“Have I?” Gard slowed and turned onto yet another hard-packed dirt road. This one was lined on either side with fences, pastureland, and copses of thick birches. As they rounded a curve, a homestead came into view.

“Oh! Is that it?” Jenna’s heart raced.

“That would be Birch Hill.”

“It’s beautiful.”

A rambling pale yellow farmhouse that had been added on to many times over the centuries, if the varying roof heights and façade details were any indication, sat on a slight knoll shaded by huge maples and slender white birches. Several weathered gray barns were visible behind the house and a fat round silo jutted into the skyline between them. A broad porch with plain square-capped columns and no railing circled the front of the house and ran along both sides as far as she could see. Where Gard’s home was a grand manor house, this was every inch a traditional New England farmstead.

“They don’t come any finer than this place.” Gard slowed even more as they approached the house, waiting for the golden-feathered chickens to peck their way out of the path of the truck.

“Rina said there were cows. Are those going to wander out next?”

Gard laughed, a deep resonant laugh that stirred an echoing rumble in Jenna’s depths. God, she was sexy.

“They ought to be in the back pasture.”

“What about the donkeys?”

“Fred and Myrtle have their own shelter on the other side of the back barn. As long as they’ve got food and water, they should be fine. I’ll check on them before we go.”

Gard turned off the truck and Jenna sat, her hands loosely clasped in her lap, surveying what was now, apparently, hers. The place couldn’t be more different from where she had grown up. The trailer park had been situated in a hollow, shaded by the rise of surrounding mountains, damp in the spring, hot and humid and bug-ridden in the summer, barren in the fall, and bitterly cold in the winter. She doubted that everything here was as beautiful as it appeared on this crystal June morning, but she knew she would always remember it this way. Tranquil and still and lovely, steeped in the indolent passage of time. She itched to write.

“This is a house meant for romance,” she murmured.

“You think?” Gard said softly.

Jenna flushed. “Sorry. Some places just beg for a story.”

“What about people? Do they do the same thing?”

Jenna shifted to put her back against the door. “Not always. Sometimes the story’s better left untold.”

“What about yours?”

Jenna shook her head. “No. Mine isn’t interesting.”

“More so than you think, I imagine.” Gard leaned over the space between them, her body slanting above Jenna’s, and braced her arm on the door beside Jenna’s shoulder. Her face was so close their mouths nearly met. Her arm caged Jenna in.

Gard was going to kiss her and she was going to let her.

Jenna blinked and caught herself before she could gasp aloud. Gard hadn’t moved. She slouched behind the wheel, one arm casually tossed over it, her expression curious.

“Are you okay?” Gard asked.

“Yes, perfect,” Jenna said, too fast she knew. Her imagination was on hyperdrive and had been since she got off the plane. Her usual boundaries were distorted, as if her trip from the city to the country had somehow reset her inner compass. She needed to be more careful. She needed to reroute the conversation to safer ground. “I guess I should take a look around. I need to have some idea what to tell the realtor. And I want to be certain the animals are being properly cared for.”

“Let’s go.”

“Do you have keys? I never thought—”

“I took Elizabeth’s, but the door isn’t locked.”

Jenna arched her brows. “Isn’t that a little reckless?”

Gard shoved open her door. “Not really. Wait for me, I’ll come around.”

Jenna didn’t plan to wait, but when she opened her door and considered the drop from the truck to the ground, she hesitated. She couldn’t risk re-injuring her knee. In another day she would be completely mobile again. When Gard appeared, Jenna rested a hand on Gard’s shoulder and let Gard slip an arm around her waist and lift her to the ground. She might get used to the lady-of-the-manor routine. The whimsical idea made her laugh.

Gard relaxed her hold but didn’t move away. Their shoulders and thighs touched. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jenna said, barely resisting the urge to bury her face in the curve of Gard’s neck. Gard smelled of soap and sunshine. Simple, strong. The sun glinted in her hair, gilding the ebony curls on her neck, and a fine mist of sweat sheened her skin, tempting Jenna to taste the salt and heat of her. Jenna took a step back. She’d need a lot more than a few feet to ensure immunity to Gard’s appeal, but she would damn well find a way to resist. She wasn’t against a healthy roll in the proverbial hay—she almost laughed again when she considered the barns nearby, no doubt full of the stuff—but Gard already made her mind cloudy and they hadn’t even kissed. She wasn’t risking full-out sex with a woman who wouldn’t keep her distance.

“If you don’t lock the door, aren’t you inviting vandals?” Jenna stepped carefully around the chickens on her way to the house.

“If someone wants to get in, they’ll break a window. Why create false barriers that don’t keep anyone out and prevent the ones who should have access from getting in?”

Jenna wondered for a moment if they were still talking about the house, but they must be. What else would they be talking about?

“Doing okay?” Gard turned on lights as they slowly traversed the first floor, checking that windows were closed and the gas turned off in the big six-burner cast-iron stove in the kitchen, where their journey ended. The kitchen resembled Gard’s in the same way a vintage Rolls resembled a sleek new Mercedes. All the classic elements with an added touch of grace. The solid oak cabinets were fronted with beveled-glass doors and cut-glass knobs. The pie safe and hutch had carved lion’s-feet legs. The oak plank floors were worn down in front of the sink and counters from generations of cooks shuttling back and forth. Bright rag rugs were strategically placed in front of the back door that led in from a wide porch overlooking the back forty and barns. The spacious heart of the house was neat and tidy and had clearly been lived in, and lived in well.

“I feel a little like an intruder,” Jenna said. “Did you know her very well?”

“Not personally, not really.” Gard rested her hand on Jenna’s shoulder. “I saw her in town and stopped out here occasionally when her stock were ailing. If it helps, she seemed happy and content.”

Jenna leaned into Gard’s steady presence, folding her arms beneath her breasts. “She…died peacefully, you think?”

“I do.”

“Good.” Jenna squeezed Gard’s hand. “I guess we should check upstairs before we go. Make sure all the windows are closed and things like that.”

“All right. Then we’ll take a look at the stock.”

The stair treads dipped in the center from years of passage. A wide hall with a faded oriental runner bisected the house, with rooms opening on either side. Jenna peeked into a room with a double sleigh bed, dressers covered with personal effects, and a cane rocker with a wicker basket of knitting beside it. Elizabeth’s bedroom. A colorful handmade quilt covered the bed, smooth and neatly tucked at the corners. She wondered who had straightened it and glanced at Gard, who shook her head.

“Probably one of the neighbors came in,” Gard said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking of it when I was here.”

“Of course you weren’t.” Jenna smiled at Gard. “You were seeing to Elizabeth. I’m glad it was you.”

Gard’s chest tightened at the sadness in Jenna’s voice. She’d grown pale again, and her limp was more pronounced. When Jenna turned her head, Gard caught the shimmer of tears glistening on her lashes and reacted instinctively. She clasped Jenna’s shoulders and drew her into her arms. Cupping the back of Jenna’s neck, she guided Jenna’s head against her shoulder and held her. “You’ve had a pretty rough few days. Why don’t we leave the rest of this for another time.”

“Sorry, just give me a second,” Jenna whispered.

“Long as you need.” Gard held her breath and would have stopped her heart if she could—anything not to break the spell of having Jenna in her arms. Jenna’s heart beat against her chest and warm breath fluttered over her throat. She felt as if she were holding a fragile work of art that might shatter at any second, even though she knew Jenna was neither fragile nor a priceless object. She was a flesh-and-blood woman, strong and stubborn and self-sufficient. Still, she wanted to shelter Jenna in a way that was completely new to her. The urge was so intense she shuddered with the force of it.

Jenna ran her hands up and down Gard’s back, drawing her fingers along the edges of the muscles bracketing her spine. “I’m all right.”

“I know,” Gard murmured. Blood pumped like oil from an uncapped well into her belly and pounded between her thighs. She was hard and swollen, her nipples rigid. She tightened her thighs to keep from rocking her pelvis into Jenna’s. She was just a little bit taller than Jenna, and they fit together perfectly. She gritted her teeth when moist warm lips skated over her neck.

“You taste like a summer afternoon,” Jenna whispered. “I knew you would.”

“Jenna,” Gard groaned. She didn’t want to let her go, but if she didn’t, she was going to kiss her, and that would be a mistake for more reasons than she could count. Jenna made a small sound in the back of her throat, half whimper, half want, and Gard’s control slipped. She skimmed her hand from Jenna’s hair over her neck, along the curve of her shoulder, to the swell of her breast.