Home. Grady knew from bitter experience that one word could have a massive impact on a life. Accident. Dead. Orphan. Credence. Bomb. Shrapnel. He’d just never considered home would be one of them. But…I’m a New Yorker. That’s what she’d said that very first day. And he was a cowpoke, and she was leaving, and that was fine because he didn’t need anybody no matter what the sudden niggle in his chest said.

This thing that was happening now was an aberration—like the weather—and it’d be over just as quickly. He’d been alone before; he could be alone again.

“What do you think?” she prompted.

Grady pulled his clashing thoughts into some order. They were for the future. “I…think it’s nice to be asked this time.”

“Yeah.” She shot him a sheepish smile, her cheeks tingeing pink. “Sorry ’bout that.”

The niggle in Grady’s chest became an ache, and a warning signal went off in his head. It would be easy to forget in this cozy little sexed-up bubble that they were only here because of the predicament Suzy had landed them in. And soon the blizzard would be over.

He needed to remember—for them both to remember—that nothing here was real. “I want the last painting.”

If he thought he’d felt bad being all hardass over the fourth painting, it was nothing on the way he felt now with those big blue eyes staring him down and the bob of her throat as she visibly swallowed. He instantly regretted the request. Sure, he knew the whole fake rancher boyfriend thing wasn’t over just because he’d have all the paintings in his possession. They were only ever supposed to be a reward for his help once her parents had gone back to New York. But, symbolically, it felt like an ending.

Which was what he wanted, damn it. So why was part of him tempted to call back the request and hope she told him to go to hell?

She didn’t. After what seemed like forever, she took a deep breath and said a quiet “Okay.”

Grady blinked, not expecting such easy capitulation. “I thought you’d put up more of a fight.”

“If you think letting go of the last painting doesn’t hurt, you’re wrong. Those paintings might be frivolous to you, but they mean something to me. Right now, though, I need to do this painting. Of you. I need it in here.” She tapped her chest. “I need it like I need oxygen. Nothing else matters as much as that.”