Love for Beginners: An Under the Hood Novella by Sally Clements Page A

the shack. I still have my end of our bargain to fulfill.”
    …
    They set out for the shack in the pickup, determined to get as close as possible before abandoning the vehicle and going off-road. Mel was proud of herself for managing to act unaffected as they hiked. This morning, in a pair of worn jeans and a sweater that brought out the blue of his eyes, Heath was more attractive than ever.
    Her body still craved his. Every time she looked at his hair, she wanted to feel its dark strands between her fingers. But now she wasn’t beating herself up about it. Men got erections all the time. Regular women probably felt attraction to men all the time, too—there’d been many times that she’d been with Betty or Alice and they’d remarked on how hot they found a passing stranger.
    She found Heath attractive. Which meant she was just the same as the majority of women out there. She’d get over it.
    “You’re quiet,” Heath said.
    “Just enjoying the day.” She stumbled as the ground underfoot got rocky.
    “Here.” Heath offered his hand, and she took it. A familiar jolt of electricity buzzed in her palm as his fingers curled around hers. Instead of shying away from the contact, feeling unsettled by the heat of him against her palm, she relaxed and accepted the feelings that touching him brought to life.
    Heath wasn’t the one, but he’d taught her how to enjoy a man’s touch. The memory of opening her shirt to Heath the previous day, then having second thoughts haunted her. If she hadn’t hesitated, she was sure they would have ended up in bed. Now, she didn’t know if the same thing might happen in the future with someone else.
    She wished she could persuade him to take her to bed…just so the last barrier to a future with another man would be well and truly broken.
    They passed an ancient spruce that had been struck by lightning, then a familiar huge boulder with a distinctive shape…her uncle had called it the heartstone because a deep dip between the two matching curves atop it made it look like a giant heart half buried in the earth. Behind it…she pointed. “There’s the shack.”
    Heath let go of her hand and brought his camera up to his eyes. “It looks as though no one has been up here for years.” His wide smile made her heart flip-flop in her chest. “I can’t wait to get in there.”
    “Go.” She waved him on, watched as his steps quickened.
    Heath would be with them for weeks yet; she still had time to make him change his mind.
    …
    The shack was everything Heath had hoped it would be. Long abandoned, its old tin roof was covered in moss, but the decorated walls inside were a revelation. The hermit had been an exceptional artist. She’d nailed flat boards against the walls and covered them with pictures of the trees of the forest. With paintings of bears and their young. A shadowy figure of a woman crouched before an open fire under a dusky night sky covered one entire wall.
    “Isn’t it great?” Mel said from the open doorway.
    “Spectacular.” Heath set up the battery-operated lights he’d carried in his backpack on the uneven worn floor. “Who was she, do you know?”
    “I just remember my uncle telling me he’d grown up with stories of an old woman who lived up here alone. He said she rode into town on an old horse for supplies once every couple of months, and that the store used to bring in stocks of paint for her. Folks were curious as to what she needed them for, but no one questioned her about it. She wouldn’t answer them even if they asked. He saw her a couple of times when he was a kid—he said he never forgot her because the first time he saw her he thought she was an old mountain man, but his mother told him different.”
    “I wonder how I could find out more about her.” He took a light reading. “Her paintings are really extraordinary—she must have trained somewhere, maybe even had an exhibition…”
    “I can call my uncle and see if he remembers her