She was grinning like a kid at a carnival with a pocket full of money, ready and determined to win the big prize no matter how she had to do it.

“I could listen to you forever, so feel free to keep going,” he teased.

Kylie elbowed him lightly in the stomach and he laughed again, pulling away from her and taking her hand in his. “Come on. There’s more to see inside.”

Another giddy feeling erupted in her belly, and she followed, the strength of his fingers enveloping her hand. That protective feeling enveloped her again. She had no idea what it was about this man, but it just felt… right.

Adrenaline burned like jet fuel in her veins as Gage unlocked the front door. Now that she knew the house he’d beamed about actually did exist, she couldn’t wait to see the interior. For the last couple of months, Kylie had had countless encounters with this sexy cowboy, but until now, he hadn’t offered to show her the house he’d been so interested in hiring her to restore.

Until that morning.

She’d been surprised when he blurted the idea as they sat at a small café having breakfast, which had become a frequent occurrence for them lately – the breakfast part that is. Until today, Gage hadn’t even told her where the house was, so for him to mention that he was ready for her to see it, she hadn’t known what to say.

Initially, ‘yes’ had been the only word to come to the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t let him off the hook that easily. He had smiled when she finally caved after giving him a hard time for a few minutes. Playfully of course.

Now that they were here, the tiny town of Coyote Ridge, which was nothing more than a tiny blip on the Texas map, was growing on her. When she tried to do some research on her cell phone regarding their destination, Gage had taken her phone right out of her hands, laughing and insisting that this be a surprise. He wanted to be the one to introduce her to the small town, so she’d acquiesced. Only when she promised had he given her phone back.

As soon as they turned off of the main highway, they had stopped at a small gas station – simply named Gas ‘n Go – just within the town limits. After conversing with Henry Powers, the sweet little old man who ran the store, Gage had purchased their sodas and they’d been back on the road again. It seemed Gage had been content to sit there and chat until Kylie started asking inquisitive questions regarding the town. Before Henry could even get an answer out, Gage had grabbed her arm and hightailed it from the store like it was burning down around them.

He made up for the confusing behavior by pulling her close and kissing the daylights out of her, which he must’ve come to realize was always an easy way to get her to stop talking. Even though she hungered for those kisses, it still irked her that she knew remarkably few details about Gage’s hometown because he was the equivalent of a closed book, but seeing the house had once again redirected her focus, and she was eager to see more.

Before stepping inside the house, knowing her brain was going to go offline with the overwhelming excitement that would overtake her mental processes, Kylie turned to glance once more at the exterior.

“How many acres does it sit on?” she asked as he opened the sun faded door, swinging it inward, gesturing for her to precede him into the house.

“Almost fifteen.”

From what she could tell, there wasn’t anything else on the land, with the exception of a dilapidated one car garage that should just be condemned rather than risk the thing falling in on them. The idea of what might be living in there made her skin crawl.

As she stepped over the threshold, all thoughts of creepy crawly things evaporated right out of her mind, replaced by the exaltation of seeing an old historical home for the first time.

“Wow,” she breathed as she stepped into the entry.

As usual, as soon as her feet landed on solid, old hardwood, she felt as though she were in a time warp, imagining the life that passed through the walls for the last two hundred some odd years. Thanks to Gage’s family history and the wonderful pictures he had shared with her, there was a resplendent slideshow playing in her head.

Just like she expected, as was the norm for the period in which the house had been built, there were walls everywhere, enclosing small spaces to create more rooms. The term open concept that so many people longed for these days hadn’t even been a blip on the radar so long ago.

The small foyer, which was large enough to possibly hold a coat rack, led directly into a lovely parlor, spacious enough for a vintage chair or two to liven up the space. Enclosing the small sitting area was a set of French doors that Kylie wanted to remove in order to open up the area.

Her feet propelled her forward until an elegantly ornate staircase caught her eye. Each wide step was gloriously rich in color and continued upward in a “U” that placed the second floor above Kylie’s head, but left a wall of stained glass windows running tall and proud and visible from both downstairs and up.

Kylie smiled. Imagine being able to see such articulate detail day in and day out. Her revitalizing eye said the staircase would only need a little buffing and a fresh coat of varnish for it to sparkle like the sun. As though they’d been protected by the hands of God over the years, the windows didn’t appear to need anything more than a quick spritz of Windex.

Wringing her hands together, Kylie willed herself to calm down. There was a flurry of excitement spinning wildly in her belly as she took everything in. She did a one eighty and found herself standing in the dark wood trimmed doorway that led into the fairly open living area. The room was somewhat awkward because it was long and narrow, but with the appropriate placement of furniture, Kylie could see it as a place for families to gather.

Without slowing, anxious to see more, Kylie continued through the living room, then the dining room with its floor to ceiling cabinets that would be used to display precious tableware, fine china, and whatnot. The dining room was separated from what she assumed was the kitchen by a wide door that swung both directions. Kylie pushed inward and stepped into what was probably the most awkward of all the rooms.

The kitchen was rather large, but the placement of the island and a small butler’s pantry didn’t suit the space. Her brain automatically began calculating what additional square footage she could free up by remodeling the room entirely.

Just past the refrigerator, there were two additional doorways. One led to an oversized utility room with a door that would lead outside. The other led to… Kylie squealed a little as she stepped into the hallway. There in front of her was another set of stairs, this one much narrower with steep steps leading to the second floor.

“This is amazing,” she muttered to herself as she quickly ascended to the next floor.

From what she could tell, the second floor was where the bedrooms were, the doors on one side while opposite them was the magnificent view of the stained glass window overlooking the side of the house. Kylie peered out, realizing the decayed remains of the garage were visible. Without question, they were going to have to tear it down and relocate somewhere else. She did not want anything obstructing Gage’s breathtaking view through the multi-colored glass.

She wandered through the first three bedrooms quickly. They were spacious and each led to a covered terrace that overlooked the back yard. One had a decent sized bath attached, the other two were connected by one large Jack and Jill bathroom.

Out the door and down the hall, Kylie came upon two additional bedrooms. She spent the most time wandering through the last two and the shoebox sized bathroom between them. Strangely enough, one of the rooms was the largest of all the bedrooms, but there was no possible way she could expect this to be the master suite with the miniscule shower, pedestal sink and toilet in what was supposedly a bathroom.

Daring to look, she moved to the other side of the small bath and opened another door, where she would have expected to find a closet. Not a closet. The door led to the other room, though this was much smaller, possibly used as a nursery at one time or another. The idea to steal some of the space from the smaller bedroom for the bathroom and use the rest as a large walk in closet hit her and made her smile brightly once more.

God, she wanted this job. She’d been doing this – restoring historic homes – for the last eight years, but never had she taken on a project quite this large.

“You still interested?” Gage’s deep, thundering voice filled the interior of the tiny bedroom she was standing in.

“Are you kidding?” Kylie was grinning from ear to ear as she stared at the cracked plaster and the hideous floor. She wondered whether there were hardwood floors beneath the dingy, shaggy, olive green wall-to-wall carpet.

“Perfect.”

Kylie pivoted around, staring back at the man filling the doorway. She could’ve sworn the relatively small space seemed somewhat larger before he walked in. As she stared at the sexy, dark haired cowboy with the seductive brown eyes, she still found it strange how he’d blown a mountain-size hole in her life in just a matter of weeks with his unexpected arrival on her doorstep looking for her specifically. The fact that he lived about an hour away according to him had made her question why he’d seek her out to help him in this endeavor in the first place.

Although she didn’t normally take such ambitious projects so far away from home, the longer she stood there, the more interested she became, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether the attractive cowboy cop played into her enthusiasm just as much as the house did. And she was no longer wondering how he’d found out about her or whether she would want to have to live out of a hotel for the foreseeable future just to be close to the house she was working on.