“No. For the longest time only Reid, Sawyer and Ray. I told Isaac last year when he installed all the security equipment.”

“What about the builder who made all the changes?”

He knew she was trying to see if he’d missed naming anyone; specifically, a woman. “There wasn’t a builder. Sawyer and Ray helped me with the stairs and everything else. Ray even knew how to hook up a generator so I could have lights in here. No more candles. I discovered Ray and Sawyer were pretty useful with their hands and a hammer.” During that time his friendship with the two men had grown even closer.

“Oh, I see.”

“And, Bryce?”

“Yes?”

“Not that you might care to know this, but I’ve never brought another woman here other than you.”

“You didn’t have to tell me that,” she said, before moving down the spiral steel staircase.

Kaegan hung back, watching her. He had a gut feeling that he had needed to tell her that. He continued to stand there, wanting her to experience the full effect of seeing the changes he’d made. Before it had looked like a civil-defense facility, complete with the solid steel ceilings and cement floors. Now she was seeing he had since changed it into something else.

It was only when Bryce’s feet touched the floor did he move down the stairs behind her. He saw her gaze moving all around, taking in all the changes. When he’d made the alterations he had no idea she would ever see them. At the time he’d been determined to change how it used to look, and make it different from those times he’d brought her here.

“It doesn’t look the same,” she said, looking over at him. Then she glanced around before turning back to him and asking, “Where’s the cot? The table and chairs? The—”

“They were replaced,” he interrupted. “There’s a Murphy bed I had built into the wall and the breakfast bar serves as the sitting area. The pantry revolves now and I’ve installed compact kitchen appliances.”

He watched her walk around the place, and when she glanced down at the floor, she looked back at him. “You even tiled the floor.”

“Yes.”

She nodded and headed toward the area he used as a kitchen with the mini appliances. Without asking for permission, she opened the refrigerator and saw it filled with beer. She closed it and said, “You transformed it into a man’s cave.”

“If that’s what you want to call it.” No need to tell her that there were times he could swear he could still smell her scent, imagine hearing her laughter here. “I still have the covering you knitted for the table.”

She glanced over at him. “You do?”

“Yes.” He leaned against the breakfast bar and watched her walk around, taking in the different textured walls. The section of the room that used to look like a command center was now the area where he kept a lot of his electronics.