“I still had a bra and panties on,” shecountered.
“I got a good idea of what might be hidingunderthem.”
“Oh,boy.”
“And,” he murmured against her earlobe. “I liked whatIsaw.”
Now she knew he was teasing her. What a jerk. Yeah, she had a few extra pounds on her… okay, more than a few, but he didn’t have to taunt her about it. She pushedpasthim.
“What?” heasked.
“Don’t make fun of me,”shesaid.
“Iwasn’t.”
“Right.”
“Hey,” he grabbed her upper arm gently and turned her around to face him. “I meant it. You’ve got curves in all the rightplaces.”
“Most men don’t like big girls,”shesaid.
“You’re not big, and you’re not a girl. You’re one hell of a sexy woman. Too dammed sexy if you ask me.” He released her and ran a hand through his wavy brown hair. “And now I’m talkingtoomuch.”
She stared at him indisbelief.
“Let’s find a paint set and get going,”hesaid.
Words wouldn’t form on her lips, so she followed him without comment. Halfway down the aisle, she spotted a kids’ watercolor set which included a large, white sheet of thick paper. She picked it up to inspect it. Her childhood watercolor set had looked almost exactly like this one. For a moment, she forgot about everything but the feeling of joy she’d had when she’d first set brush to paper. She couldn’t wait to get back to the ranch so that she could startpainting.
“This is perfect,”shesaid.
“That’s for kids,” he said. “We need to find an adult’spaintset.”
“I don’t think they have any. The man said this was it. Besides, I’m not a real painter. I just want to mess around with it,”shesaid.
“Areyousure?”
“I’m positive.” She clutched the paint set in her hands. “I can’t wait to paint the view from the back porch of the B & B. I love the way the mountains catch the light. I doubt I’ll be able to translate that to paper, but whatever. I can’t remember the last time I was this excited aboutanything.”
“You should be excited about something every day,” Cody said with a frown. “If you’re not living the kind of life that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning, then maybe it’s time tochangeit.”
During the entire ride back to the ranch, she couldn’t get his comment out of her head. She hated getting up in the morning. It took three different alarms before she’d give up and roll out of bed. Even brushing her teeth had turned into a relentless chore. Had her life really become so terrible that she dreaded everysunrise?
She stared out of the truck’s window at the passing snowy landscape. What would it feel like to get up every day and be excited instead of depressed? Had her life become so dull, so routine, that it had completely lost itsmagic?
As a child, she’d risen with the sun and hadn’t fallen back into bed until late at night. Every day had been filled with discovery and adventure. She’d spent hours studying the angle of a flower’s petals, or the flight paths of bees through the meadow behind her parents’house.
Now, she hardly ever saw the sun. She spent countless hours buried behind paperwork in a windowlessoffice.
Her heart clenched. Ironically, losing the trial had finally given her time to stop and really assess her life. And after thinking about it non-stop for three days, she’d come to a single, terrifying conclusion—she hatedherlife.
* * *
An hour later,Abby sat at a redwood picnic table near the back paddock. Cody had showed her the spot. He’d told her that it was the best vantage point on the ranch. He’d been right. It gave her a perfect view of the majestic mountainside. The frozen lake spread out along the bottom of the scene, giving it a deeperperspective.
After spreading the watercolor paper out, she set rocks on the corners to keep it from flying away. Bundled up in her new jacket, hat, and scarf, she didn’t feel the cold, but the occasional breeze was enough to rustlethepage.
As she laid down the first layer of color, she struggled to recall the last time she’d been so enthusiastic about anything. One incident kept popping into her head. She’d been twelve years old when her aunt had given her a paint set for her birthday. Even her father’s disapproving look hadn’t dampened her excitement. She’d never owned any kind of art set before and couldn’t wait to play with it, but she’d been stuck sitting with the adults all day in the parlor while they talked about politics. After finally being excused, she’d raced up to her room to begin her firstpainting.
