LITMIR.BIZ

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them stepping into the crusted drifts on each side.

      The horse barn was heated, as he’d discovered this afternoon. He considered making a stop there to warm up and decided she wouldn’t go for that. She didn’t strike him as a woman who took very many detours in life.

      Besides, the sooner they got to the tractor barn and looked at the saddle, the sooner they could get back to the cozy ranch house. He thought he’d become used to Wyoming winters, but he’d never been outside in a landscape like this, where security lights and a pale moon reflected off untrampled snow. Beyond the soft glow coming from the house and the barn, the surroundings were completely dark.

      No sound greeted him, either, not even the hoot of an owl. He knew this was wolf country, but they were silent, too. The frozen world was completely still, without even a breeze. For that he was grateful. They didn’t need a wind-chill factor right now.

      The tractor barn was secured by the same method as the horse barn—a wooden bar that slid across when a person wanted to open the double doors, and slid back when they wanted to keep them closed. Ben had to let go of Molly while he pushed the bar aside, and he could swear he heard her teeth chattering, even with the scarf covering her mouth.

      He hoped, after braving the cold, she’d like his saddle and feel good about having seen it. Tramping out here tonight was a lot of trouble, particularly if the saddle turned out to be anticlimactic.

      The tractor barn wasn’t wired for electricity, which meant no heat and no lights. Once they were inside and he’d pulled the doors shut, the air was marginally warmer, but not by much. He reached into his pocket, but before he could turn on his flashlight app, she’d pulled off one mitten and activated hers.

      She tugged her scarf down from her nose and mouth. “That was intense.” Her words came out in little puffs of condensed vapor.

      “And we have to do it all over again when we go back.” More clouds fogged the air between them.

      “I didn’t say I didn’t like it. Challenges are fun for me.” Mist from their conversation hung between them.

      “Me, too, actually.” He’d felt a sense of kinship when she’d said that. Not everyone welcomed challenges in their life. He thought it was the only way a person could grow. “Shine your light along the floor so we don’t trip over anything as we walk back there.”

      “Thank you for bringing me.” She held the light steady as they walked to the back of the tractor barn.

      In warm weather the place probably smelled of gas and oil, but freezing temperatures cancelled out most of the odor. Ben caught faint whiffs of the metallic scent of machinery, but it was subtle. Light from the phone allowed him to see the hulking forms of tractors. In the dark the barn was a little spooky.

      He couldn’t imagine sending her out here by herself, even if she would have been perfectly safe. Maybe her size made him feel protective, but he thought it was more than that. He loved her enthusiasm for new experiences, but having someone around as backup wasn’t a bad idea. He’d never want to suggest she wasn’t capable of anything she put her mind to, but if he could provide a safety net, that would be okay, too.

      And what a ridiculous idea that was! He didn’t expect to see her after she left the state on Monday. She had a lifetime of adventures ahead of her and he wouldn’t be a part of any of them. So he could stop fantasizing about his role in her life, because he had none.

      “To the right,” he said as they neared the back of the barn. “Over in the corner. Lift the light a little. See that thing over there with the blanket covering it? That’s the saddle. Hold the light steady.”

      She did as he asked and he noted that she was excellent at following directions when the situation required it. Stepping into the glow of her phone light, he grabbed two corners of the blanket and pulled. He considered making it even more dramatic by whipping it aside like a magician revealing his completed trick. But that would be showing off, and he wasn’t into showing off.

      “Oh, Ben.”

      The awe in her voice thrilled him. “Glad you like it.” He turned toward her.

      She was in shadow with her flashlight trained on the saddle. “I don’t just like it. I love it.” She moved forward and angled the light as she examined the saddle more closely. “Rosie Padgett was right. You’re an artist.”

      “I don’t know about that.” Good thing he was in shadow, too, so she wouldn’t see him blush. Later, when he was alone, he’d savor those words, but at the moment they made him uncomfortable.

      “Then you underestimate yourself.”

      “I think of an artist as being somebody like Leonardo da Vinci, not Ben Radcliffe, saddlemaker.”

      “Then maybe your definition is a little too narrow.” She traced the tooling on the saddle’s fender. “Did you copy this design from somewhere? Is that why you don’t feel like an artist?”

      “No, I made it up.”

      “There you go. This is original art. It happens to be on a working saddle instead of on the wall of a museum, but personally, I like the idea of art in everyday life. Useful art. You took something that serves a function and made it beautiful. Like Grecian urns. They were made to be used, but that didn’t keep the potters from decorating them with amazing pictures and turning them into works of art we study today.”

      “I guess.”

      “Listen to a history professor. If Sarah takes good care of it and passes it down, it could someday end up in a museum as an example of Western art.”

      “I think that’s going a little far.” Even though the barn was very cold, he was growing warmer by the minute. No one had ever said such things to him. He didn’t believe a word of it, but that didn’t mean he didn’t like hearing it. “I’ve never studied art, really. I took an art class in high school because it was an easy A, but that doesn’t mean—”

      “Be quiet, Ben.” She caressed the saddle one last time and turned back to him, the light moving with her. “Where are you? Oh, I see you.” She walked over to him until she was standing inches away. “What was that you said when we were inside? That you liked me?”

      “I said, that, yeah.”

      “And I asked you to elaborate. Would you care to do that now?” She kept the light trained on the floor.

      That meant she was still mostly in shadow, and she was still bundled up like someone about to ski the Alps. But he sensed something in the air, a yearning that matched his own. “Instead of trying to explain it,” he said, “maybe I should show you.”

      “Show me how?”

      “Like this.” Tossing his hat onto the saddle horn, he gathered her into his arms. She squeaked in surprise, but when he located her mouth, her squeak turned into a sigh. Oh, yeah. She wanted this as much as he did.

       6

      AT FIRST BEN’S lips were cold, but Molly’s weren’t. She’d had them covered with a scarf. Warming his lips took no time at all. After the first shock of discovering he was going to kiss her, she threw herself into the experience with abandon.

      Rising to her toes, she wound her arms around his neck and gave it all she had. So did he, and oh, my goodness. A harmonica player knew what it was all about. She’d never kissed one before, but she hoped to be doing a lot more of this with Ben.

      Although she’d never thought of a kiss as being creative, this one was. He caressed her lips so well and so thoroughly that she forgot the cold and the late hour. She forgot they were standing in a cavernous tractor barn surrounded by heavy equipment.

      She even forgot that she wasn’t in the habit of kissing men she’d known for mere hours. Come to think of it, she’d never done that. But everything about this kiss, from his coffee-and-dessert-flavored

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