Page 11 of Sweet Cinnamon and the Mountain Man
Her head turns on the seat and she smiles at me. “Are you deliberately trying to throw me off by being sweet, Mr. Hawks?”
Shaking my head, I grin at her. “Nope. You just bring it out in me.”
“Humph!” she snorts. “That’s funny cause you sure didn’t act like it before this.”
“You also confuse me.”
Her mouth falls open. “Why on earth would I confuse you? I’m an open book.”
“You’re nice and you smile to everyone else in town but me. Why?”
“Because whenever I do it just seems to tick you off even more. So I stopped.”
I turn to her, my eyes intent in the dark. “Don’t ever stop being you because of me. You’re too special for that.”
Her mouth falls open and her eyes widen in the dark. I can see a glint of tears in her eyes. “That has to be the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me.”
“Then everyone else are fools.”
Her head shakes and she smiles briefly. “You’re gonna make me like you here, Reginald.”
Good. That’s what I’m going for.
I smile softly and keep my eyes on the road, driving carefully. I’ve got precious cargo after all.
Cinnamon
“Where are we?”
I search the darkness and the slim beams of the headlights, studying the cabin in front of me. It’s small. But it looks nice.
“Who lives here?”
“Me.”
I whip around and glare at him. “I’m not spending the night with you.”
He rears back, his cheeks flushing dark brick red. “I’m not asking you to. I just thought it might be nice to have dinner here under the stars since we were relatively close.”
“Oh…sorry. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.”
“It’s alright. I actually have a screened-in porch that I added to the side of the house. You can sit in comfort, away from the bugs and eat under the stars.”
I tip my head and smile gently. “That sounds just perfect.”
I follow him up to the house and we walk inside. He leads me through a large, open great room and then through the side of the house to the porch and he’s right. The moon and stars over us light up the night with silvery moonbeams and the soft breeze whispers gently through the room. It’s been stifling withhumidity today but now the breeze is just shy of chilly and the temperatures have dropped significantly.
Inside the little room though, part of the air is blocked and it’s comfortable. Nice.
I slip down to the chair beside a little end table and study it. “This is your work, isn ’t it?”
“It is.” He nods his dark head.
“Where did you learn this kind of thing? It’s really stunning work.”
“Practice. Just practice and desire to do it.”
I lean back and he grabs the food and divvies it up. I snort and hand him back part of it. “I can’t eat that much. You take the rest.” My eyes skip up and down his body. “You look like you could easily eat that much or more.”
