“Let’s put a pin in that for now,” Adam suggested as he pushed open the front door for her. “We haven’t even gotten used to his starting to crawl.”
Her eyes sparkled humorously as she carried Linus inside. “City boy. I bet I could get you to like horses, given the opportunity—” She stopped so abruptly Adam bumped into her from behind. She jumped as if she’d been scorched and crossed the furnished great room to stand in front of the tall windows overlooking an open range. When she gave him a quick look, her cheeks looked red. “It’s lovely here.”
It was.
But he was thinking more about the sight of her standing in front of the tall windows than the leather furniture and the fresh flowers that had welcomed them.
Callum had said the place was furnished. Adam should have realized his cousin hadn’t meant it was furnished with items similar to what he and Kane had picked up from Mariana’s Market.
“You’re going to put a million fingerprints on these windows,” she was telling Linus as she carried him through the house, obviously intent on exploring the new digs.
Adam dumped the bags on the couch and went the other direction, just to give himself an opportunity to breathe easier. For the last week and a half, he’d been preparing for the time when Linus would be ready to leave the hospital. When Adam wouldn’t be seeing the baby and Laurel for just the few hours that he’d managed each day, traveling back and forth between Rambling Rose and Provisions and the hospital in Houston.
Now that the day had arrived, instead of thinking how lucky they were where Linus’s recovery was concerned, all he could think about was the fact that there were real beds in this house and no nurses working on the other side of the hospital room door.
A bucket of daisies sat on the table in the breakfast nook, too, and when Adam opened the fridge in the kitchen, he found it had been stocked with fresh food.
Between Callum and his wife, Becky, they hadn’t missed a trick. If Adam and Laurel had really been a family, the guesthouse would seem like a dream come true. Instead, he was feeling more caged than when they’d been crammed into a rental car driving across the country together.
“The boxes are here,” Laurel’s voice called to him from the other side of the house. “Kane put them in the nursery.”
He exhaled. Avoiding Laurel wasn’t going to solve anything. Particularly now that they were under their “own” roof. He went into the living area and grabbed her suitcase and cursed under his breath when the sketchbook tucked in the pocket on the side slid out and fell on the floor.
He leaned over and grabbed it but stopped when he saw the sketch of Linus.
He set down the suitcase and paged backward through the book. It was the same one she’d used back in Seattle and he felt bad that he hadn’t thought to make sure she’d gotten a new one. She’d sketched flowers. And Jerry the security guard’s face. Dr. Granger, with a chewed pen tucked in her gray hair.
Then he turned another page and saw his own face.
And another page. And another sketch of him. Like the doodling a teenage girl might do, they were small sketches, large sketches, partial sketches. They covered page after page after page until he reached the front cover of the book.
He exhaled. Told himself it meant nothing and he pushed the book back into the pocket again. More firmly so it wouldn’t fall out again.
The nursery was easy enough to find, thanks to the crib. The boxes stacked beneath the window were still sealed. Sooner or later, they’d have to deal with unpacking all of the stuff Eric had bought when Linus had been his. Aside from those items, though, the room was empty.
Next to the nursery was a bathroom, and beyond that was another bedroom with a rustic four-poster bed. Laurel had plucked a sunflower from the collection filling a milk jar that sat on the windowsill and was waving it in front of Linus. “I’ll take this room,” she said when Adam entered. “It’s closer to the nursery.”
He set the suitcase on the rocking chair angled into a corner.
“Have you seen the other bedroom?”
He shook his head and dragged his attention away from her bed and went to find the third bedroom.
It sat on the opposite side of the house and was obviously meant to be the master suite. It had a similar sweep of windows as the living area did and its own bathroom complete with a claw-foot tub.
“Not the Captain’s Quarters, that’s for sure,” Laurel said behind him.
He tried to rid the image he’d conjured of Laurel neck deep in that tub, but it was too busy tattooing itself on the inside of his eyelids in much the same way she’d sketched images of him. “Yeah.”
She moved Linus from one hip to her other. Her eyes studied Adam too closely. “You all right?”
He stepped around them, needing escape. “Going to bring in the rest of the stuff from the truck.”
Fortunately for him, it took most of the day to get settled. Mostly because they were interrupted almost hourly by one Fortune cousin or another stopping by to see how they were coming along. Callum invited them up to the main house for dinner and Adam was just opening his mouth to accept when Laurel plopped Linus on his lap.
“That’s a wonderful offer,” she’d told Callum, “but could we take a rain check?” She’d smiled ruefully. “It’s just been a long day and—”
“No problem,” Callum had said. “Don’t forget there’s always someone around up at the house if you need help with the baby or anything.” Then, sending Adam a knowing look, he’d left, too.
While Laurel clanged pots in the kitchen—which had to be for effect, Adam figured—he gave Linus his bath. It was something he’d
