Winning Wyatt (The Billionaire Brotherhood Book 1) by Jacie Floyd Page A

to know.”
    “Have
it your way, Anouk.” His use of the French woman’s name sent the corners of her
mouth upward.
    Jean-Claude
took the dishes inside and turned on some music. Reclining in the chaise
lounge, she was a moon goddess staring into the night sky.
    “When
I have a terrible need for religion, I go out at night and paint the stars,” he
quoted, watching her from the door.
    “Who
said that?”
    “Just
now, I did.” He scooted her over and squeezed into place on the chaise. “But
Van Gogh said it originally, around the time he painted Starry Night.” He
slipped an arm around her shoulders and settled her comfortably against his
chest. “I know you’re interested in art, but are you interested in astronomy,
Anouk?”
    “I
can't even see the sky from where I live.” She glanced at him sideways. “Are
you one of those people who knows the name of everything up there?”
    “I
know some of their names.” He pulled her close. “The big yellow thing we saw
earlier was the sun. The silver crescent you’re looking at now is the moon.
Those bright twinkly things are—” He paused dramatically. “—stars.”
    “Very
impressive.” She gave in to the impulse to smile, realizing how seldom she did
so. “Thank you, Professor Trintignant, but you can jump ahead to the
constellations if you want. I’ll try to keep up.”
    “Okay,
we’ll start with something simple. The Big Dipper is the seven bright stars
approximately seventy-five light years away and slightly to the left of the
roof.” He pointed his finger in the correct general direction. “It’s part of a
larger constellation, Ursa Major, also known as the Big Bear. See it?”
    “Maybe,”
she answered doubtfully.
    He
moved her chin with his hand. “Adjusting your sights a little bit in the
opposite direction, the next bright star is Regulus, part of the surrounding
constellation Leo the Lion.”
    “Do
you know the origins of the names, too?”
    “I
know some of the Indian legends. There’s an Anishinaabe Indian one about the
bear.”
    “Tell
me.” She settled her head against his shoulder like a child waiting for a
bedtime story.
    “Once,
a long time ago, winter was the only season on earth.” Kara’s mystery man
pulled her body more closely against his. As she rested within the circle of
his arm, his Southern drawl poured over her like warm honey.
    Under
the canopy of stars, she listened as he told the tale of Fisher and his
friends, Otter and Wolverine, who climbed to the top of a high mountain
together. With the help of the High Spirit, the trio broke a hole through the
barrier of the sky so that the beautiful weather above it could seep through,
warming the cold and barren earth below.
    But
just when the hole was large enough to let fair weather warm the earth for half
the year, the inhabitants of Skyland came along and tried to run them off.
    Fisher
taunted the Sky People, drawing their attention away from the hole. When the
people struck him with an arrow, Fisher rolled over on his back and began to
fall. Because he had been very brave, the High Spirit caught Fisher and placed
him high in the sky among the stars.
    “Now,”
Mystery Man explained, “every year, Fisher moves across the heavens until the
arrow strikes him, and then he rolls over onto his back and falls. When winter
has held the Great Forest too long in its powerful grip, he turns to his feet
and brings spring and warm weather back to earth.”
    Kara
cuddled against the man’s warm body, awed by the vastness of the universe
above, at ease in the comfort she had found in this unexpected place, with this
unlikely person. She should ask him to take her back to town, but she felt too
comfortable, too lethargic to rouse herself. “Do you think everything up there
is part of some grand design, or is it all just one big cosmic accident?”
    He
slipped his hand inside the robe and weighed her breast in his palm, as he
seemed to weigh his answer. “I tend to believe a Big