“Chicago, you still with us or have you drifted off somewhere in your pretty head?” Reed asked.
“Just taking in your design sense. Don’t rush me.” Nothing was out of place. It was tidy and dust-free, which had to be quite a task indeed. “Either of you have girlfriends? Guys don’t keep places this clean normally.”
“We’re far from normal.” Reed grinned. “Would you be jealous if we did?”
He was such a flirt. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ to the girlfriend question.”
“You like our place?” Sawyer asked.
She nodded. A leather sofa filled one side of the small room. On the other side, an enormous flat-screen television screamed that men decorated the space. A black cast-iron stove sat in one corner of the room, adding to the rustic feel of the place. The floors were made of beautiful hardwoods. The walls were logs, which were left rounded here in the inside just like on the outside. “Where’s the kitchen? The bathroom? The bedrooms?”
Reed smiled and pointed to the stove in the corner. “That’s the kitchen.”
“You’re kidding.” A stove? After seeing it from the outside, she hadn’t expected much, but she’d thought they would at least have a refrigerator.
“Nope.”
So much for them having women in their lives. No way would any female put up with that. “What about a sink? Washing dishes?”
Reed pointed to the rear of the cabin. “See those two doors on the back wall, Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“Power outages are common up here.” Reed set her bag down on the floor. “The one on the right leads to the backyard. We chose to put in a hand water pump for our well.”
Rustic doesn’t even begin to describe this place. “What about freezing temperatures? Isn’t that a problem here?”
“We built an insulated enclosure around it,” Reed continued. “Dishes, laundry, bathing. It’s all done out there.”
She felt her eyes grow as big as saucers. “The sheriff wasn’t kidding about this place being off the grid, was he?”
“No, Nicole.” Sawyer put his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll do our best to make things comfortable for you. Sorry about this. Our sister is the only woman who has ever been up here before.”
Reed shrugged. “I hadn’t thought about how this might seem to you. Sorry. Erica has never even spent a single night here.”
The sudden softening in both of them caught her off guard. “It’s okay. I’m not like most women. I can make this work. What about sleeping arrangements?” she asked, though nervous to hear what they would say.
“The door on the left is my bedroom,” Sawyer answered, causing her nerves to swing into high gear. “Reed sleeps on the sofa sleeper out here. We always planned to put a second bedroom on the house at some point, but we’ve been focusing our extra cash on buying land.”
No time like the present to get all the cards on the table. “What is your plan for tonight?”
Reed smirked. “What kind of guys do you think we are?”
She gulped. “I didn’t mean that.”
He laughed. “Too bad, because that’s exactly the kind of guys we can be.”
“Damn it, Reed. Stop teasing her.” Sawyer turned to her, his face so tender and sweet. “You get the bedroom. One of us will sleep on the couch and the other in the chair.”
“I call the sofa, bro. It’s mine anyway. Of course that depends on what Chicago wants. Me out here or me in there with her,” Reed said, once again reminding her of a sexy trickster. “The nights can get quite cold at this elevation, even in the summer. My body gives off more heat than you can imagine.”
“Does it?” Just thinking about how the sexy, muscular cowboy’s body would feel next to hers sent a whole bunch of shivers through her body.
“Well? What do you think about my offer, sweetheart?” Reed’s blue eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Does the door have a lock?” she asked.
He sent her a toothy smile. “No.”