Suzanne cranked them up. It probably wasn’t the kind of music people listened to at high decibel ranges, but as the chanting swelled around her and filled her head, it blocked out all the white noise of her doubts and insecurities and the furious whispers of her muse. It helped her find her center, to tap into the frenzy washing through her blood, to look out the window and let the frenzy guide her brush.

And, by the end of the day, whether it was good, bad, or indifferent, she’d have something that was hers. A Suzanne St. Michelle original.

She took a deep breath and dipped her brush into the paint.

…

Grady barely felt the chill as he stripped off his freezing, sodden shirt in the equally freezing concrete shell of the mudroom. The silence was distracting. Too distracting, and he could think of little else. The last three mornings, he’d gone about his chores serenaded by chanting monks. Which was strange but…whatever. It didn’t bother him or the animals, and it gave his ranch hands something to laugh about.

Except now there was no music. And that was bothering him, because he suddenly realized he was thinking about her—something he’d been trying not to do. Had her power gone out? Was she sick? Had she fallen in the cottage and smacked her head on the stone floor? Had some kind of seizure? Was she unconscious? Had she decided to up and leave?

Yeah, right…he should be so lucky.

Grady shook his head, growling to himself as he flicked off the running faucet and plunged his hands into the steaming-hot sink of water, washing off the caked-on muck from his hands and arms and chest courtesy of a calf that had gotten itself bogged in a freezing quagmire caused by recent rain and melting almost-frozen ground.

He’d managed to rope it out with the help of two of his hands, its plaintive mooing and the distress of its mother keeping everyone focused on the job, but somehow, when they were almost there, he’d managed to lose his balance and fall into the frigid mud.

His hands had laughed their asses off as they’d dragged his out of the muck.

The hot water felt good on his chilled skin as he picked up the cake of soap and lathered his arms and chest and neck. He needed a real shower, of course, but he’d learned a long time ago to wash up before he went inside. The plumbing in the mudroom was way more forgiving than the more delicate pipes inside the cabin.

Thankfully his jeans weren’t as mucky. Ordinarily he’d have stripped them off in the mudroom, too, and walked from the barn to the cabin in his underwear—isolated living did have its advantages—but he wasn’t about to do that with Suzanne St. Michelle nearby.

And great…just great. He was thinking about her again.

He obviously wasn’t getting laid enough. Just how long had it been since he’d been with a woman? Well over a year ago. Probably closer to two. Because that had to be it, that had to be the reason he couldn’t stop thinking about the curvy New Yorker even though she’d stayed on her turf exactly as he had demanded.