A moving van would be arriving the next day with select pieces of furniture from Evan’s homes in San Francisco and Tiburon, along with some of my completed paintings. But we still were pretty loaded down with what we’d brought in the car as we approached Les Jumeaux that late afternoon. Evan carried our luggage, and I hauled several blank canvases and art supplies. We walked up stone steps to a small porch. Evan unlocked a pair of enormous carved wooden doors.
The silence hung thick as I followed him into a vaulted entryway, and then into a two-story high great room. I stared wide-eyed at what must have been a twenty-foot-tall row of gigantic windows overlooking the incandescent lake. Overflowing bookshelves lined each side of the massive room.
It was decorated in a style I’d never seen firsthand, but associated with grand hunting lodges or mountain retreats for the wealthy. I had the impression of being in a giant stone and wood cave and peering out into a world of light and color. That hushed sense of charged expectation prevailed.
“It’s like it was waiting for us,” I whispered.
Evan’s d
eep laughter broke the trance. I realized how stupid I’d sounded. I smiled at the soft light in his eyes, so rarely seen. He parked the suitcases and came to me. He methodically unburdened me of my art supplies one by one, setting them on a nearby table.
Then he took me into his arms.
We stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the cerulean blue waters, our fronts pressed together. That fullness in my chest that I associated exclusively with Evan’s embraces expanded in me, exponentially bigger this time as we stood together in what was to be our new home.
Our home.
Will I ever wrap my head around all this?
“I want you to be happy here, Anna,” he murmured, nuzzling the top of my head with his chin.
“If I were any happier, I’d burst,” I said before I pressed my face to his chest and inhaled the subtle scent of wood, spice, and citrus: the singular smell of him. I could substitute the scent of him for a meal.
“You belong out there.” I felt him tilt his head in the direction of the lake.
“In the water, I suppose.”
“No. In the light.” He kissed my head and took my hand in his. “Come on. You haven’t seen anything yet. I’m going to show you the grounds… and the most perfect place.”
“Perfect for what?” I asked suggestively, following him down a shadowed hallway.
He arched his brows, catching my playful sexual innuendo. “Almost anyplace is perfect for that, when it comes to you. But I meant your painting.”
“But what about the rest of the house?” I asked, craning my head over my shoulder and taking in the beamed ceilings, huge wrought iron chandeliers, and a Y-shaped, dramatic mahogany staircase in the distance.
“There’ll be plenty of time to see the house later. Let’s go out on the grounds while the light is still good,” Evan insisted.
At Les Jumeaux, it was hard to tell where the stony landscape of Tahoe ended and the bridges, folly towers, fountains, and walls of the grounds began. It was like the house itself had sprung up from the craggy mountainside. Even the peaceful waters of the beach enclosure had been fabricated, I realized. A rocky jetty had been built to create a small harbor, protecting the calm blue and green waters of the private beach from rough waves. Evan told me that Cornish stonemasons and miners had been imported by some ancestor of Elizabeth’s back in the early 1900s to build the home and handcraft the beach, fanciful gardens, paths, and elaborate fountains.
“There are floats and kayaks in storage over there, if you should ever want them for the beach,” Evan said, waving in the direction of a distant boathouse built from the same gray stone as Les Jumeaux. “The enclosure is perfect for swimming. It’s shallow, and always stays calm. Come on. I want to show you something you’ll like.”
We left the house and grounds behind us. Evan led me up a mountain trail surrounded by towering pines. Suddenly, we stood at a rocky promontory about twenty feet wide, the tropical-like, brilliantly blue water shimmering some eighty feet below us.
“Do you like it?” Evan asked, eagerness in his quiet voice. “Do you think it’d be a good spot to paint?”
“Absolutely,” I breathed, spellbound by the magic of the place.
“The new easel and chair I got you will come with the other things tomorrow. I also got you a waterproof locker where you can store your supplies, so you don’t have to haul things back and forth. I’ll bring everything up here as soon as they arrive.”
“You spoil me,” I murmured, completely distracted. Overwhelmed, I dropped his hand. Slowly, I spun around in a full circle. From here, every landscape was available to me: the lake, the mountains, the highest gables and turrets of Les Jumeaux soaring side by side with the huge pines. Beauty poured into me. I couldn’t drink it in fast enough. The quality of light was unlike anything I’d ever seen.
“It’s like it’s alive, the light,” I whispered, my voice sounding hollow with awe.
Evan reached for my hand. He bent his arm, drawing me close. I bumped against him, our bodies pressing tightly together.
“So you really do like it?”
“It’s not like anyplace I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s like something out of a fairytale.” I peered up at his sunlit face. My throat felt very tight with emotion. “You were right, to want to come. It’s amazing.”