“It takes awhile to see them all.” She sagged into a chair between the windows and spoke in a small, stricken voice. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. This is a dining room. These murals belong in a—a kid’s bedroom or a—a preschool. But the walls were so perfect, and the light was exquisite, and I didn’t know how much I wanted to paint like this.”

He couldn’t seem to take it in. Wherever he looked, he saw something new. A bird with a beribboned basket in its beak flew across the sky. A rainbow arched near the doorframe, and a cloud with the face of an apple-cheeked old woman gazed down on the gypsy caravan. On the longest wall, a unicorn dipped its nose into the water at the edge of the pond. No wonder Riley loved these murals so much. And no wonder April had looked worried when he’d asked her about them. How could his tough, razor-tongued Blue have created something so soft, so magical?

Because she wasn’t tough at all. Blue’s toughness was merely the armor she’d drawn around herself to make it through life. Inside, she was as fragile as the dewdrops she’d painted on a spray of floral bells.

Her fingers poked through her curls as she dropped her forehead in her hands. “They’re terrible. I knew how wrong they were while I was painting them, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was like something broke loose inside me, and all this poured out. I’ll return your check, and if you give me a few months, I’ll reimburse you for whatever it costs to have the room repainted.”

He knelt in front of her and pulled her hands from her face. “Nobody’s repainting anything,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “I love them.”

And I love you.

The knowledge passed through him as easily as a breath of air. He’d met his destiny when he’d stopped on that highway outside Denver. Blue challenged him, fascinated him, turned him on—God, did she ever turn him on. She also understood him, and he understood her. These murals let him see the dreamer inside, the woman who was determined to run away from him on Monday morning.

“You don’t have to pretend,” she said. “I’ve told you how much I hate it when you’re nice. If your friends saw this—”

“When my friends see this, I won’t have to worry about any lags in the dinner conversation, that’s for sure.”

“They’ll think you’ve lost your mind.”

Not after they meet you.

Looking as serious as he’d ever seen her, she slipped her hand into his hair. “You have a flawless sense of style, Dean. This house is masculine. Everything in it. You know how wrong these murals are.”