Page 125 of The Bitterroot Inn (Jamison Valley 5)
Hunter chuckled as he slid out. “You didn’t like it?”
“You know I liked it.” I straightened, yanking up my panties and jeans while praying that no one was behind us with a video camera. With my clothes back in place, I turned and peered behind Hunter to see we were alone. Phew.
“Come here.” Hunter’s arms wrapped around me and he pulled me into his chest.
I fell into him, still weak from my orgasm and using his strong body to prop me up.
“We need to get back.” I took a long inhale of the cologne on his sweater.
“One more second.”
“What about Coby?” I asked but didn’t make a move to let go.
“He’s fine. There are about twenty people up there watching him.”
“My parents. Oh my god, my parents.” My cheeks flushed with mortification, and this time, I did step back. “They are going to know we just had sex. And my brothers are up there. And all my friends. They’re going to take one look at my face and—”
“Maisy.” Hunter interrupted me and pulled me back into his arms. “Stop talking.”
I huffed out a loud breath and sank into his chest. “I’m still hurt.” He needed to know that, despite the hot football-stadium sex, I was still hesitant to jump right back into an us.
He kissed my hair. “I know.”
“How do we move past it all?”
“One day at a time,” he whispered. “And when you’re ready to start again, I’ll be right here.”
“These are incredible.”
I nodded as I looked over Beau’s shoulder. “They sure are.”
Beau was kneeling on the floor in the motel’s lobby, looking through the canvases that were leaned up against the wall.
Today, all of the photographs that Hunter had taken had arrived, and when the deliveryman had dropped them off, I’d immediately started opening boxes, frantic to see all my photos on an actual canvas.
Craft paper and boxes were strewn all over the floor and the canvases had been stacked against the wall. With every box I’d opened, my smile had grown, until I’d opened the last box and it had disappeared as I’d broken down in tears.
In that last package were my postcards and a display rack for the lobby wall.
We hadn’t talked about my postcards except for the first time, months ago, but Hunter had remembered. He had taken a dream, something I had always wanted but never thought I’d really get, and made it come true.
My postcards and these prints were so beautiful, so special to me, that I had been completely overcome.
Beau had walked into the lobby the moment when I’d been balling my eyes out. When he’d asked me why I was crying, all I’d been able to do was point at the pictures. My brother had pulled me into a hug until I’d finally gotten control. While I’d blown my nose and dried my eyes, he’d started inspecting Hunter’s photographs.
“I love this one.” Beau slid a picture out from the back.
It was a black and white that Hunter had taken of the sign out front. The Bitterroot Inn was front and center on the canvas with my beautiful motel faded to a soft blur in the background.
“You should hang this in here.” Beau nodded toward an empty wall at the back of the lobby.
“Good idea.” I rushed away, straight for my office to get a hammer and some nails.
He laughed. “Not right now.”
“Yes!” I called from the office. “Right now and you’re going to help. This artwork has to go on my walls immediately.”
Two hours later, I had hung all but five prints that were for the occupied rooms. The pile of paper and boxes in the lobby had been cleared and only a couple more prints were stacked against the wall.
