She shot him a rueful smile. “Yes, actually, it does. It’s supposed to look and feel three-dimensional, like you can almost see the sun rising in the sky reflected on the skin of the apple through the window in the background. Like you could reach over and pluck it out of the bowl.” She mimicked the action. “So eventually I…stuck with what I was good at, and that’s been fine—I love my job, and it pays much better than what a lot of my artist friends make. But then Winona suggested coming here, and I desperately needed a change of scene, needed to get away from the familiar to explore this growing need I had to be me, to see if I could find myself as an artist again. And then I got here and…”

Her gaze took on a distant look, as if she was trying to find the right words somewhere out there in the universe or maybe inside her head. She was still looking at him, but she’d gone somewhere else entirely.

“The landscape here is so vast and raw, and it stirred something inside me, and I knew I could paint here, that my fingers were itching to paint. I realized I used to have that feeling all the time. That…urge, that…stimulus.” Her gaze came back from far away, her focus now entirely on him. “You know what I mean?”

Oh yeah. Grady knew what she meant. He was fairly certain Suzanne hadn’t chosen those words to taunt him. But he was taunted. Since she’d come to Credence and ruined his peace of mind, he’d been really fucking stimulated. “I do.”

She gave him a self-deprecating smile. “God…sorry, artsy bullshit. Ignore me.”

Except Grady wanted to know more. Like why she hadn’t painted the landscape. Why she’d painted him instead. And if that wasn’t a big red flag, he didn’t know what was. He didn’t need to know any of this for his fake rancher boyfriend role. He had his own psychological bullcrap to deal with; he didn’t need hers inside his head as well.

Ignoring was a very good suggestion.

“Let’s just watch the rest of the movie.”

She turned her head toward the television, as did Grady, just in time for the couple to indulge in a very, very hot kiss. Back-her-against-the-door-and-kiss-her hot, shirt-scrunching, ass-grabbing hot. Fuck. It was so hot, he barely even registered there was a wreath right near their heads.

“Okay,” she said, turning toward him again. “Maybe not.”

And they both laughed, but Grady could hear the nervous quality of her laughter, and he was pretty sure there was a husky catch in his. And while they may not be looking at the television anymore, Grady was still thinking about that ass-grabbing kiss.

And the one from last night.