“Good?” Shiloh asked, tucking her legs against her body, arms wrapped around them.
“Better than good,” he mumbled, sliding her a glance. Shiloh looked like she was part of this cabin. Part of Wyoming. As if she’d always lived here. Her hair was tangled, eyes warm with happiness. Most of all, her mouth was gently curved upward and it sent an ache directly to his lower body. She was relaxed. “Looks like you’ve been working,” he observed, pointing the fork toward her knees, which had some dust on them.
Laughing, she said, “I guess I should have changed before I came out here. I woke up at nine and ate a ton of pancakes and it was my turn to clean the house this week, so I did it. I wanted to do something to thank you for your thoughtfulness and we didn’t have any dessert planned for tonight.” Shrugging, Shiloh said, “I made an apple pie. I went over to Maud’s home and she had some cellar apples from last year left over and she gave me a bunch so I could make it for us.”
“Nice of Maud to do that,” Roan agreed. He was starving. And it didn’t take him long to finish off the thick slice of warm pie. Getting up, he took the plastic box to his pickup and pulled out a sack that contained his lunch he’d made this morning. Walking back, he sat down and opened it up. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No,” Shiloh responded, and then she rolled her eyes. “I was on a mission to get the house clean and that pie baked in time for your lunch.”
Roan had three turkey sandwiches in his bag. He pulled one out, handing it to her. “Eat this.”
Man of few words. Shiloh grinned and took it. “Thanks.” She looked up, appreciating the east side of the porch now sporting the new railing. “Looks great, Roan. Did you have any trouble with it this morning?”
“I missed you.” Roan scowled. And then he said more carefully, “I missed having a partner to help me lay that railing.” He’d seen the sudden surprise in Shiloh’s face over his first blurted admission. Scrambling, Roan didn’t want to put pressure on Shiloh and quickly adjusted his words. He DID miss her, dammit. Coming out to the cabin this morning in first light, it felt damned lonely without her.
“I was torn,” Shiloh admitted, enjoying the sandwich because she was equally starved. “I thought about you out here by yourself and that you’d need a second pair of hands.”
“I got it done,” he murmured, finishing off the first sandwich and reaching into the sack for the second one. “You need to give your palms a day off with those blisters on them. No sense in working today and then tearing them open. They’ll heal faster if the blisters don’t pop.”
“Always a man of reality,” Shiloh teased, brushing her hands off on the sides of her jeans. “But I’m going to stay, Roan. I don’t want to hammer today, but I want to spend the rest of the day helping you to put up the rest of the railing.”
Roan felt his heart lurch with sudden happiness. His mouth thinned as he regarded her. There was a stubborn look in Shiloh’s eyes, the way she set her mouth, as if preparing for an argument from him. A grin leaked out of one corner of his mouth. “I don’t suppose if I told you no, you’d listen to me?”
“Got that right, cowboy.” She stood up, dusted off her britches, and said, “I brought my gloves and I got my hat. I’m ready to be a gofer today and help you where and when you need a second pair of hands.”
Roan sized her up, appreciating every inch of her lean, graceful body. “I’ll bet you were a handful as a kid growing up.” He saw her lips turn into a winsome smile.
“How did you guess?”
Chapter Twelve
Shiloh dawdled over her apple pie after dinner. At her elbow, Roan was making good progress in demolishing his portion. He’d dropped three huge scoops of vanilla ice cream onto it. She’d taken one scoop. Burning with curiosity, she asked, “Do you get home very often to visit your parents in Montana?”
Roan could sense her feelers out and aimed in his direction. “About once a year. I usually go up for the fall roundup, help my dad out with collecting about three thousand head of cattle that’s wandered around their fifty-thousand-acre ranch.”
“Wow,” she murmured. “That sounds like a big ranch.”
“It is.” He savored sharing his meals with Shiloh. Roan couldn’t imagine what life was like without her. She completed him in ways no woman ever had before. Just the way her brows moved around, he could see her mind flying along at Mach 3 with her hair on fire. What was she after? Roan could feel her stalking him. It wasn’t a bad thing, just kind of amusing to him. She was a writer. Curiosity was high in Shiloh’s world and he sensed she wanted to know a whole helluva lot more about him than she did presently. She pushed the melting ice cream around on her half-eaten pie, thinking.
“Was your dad always a rancher? I thought he was in the Army at one time?”