Wind River Wrangler (Wind River Valley #1)(75)
Leaning back, she tipped her head against the cedar and sighed. Her body burned brightly with the memory of last night in Roan’s arms. She’d never had a man make love with her like he had. Even now, she felt a new, gnawing warmth in her lower body coming to life. Just thinking about Roan, his hands upon her, his mouth wreaking scalding heat out of her body, made her clench and grow needy once more. Since the stalker, her sex drive had plummeted to nothing. But last night, it came back fiercely, hungrily, and a soft smile crossed Shiloh’s lips as she replayed their night together.
Shiloh had no idea how long she gently rocked in the swing, but when she opened her eyes and looked at her watch, she realized a half hour had passed. And it would be another half hour before Roan would arrive on Diamond. Her heart expanded with joy. Out here, she could steal a kiss from him and not worry about anyone seeing them. She’d agreed with Roan last night that what they felt for each other shouldn’t be common knowledge on the ranch. At least, not yet.
Shoving to her feet, she opened the gold and red cedar door, noticing that there was a new small window so a person could look out to see who was standing there. Pushing the door open, she stepped inside and gasped. The living room and kitchen were not only completed, but filled with furniture! Her gaze flew to the kitchen to her left. It was finished! Amazed, Shiloh left the door ajar, placed the keys on the foyer table, and took off her jacket and baseball cap. It was warm in the cabin and her boots thunked across the shining, highly polished floor. Everything was so bright, so hopeful-looking. Running her fingers across the black granite that sparkled with gold veins within it, she liked the huge island. There were now tall bar stool chairs with black leather seats placed on one side of it. The kitchen drew her like a magnet because she loved to cook, loved herbs and the wonderful fragrances that always emanated from them. The last time she’d seen the kitchen, it was a shell. She recalled Roan had shown her that he’d built two large windows in front of the double sink area so that while he was there, he could look out across the rolling beauty of the land.
Even better, he’d installed another window, a smaller one, on one side of the massive commercial stove and venting system. That was a thoughtful touch that told her Roan wanted the outdoors, as much as possible, to be inside his cabin. The Wolf stove had six gas-fed burners. The aluminum vent above was brushed and muted, allowing the gorgeous gold, red, and tan glass tile work on the backsplash to blend with the granite. Everything was understated, like Roan, as she leaned over and touched the long, rectangular glass tiles. They pulled in the color of the cedar floor. It was a thoughtful plan and Shiloh smiled, admiring Roan’s gifts and skills for putting the tile in place. He was a man of many, many talents.
She turned, her gaze turning to the living room. Roan had put up a cedar railing to demarcate the kitchen from the other room. To her surprise, she saw a huge black, white, gray, and red Navajo rug that spread in the center of the floor.
He now had a dark brown leather couch and several overstuffed rust-colored chairs around it. Everything, she realized, was connected with that gorgeous hue of gold and crimson found in the cedar flooring. Her smile increased as she saw a red afghan folded across the back of the couch, the same color of the red of the cedar. Roan’s eye for detail was surprising. Shiloh didn’t think many men had this sense of color and design. Her mother, Isabella, had always been the fashion designer of their apartment. A warmth flowed through Shiloh as she remembered as a child that her father had problems matching colors and often her mother chose his clothing for him. And her father had been eternally grateful.
The cabin had been a shell ready to be painted the last time Shiloh had seen it. Now, it was a home. It clearly reflected Roan’s quiet strength and masculinity. But it wasn’t a harsh male sort of design. Shiloh liked the warmth of the wood, the golden radiance of the sun sliding silently across the polished floor, creating reflective light everywhere. The brown of the leather sofa was actually toward the red end of the spectrum. The cedar coffee table in front of it looked hand hewn and designed. Shiloh would bet that Roan had designed it. The legs were curved and feminine-looking, with ball feet. As her gaze took in the tables at each end of the couch, she saw they were the same design. Almost as if Roan had introduced the curves to counter the angles elsewhere. A balance. She liked that, appreciating the beauty of the hand-carved cedar furniture.
There was a central light above the living room. So many people, she’d discovered, put antlers together with lights and used them as decorative Western features, but not here. Instead, as she turned and studied the huge central chandelier, her curiosity turned to wonder. Roan had used the same curving cedar design and they were like eight arms flowing sinuously from the center, outward. As she stepped closer, truly absorbing the sculpture, the art of it, her amazement grew.
Roan had twined two different types of wood around the main center post of the chandelier. One wood was reddish colored. The other, a deeper gold color, even more so than the cedar wood itself. They twined like vines, perhaps, four of them around each arm, to the end of it, so that there was a red and gold color on every other arm. And within the twined pieces of wood were highly faceted colored glass in blue, crystal clear, and green colors placed tastefully here and there. As the sunlight shot through the area, the crystals sparkled, creating a breathtaking collage of color.
At the end of each arm of the chandelier was a light hanging down from it. And surrounding the top of the light was a tentlike wooden roof with the twine of the colorful wood flowing around it.