Grace didn’t have to think. She knew.
“Yes,” she answered softly.
“Okay. Let’s go meet Rosie.”
6
Matt must have lost his mind. Really and truly lost his freaking mind. What the hell was he thinking bringing Grace back to his place? Hadn’t he planned on giving her the pleasure of telling him off so that they could both leave that night in Nashville behind?
He cranked the tunes and tried to settle back and relax, but the snow-filled night sky, the lonely stretch of road, and the woman beside him made that pretty difficult. He clamped his mouth shut and blew out a long breath. Hell, when was the last time he’d even brought a woman home?
He couldn’t remember—that’s how long it was—and if he were smart he’d turn his truck around and take her back to town. What was it about this girl that got to him? Sure she was easy on the eyes, with a body that didn’t quit and a mind as sharp as they came. But he’d been with plenty of women who were cute or sexy or sharp.
And yet Grace Simon was different.
When he’d glimpsed the hurt in her eyes, hurt that had been put there by him, something strange had happened. He’d wanted to make it go away. He’d wanted her to know that he wasn’t always the cold bastard everyone thought him to be.
And now here he was, with Grace Simon in his truck and he had no idea where this was going.
Shit.
He pulled onto McClung, a side road, and peered ahead into the dark. He’d passed a snowplow a few miles back, but already the road was filling in.
“It’s not letting up,” he muttered, glancing to his right.
Grace didn’t say anything—maybe because the music was too loud, or maybe because she had nothing to say. She sat with her hands in her lap, looking about as relaxed as a cat cornered by a pack of rabid dogs. The truck bed was weighted down, but still the back end swerved a bit and it took some for Matt to keep the damn thing on the road.
Shane and Bobbi’s place came and went, and Matt took the next left. The snowplow hadn’t been down his road and he eased his truck into the tracks left behind by Travis Forest, slowing down to a crawl for the remainder of the trip. Finally Matt spied his driveway and managed to get the truck as close to the front porch as possible. The snow was at least a couple feet deep and he’d be out for hours getting it shoveled.
All that would have to wait.
“It’s beautiful,” Grace whispered.
He glanced at her sharply, studying her profile as she gazed through the wiper blades at his place. Her nose was small, delicate almost, and she scrunched it a bit as she angled her head for a better view.
His home was beautiful and a feeling of pride settled in Matt’s gut as he stared up at his place through the eyes of a newcomer. Built in the late 1800’s by one of the founding families to the area, the Whitwells, Matt had bought the place nearly four years earlier when the last remaining Whitwell died without anyone to leave it to. It had been a rundown mess—he’d gotten it for next to nothing—and he’d slowly coaxed it back to life. Sure there were still projects ahead of him, but on the whole he’d put a good dent into the workload.
With a wide expanse of porch on either side of the double front doors, deep bay windows that boasted stained glass, and intricate lattice work, it spoke of an era long gone. The house was two stories and featured an attic that was nearly as large as the second floor. He couldn’t argue that the place was too big for just one man, but Matt was the kind of guy who needed space and this was his refuge.
He cut the engine, slowly pocketing his keys. “You sure about this?” he asked gruffly. “I can take you back to town before the roads get too bad.”
She sighed. A soft sort of sound that made his gut tight and his heart rate speed up. “I think it’s
too late for that.”
She glanced at him, those big eyes of hers glistening in the dim light cast from the porch. “So, about Rosie...”
Matt reached for the door. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
He waited for Grace to slide from his truck and the two of them trudged through the snow to the porch. They stamped their boots, getting rid of as much snow as they could and he let her inside. He took Grace’s jacket and hung it in the antique cupboard to his left and then stood for a moment watching her closely as she gazed around the foyer.
The oak floors gleamed in the dim light and the smell of lemon oil scented the air. He’d redone the floors one painstakingly hot summer, and was in the process of stripping the ones in the bedrooms upstairs.
He was a simple man, so there wasn’t a great deal of décor. A lone Shane Gallagher watercolor hung on the wall, while a black and white movie still of Betty Jo sat in a frame on the Queen Anne table beneath it. He hadn’t put either one of them up—that had been all Betty the last time she’d been around.
“This way.”
He led Grace down the hall to the back of the house and into the massive kitchen/dining area. It took up the entire width of the house and had at one time been two separate rooms. One of the first things Matt had done when he’d bought the place was to knock the wall down and he’d ended up with an impressive great room.