“What are you thinking about so hard?” Sage asked.
“Construction work. Let’s eat and then you can paint while I design.”
“What kind of construction work?”
“A surprise,” he said. “Listen. A norther just hit. We barely got back to the house in time, Sage. That wind sounds pretty ferocious out there.”
She shivered. “We probably won’t get electricity today.”
“Maybe not.”
An hour later she was painting and he had a notebook and several sharpened pencils in front of him on the kitchen table. Four of Sage’s pictures were drying in the pantry and she worked on the one with the mistletoe and icicles in the top of the snow-dusted scrub oak tree. He picked up a pencil and figured out a comfortable size for the dog and then for the cat and calculated the pitch of the roof. The lightbulb should be close to the babies, but not so close that they could touch it.
Or it could be behind a piece of glass at the back of the house instead of inside the attic. That would work like the lights inside the chicken house where Creed’s mother hatched out peeps in the spring time. There were basic woodworking tools in the tack room in the barn and some spare lumber pieces stacked in the corner. Some split fire logs would make a real log cabin exterior and look pretty fancy sitting on the front porch.
Sage laid her brushes down and sat down across from him. “What are you working on, Creed?”
“Building a couple of houses.”
“Why? There is this house and then the bunkhouse. Why would you want to build two more?”
“For Noel and Angel. We’re getting a little crowded in here, Sage.”
“It’s too cold to put them outside.”
“Come look at this,” he said.
She leaned forward and he told her his idea of putting the cathouse and the doghouse on the porch and how they’d heat the houses with lightbulbs. He drew a crude picture of what the houses would look like and then waited. She didn’t say a word for a long time.
“It would keep the smell down in here, wouldn’t it? We wouldn’t have to have a litter pan, and they’d just be right there on the porch where I could go out and play with them, right? And they could come inside for a little while each day?”
“Yes, you could, and yes, they could. But rest assured, eventually Angel and the kittens will wind up in the barn because that’s where the rats are, and believe me, that’s like round steak to them.” He chuckled.
“And my puppies?”
“Will probably claim the porch, bark at any newcomers, and trip you up when you try to bring in groceries,” he told her.
She laughed. “Kiss me, Creed.”
His expression made her laugh harder.
“Wasn’t expecting that, were you?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“I can accept all that you just said if you kiss me.”
She walked around the table and sat down in his lap so that she was facing him. She put a hand on each side of his face and leaned in for the kiss. When her mouth touched his, strong arms encircled her body.
When the string of hot, heavy kisses ended, he asked, “What does a kiss have to do with doghouses?”
“Not a damn thing. I heard you. I agree with you. But all I could think about when you were talking is how much I wanted to kiss the lips that were moving.”
“I thought we were slowing this wagon down.”
“We are slowing it down, but we aren’t unhitchin’ it.”
* * *
He kissed her again, this time controlling the pressure with his hand on the back of her head and teasing her lips with soft nips and his tongue. So she wasn’t ready to unhitch the wagon and put it in the barn forever. Well, neither was he, and if kisses were all he could have until after the sale, then he’d enjoy them to the fullest.
“I like the way you feel in my arms,” he said.
“I like the way I feel in your arms too.”
“But…”
“No buts; just kiss me again.”
He held her chin in his hand. “But I can’t do this all evening, Sage. Just sitting in the same room with you makes me crazy with want. Kissing you one time jacks up the heat in my body. A dozen times and I’m throbbing.”
She moved back to her original chair. “Do you think Noel was in love with her old bluetick hound boyfriend?”
Creed wasn’t sure how to answer that. Were they talking about dogs or dancing around their own relationship?
“I hope so. She’s got three babies to raise… Oh my God! Sage, I just thought of something. We didn’t use a bit of protection yesterday. I didn’t even think of that when we…” He let the sentence trail off.
“I’m on the pill. I’ve always had problems with regularity so I’ve been on it for years.”
He wiped a hand across his forehead.
“You tellin’ me you wouldn’t want me to have three little dark-haired cowboys or cowgirls to run around in this canyon?”
“I wouldn’t mind that at all, but I’d damn sure like for them to be legitimate. I got a feeling the wrath of your Grand would not be a pretty sight.”
Chapter 12
Creed’s comment about kids haunted Sage. It hadn’t been a drop-down-on-one-knee proposal, but it had rattled her nerves. If she had kids, they’d grow up and leave her. She could barely think about putting Noel and Angel and their broods out on the front porch.
A child would be so much harder to lose. Her very own father was proof of that. He’d left the canyon to serve his country. Oh, he’d come home all right. The grave in the cemetery on the other side of the grandfather rock was
