Jonah chuckles. “Definitely that, or the fact that she has no antlers. The males lose their antlers every winter, but they start growing new ones right away.”
“Well, aren’t you a wealth of knowledge.”
“You know, this is all in that wildlife book I gave you for Christmas. That you told me you’ve already read.”
“I was just testing you,” I lie, the humor in my voice betraying me.
“Uh-huh.” He smirks. “The smaller one beside her is a bull calf. She probably had him last summer.”
The two enormous animals continue to graze, undisturbed and seemingly unaware of our presence, though the mother’s ears twitch a few times. “I need to get a picture of this before they leave.” I make to move but Jonah’s hands on my hips hold me in place.
“Don’t worry, they tend to stay within a five-mile radius so you’ll be seeing them around. Just don’t get too close.” He steals a kiss from my neck.
I lean back against Jonah’s chest, content as we watch the mother and her baby. “I’m shocked Phil didn’t add them to the wall.”
“Nah. He would have liked having the wildlife around here.”
And so do I, I realize, as I take in the picturesque scene. “Okay. Fine. You’re allowed to wake me up for stuff like this.”
His deep chuckles carry through the quiet morning, earning another twitch of the moose’s ears.
Chapter Twelve
“Do you think we can fit a bigger tub in here?”
“Not a chance.”
I hit the bathroom light switch on my way out, fresh from a long bath to help ease my aching muscles after ten days of kneeling, lifting, and scrubbing. “Fine. Then we’re turning the little bedroom into another bathroom and taking some space to make this one an en-suite.”
“That’d leave us with only two bedrooms.” Jonah’s back is against the bed frame, his attention glued to my laptop screen. The sleeves of his navy-blue T-shirt stretch over his muscular biceps, distracting me momentarily.
“So? Seriously, Jonah, how many guests are we ever going to have at one time?”
“I was thinking more about kids.”
“Oh. Right.” I consider the bedroom that spans the back of the house as I settle onto my side of the bed. There’s a chill to the air, despite the forced heat pumping through the vents and the logs that Jonah shoved into the fireplace before coming up to bed. Replacing the windows might help, at least in part. “They can have bunk beds.”
“That’d work for two of them. What about the other six?” he says with a solemn tone, his brow furrowed intently on the picture of him and my father on the About page I built for The Yeti website.
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the animal you’re breeding with. Maybe she has a den somewhere that can fit them all in.”
His deep chuckle fills our bedroom.
“Any bookings yet?” I ask, teasing. The Yeti’s site has only been live for three days.
“How would I know? You haven’t shown me how to see them.”
I ease in closer to him, resting my chin on his shoulder. “That’s right, I haven’t. I have to make myself indispensable to you somehow.”
Jonah’s blue eyes crawl over my face. “You are indispensable to me. Seriously, I couldn’t have pulled together anything half as good.”
“Wait till you see the itinerary template I finished,” I say, dragging out the two words seductively. Agnes walked me through several examples of forms and gave her official seal of approval—an emailed response with a smiley face on it.
The bed shakes with his laughter. He leans in to skate his lips along my jawline. “Thank you. For everything.”
I inhale the scent of body wash on his skin from his shower. “This is only the beginning. By the time I’m done with my marketing plan, every Alaskan man, woman, and child will have heard of The Yeti,” I promise, repeating the seductive tone.
“Would you stop saying it like that?”