Free A Place to Call Home (Harlequin Heartwarming) by Cynthia Reese Page B

simple.
    He did the only thing he thought would help: ran for the coldest shower imaginable. But her scent clung to the T-shirt she’d laid out for him, the towels she put out for him to use, the very steam that hung in the air.
    “Get a grip!” he ordered himself as he dried off and pulled the T-shirt over his head.
    In the kitchen, he found Penelope piling a mountain of ham, lettuce and tomatoes on a sandwich.
    “Feel better?” she asked.
    “Yeah. I do. That looks good.”
    “Can’t take credit for it. It’s all Mee-Maw. Those tomatoes are from her garden. When I was in New York, I would have killed for tomatoes like that in October.”
    Brandon shrugged and filched a piece of ham off the sandwich. She swatted at his hand but missed. “Welcome to South Georgia. Sometimes, if the weather’s warm, you can wind up with tomatoes at Christmas. Sometimes the first hard frost comes before Halloween. This is a warm year.”
    “The weather’s nice, that’s for sure.” She finished the sandwiches and set them on the dinette table. “Now you can eat. No nibbling.”
    “I’d like to see some rain. It’s awfully dry, and if we have another dry winter, we’re going to be that much more in the hole next spring.”
    Her chuckle was a warm little burble. “Farmers and the weather. You’re never satisfied, are you?”
    “Oh, we could be. If we could get rain on a subscription service, delivered just when we need it, that’d be great.”
    “A plus for sculpting is that it’s not usually weather-dependent.”
    “So, how is the sculpture? Have you been able to get any buyers?” The hope that she hadn’t, that she was still desperate for money, felt unnatural to him. It wasn’t like him to wish another person ill.
    She tensed, and for an instant he saw the girl in the photos. Brandon put up his hands. “None of my business, I know.”
    Penelope dropped the sandwich on her plate. She bit her lip and didn’t meet his eyes for a moment. “No, it’s not that. Only I’ve had no luck yet. It’s hard to sell an idea that’s not tailored to a business. This one— Love at Infinity —I came up with for the home office of an online dating firm. That’s how it works. A corporation decides it needs some culture, I do some interviews with the big dogs, and then I come up with an idea that will sum up their mission or corporate message.”
    “But you’re trying. It will happen.” Now Brandon did feel like a heel, hoping for the exact opposite. Why couldn’t she just pick up and move somewhere else so he could sincerely root for her?
    “I’m getting hits on my website every day. So sure, yeah, it will happen.”
    Was she trying to convince him or herself? Brandon had to admit she wasn’t hugely successful either way.
    “So what if someone wanted you to do something different? Would you?”
    “Sure. Of course. I’d put this one on the back burner.”
    They ate in silence for a few moments before Brandon switched the subject. “Those pictures in the living room? You took them? They’re good.”
    “Yeah. That’s Oregon, near where Lewis and Clark saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time. I’d like to pretend that’s how they saw it.”
    “It must be strange, to be so far from home.”
    She considered his comment and then shook her head. “No. I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere. My brother, Trent, now he’s the family’s pride and joy.”
    Penelope’s voice was absent of any malice or envy, just bemusement. She added, “They always want to know, ‘Why can’t you be more like your brother?’ He’s the one who followed them into real estate. I grew up in Portland, but about ten years ago, my parents moved to Bend—you probably never heard of it.”
    “So you’re the artsy one?”
    She sighed. “Yeah. Definitely marching to the beat of a different drummer, that’s me. I’m twenty-eight, but my parents still treat me as though I’m their baby. My mom kept saying this commission was too good