Page 51 of Forsaken Trail (Runaway 4)

“Um . . . this is not what I expected.” Aria blinked, her eyes wide as she stepped into the space. She had her own walk-in closet. An en suite bathroom. And a pair of french doors that opened to the pool outside.

“Brody had it redesigned,” Clara announced.

Aria looked all around the room, her eyes landing on me. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“It was no trouble. I want you to be comfortable. If you don’t like it, we can—”

“I love it.” She smiled, and if I’d thought the room was bright before, I’d been entirely mistaken. Her smile was luminescent.

A flutter rippled through my chest, odd and unfamiliar. Must be heartburn. “If you need anything at all, there’s a call system in each room

that rings directly to Ron.”

“I’m fairly self-sufficient,” she said.

“Just in case.” I nodded toward the door. “Let me show you the rest, then we’ll get the truck unloaded.”

The tour took another twenty minutes. We didn’t linger in the other bedrooms, one of which I’d earmarked for a nursery. Aria had instantly agreed since it was adjacent to hers. She’d taken one look at the gym and told me she wouldn’t be spending much time there. Then she claimed the theater room as her own.

“I’ll get changed,” I said. “Meet you outside.”

Aria and Clara were too busy picking out lounge chairs in front of the massive projector screen to notice when I disappeared to the opposite end of the house to change out of the navy slacks and starched white shirt I’d pulled on this morning.

When I went outside to find them, Clara met me on the sidewalk carrying a box. August trailed behind her, his arms wrapped tightly around a potted fern twice the size of his face.

Aria was in the back of the U-Haul, loosening a strap she’d used to secure boxes.

“This is it?” I counted twenty, maybe thirty boxes in total. They were all stacked to one side while the rest of the floor had plants. “What about furniture?”

“I made an agreement with my landlord to leave it furnished for a free month’s rent.” She shrugged, rolling the strap into a coil. “I didn’t think there’d be much point trying to load up furniture myself and haul it down here when I assumed you had everything here already.”

“That’s why you refused a moving company.”

She grinned, walking to the end of the box, towering over me. “The heaviest thing in here is a box of books. Those are marked and waiting just for you.”

“Here.” I held out my hands to help her down.

She grabbed them, jumping to the ground. Then she cocked her head to the side, looking me up and down.

“What?”

“You’re in jeans.”

I dropped my gaze to my dark-wash jeans and simple white thermal. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing.” Her eyes twinkled. “I’ve just never seen you in anything but a suit.”

“You’ve seen me naked.”

“This is true.” Her cheeks flushed and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth.

Why the hell had I brought up being naked? Now all I could picture was her flawless skin when I’d stripped her of that green gown.

Aria had perfect skin, smooth and supple. It had been like silk against my palms. Her hair had threaded through my fingers like strands of the finest satin.

I raised a hand, ready to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, then realized I’d almost touched her and froze.

Her gaze darted to my hand, stuck in midair.