shiloh was half teasing and half not. She saw his cheeks grow ruddy and damn if he wasn’t blushing! Her lips twitched as she tried not to smile. “That’s it, isn’t it? I’m a woman. And because I live in New York City, I betcha think I don’t even know one end of a hammer from the other. Right?”
Taking off his hat, Roan ran his fingers through his short hair. He wasn’t going to lie to her. “That about sums it up. Yes.” He settled the hat back on his head, enjoying the vitality in her expression. Getting Shiloh out on a horse, in the great outdoors, was working a minor miracle from Roan’s perspective.