by Anne Conley
Her art. It took her breath away.
She stood in the doorway just trying to breathe. It seemed so simple, but all of her dreams were about to come true. She hadn’t even been in Pamona Gulch a month, yet here she was.
Drake came from an office in the back. Dressed in a dark, wool suit, his hair was artfully styled in the weird sort-of-mohawk that probably took a long time to perfect but in reality just looked like he had a super-slick cowlick. His teeth gleamed at her when he smiled.
“Annette! I’m so glad you could make it!” He reached for her, clasping her hand in his and lowering his head to kiss the back of it. His hands were warm and his lips warmer as they grazed her knuckles. He grinned at her and pulled her into the gallery by her waist. “What do you think?”
What did she think? She was totally overwhelmed. Her heart pounded out of her ribcage almost painfully, but she managed a breathless, “It’s beautiful.”
Tasteful landscapes dotted the walls, mostly mountain scenes for tourists to take home as a keepsake of their stay in Pamona Gulch. He led her back under a large arch into a separate room with empty walls. Her work was a bit different. Her stuff was landscape as well, but it was more stylized, less realism, and more of an amalgamation of different approaches to painting. She liked to blend her techniques, giving her art a flair that was a bit different from most.
“I have a vision,” Drake began, “of your gorgeous artwork lining these walls. I have dividers to set up for them as well. This room will be filled to the brim with your work to sell.”
He tugged her in front of him, putting his hands on her shoulders and rubbing them gently. “You’re going to be a hit, Annette,” he whispered into her ear, his breath hot. She shuddered at the tickling sensation, and not necessarily in a good way. Dread pooled in her stomach.
Drake rubbed her shoulders, working out the kinks. She found herself relaxing in spite of the trepidation inside her. Drake was incredibly transparent in his intentions to get her in bed eventually, but she’d gotten a show out of the deal, so she was determined to worry about the rest later.
“Well?”
“I don’t know what to say, Drake. Thank you for taking a chance on me?” Annette figured he was probably expecting her to fall in bed with him, and she decided to play along. That seemed wrong, but this show was her dream.
“Not a chance. I know this. People will love you.” His words, spoken low, hinted at more. She knew if she looked at him, he would be watching her hungrily, like he had last night. “How’s it going? Have you had a chance to work on anything new?”
Desperate for some space, she took two steps forward and turned to him. “No, I had to go to the square this morning and try to sell something. I’m planning on working at night. I have a lot of ideas though.” She didn’t share with him that most of her ideas were driven and inspired by the man she had kissed last night.
As he slipped his hands into the pockets of his trousers, Annette didn’t miss the subtle play of his physique. The man knew what he was doing, as his body language drew her eyes to his crotch while he jingled his keys in his pocket.
“I have a charity event Friday. Will you come with me?” His eyebrows raised over wide, innocent eyes, but Annette wasn’t fooled. He wanted her and wasn’t making a huge secret about it.
She wasn’t the type to put out for favors. Would he pull the show if she didn’t put out? She’d hoped she had more time, but a sudden sense of self-doubt overtook her as she took another step backward. She hated the weakness it showed, but something about Drake was off-putting. He tried so hard to be nonchalant, even though everything he did was calculated. Annette knew exactly what he wanted.
“I don’t really date, Drake. I’m sorry if you got the wrong impression.”
“Not a date. I promise. You need to be seen out and about in town. I need to show off my latest find.” He closed the gap between them, invading her personal bubble with his towering height. “I’ll introduce you around as a local up and coming, and we’ll advertise the show. It’ll be fun!” He lowered his hands to her shoulders again, stroking her with his thumbs.
“Fine. As long as it’s not a date,” she relented.
“Perfect.” He lowered a chaste kiss to the top of her head, and she felt better about things. As long as he understood she wasn’t sleeping with him to get the show, they were good.
He led her back to the front. “I’ll let you go home and get to work. I’ll call you on Friday to pick you up.” As she waved bye, Annette didn’t miss the hungry gleam in his eyes nor the way he licked his lips.
She may have said the words, but she wasn’t sure he heard them. Annette decided to put it out of her head until she had to deal with it. There was no sense worrying about something that hadn’t happened yet. That’s what she told herself anyway. She let the excitement of an actual gallery show override the trepidation of how she might have gotten it.
Back in her room, she took stock. She had maybe ten pieces ready for a show, besides the pieces she tried to sell every day. Her car was full of them. She had four canvases already stretched and built as well as nearly an entire roll to build more. She also had a stack of wood pieces in the corner of her room.
And she had ideas. Lovely Jude musings that brought to mind all sorts of erotic heat. It wasn’t exactly like the stuff Drake had seen and liked, but it was still her—just different.
She looked at the sketch she’d started this morning, a vague pair of eyes engulfed by flames with the hint of something behind it.
Yes. She had ideas. Blowing out a deep breath, Annette pulled her sketch pad closer.
Who needed sleep?
Chapter Six
Jude stood at the cash bar at the Pamona Gulch Fire Department’s annual fundraiser. It was mostly a silent auction, but there was a dinner as well. It was—up until now—the biggest fundraiser of the year, and most of their operating budget came from it. All the firefighters were decked out in dress uniforms, which most of them hated, the starched wool not being amazing at all.
Captain Chavez was parading around the room, his dress blues looking like he was made for them, his silver hair gleaming in the dim lighting of the room. He rarely came out of his office at the station, unless it was to lecture somebody, so Jude just watched the man. He was different, smiling. It was almost like he’d been taken by body snatchers, but at the same time, this was a public event and it was imperative they all put their best foot forward. After all, Captain’s last lecture had been about just that.
Janet, the dress shop owner, was standing with Chief Marquez’s wife next to Jude at the bar, clearly cougaring out on the younger men in their uniforms while Chief Marquez made his rounds. Seeing a smile on his face was not as foreign as the Captain’s, so it wasn’t weird to see him trying to up bids on some of the items, but Jude was uncomfortable next to the women.
“Did you see that ass?” Janet murmured.
“Mmm-hmmm.” Mrs. Marquez sighed around her straw, sounding like a horny teenager and not a forty-something married woman.
Rumors had surrounded the Chief, his wife, and Janet. Janet and Marquez had dated in high school, and she was now besties with his wife. Lots of people around town said they had an open relationship, but Jude had never seen it. So what if the man wanted to stay friends with his ex?
At any rate, he pushed off the bar after smirking their way to let them know he’d heard them. But he didn’t want to just stand there and eavesdrop.
Jude roamed the room absently, looking for someone he knew, even though the room was filled with people he knew. He was restless and couldn’t figure out why.
It wasn’t just the event, which seemed to be going on forever. He sighed, his shoulders releasing some tension. The speakers hadn’t even started yet, and the banquet was after the speakers, and then a DJ for dancing.
He liked
his job. Jude got a high off the hero thing. He loved the people thanking him profusely for doing his job. He enjoyed the fact people stopped him when he walked around in public wearing the Pamona Gulch Fire Department t-shirt.
Egotistical, he knew, but it wasn’t a stroke thing. He legitimately enjoyed being a productive member of the community, having a purpose.
Which was why he didn’t understand why he’d felt so out of sorts lately. He could easily blame it on the woman he’d kissed, his desire to be with her and explore the lust firing between them.
But it had honestly been going on longer than that—since Everly hadn’t been happy with him as he was, and it wasn’t Everly. It was the fact he suddenly got the feeling of not being enough.
It was weird. Jude had never had someone make him feel like less of a man. Everly had pointed out he could be more, so he had to thank her for that, but he didn’t want to be the more she wanted of him. He just didn’t know what more he wanted to be.
Yeah, it didn’t make sense to him either.
Coming up on Zane, Joey, and Logan standing in a clump on the edge of what would be the dance floor later, he was silent as he listened to them talk about a couple standing on the other edge of the dance floor.
“It just makes me crazy. I don’t see what she sees in him,” Joey was muttering around a beer bottle. Jude focused on the couple. Realizing it was Joey’s mother and Damon Dorfbergh, he had to smile.
Damon had been a year behind him in school. He was president of the student council and National Honor Society. If the school had a chess club, he would have been president. He was the epitome of a nerd. That and his unfortunate last name earned him the nickname Dorkbergh. After high school, he matured—losing the glasses and outgrowing the braces—and turned into a decent looking guy, but the nickname still stuck.
It wasn’t like he did anything to change things about that though. He was always reading something and listening to the old crooners: Etta James, Bing Crosby, etc. But he started dating older women and tourists who didn’t know about his high school persona. Jude had to admit, he had something going for him now.
“Well, he doesn’t look like Dorkbergh anymore, and your mom’s always been pretty hot,” Jude confessed, ignoring the sharp glare Joey threw his way.
“Maybe he has a ten-inch dick?” Zane mused, earning himself a punch from Joey.
Just to fuck with his friend, Jude picked up more of the conversation. “It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know how to use it.”
“Dude, that’s my mom you’re talking about.”
Simone and Everly came sidling up to them. Simone draped herself elegantly against Joey’s body while Everly stood awkwardly between Joey and Jude. He took a step away to put distance between them, nonverbally stating his position.
He could smell her perfume—expensive and heavy-handed—and it did nothing for him except to remind him of all her conversations about why he wanted to be a firefighter the rest of his life.
The restlessness came back full-force, hitting him in the solar plexus.
“Catch you guys at dinner.” Hopefully, Everly wouldn’t be sitting with them, but he didn’t hold out super-high hopes. “I’m gonna go check out the auction table.”
Jude tried to keep his walk casual as he crossed the crowded room to the wall where the silent auction was being held. His cabin was usually a popular item up for bid, and he was pleased to offer it. Aside from a grocery trip and some wood cutting, it wasn’t any skin off his back. Some members of the community donated thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff to this.
The tables were crowded, and a line of people snaked around it, some people cutting to check on what they’d bid on, others patiently waiting and bidding on several items. There were a few spa packages, art pieces, pottery, a helicopter tour of the Gulch, nights at the different lodges on the mountain, gift certificates, and baskets filled with various items. All in all, it was their biggest fundraiser of the year.
He heard Hollywood trying to schmooze a woman Jude knew. Becca. Another woman he’d practically grown up with, she worked at the animal shelter and was known to try to sleep with any firefighter she could. Or police officer, if they were young enough. She had a thing for the first-responders in town, and most of the guys had taken her up on it, although Jude hadn’t. She was pretty enough, but he knew things wouldn’t go further than sex with her. She didn’t seem to want more than some fun, and that wasn’t who Jude was at the moment.
Let Hollywood have her.
Jude heard a tinkling peal of laughter off to his left, and his head swiveled.
Restless feelings fled.
She was here. Annette hadn’t called in the week since their kiss, and now she was here on Drake’s arm. Jude could feel his chest twist at the idea, but the simultaneous settling in his stomach made him stare. She wasn’t laughing at something Drake said, she was laughing at someone else, a city councilman. He was known for his dumb jokes, but listening to Annette, he must have hit on a winner.
Jude couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He was holding up the line, so he stepped out of it, letting the eager bidders do their thing while he watched her.
An introvert by nature, Annette preferred the solitude of her canvases to this banquet hall full of people. Her family and friends at home had never understood her desire to be alone, so she had perfected the graceful smile and ability to make small talk.
Drake’s hand at her elbow—steering her around the room and introducing her to everyone—was a constant reminder that without him, she would be hawking her wares on the square to tourists. That was fun, and what she would prefer, but it would be hard to pay the bills and wasn’t what she came here for.
She wanted to be able to make a comfortable living off her artwork, and a show would be the first step to that end. It wasn’t the money. Annette didn’t have a desire to live in a fancy house and drive the most expensive cars, but she didn’t want to have to teach to afford to paint either.
So she grinned at the next person Drake turned her to, a member of the local city council who clearly considered himself a connoisseur of the arts if his raunchy jokes about Georgia O’Keeffe were any indication.
She laughed along at his awful jokes, Drake’s hand moving from her elbow to the small of her back, and Annette was trapped. If she took a step forward, she would be uncomfortably in the man’s bubble—the one who kept making inappropriate vulva jokes—and if she took a step backward, she would be firmly ensconced in Drake’s grip, a silent agreement to all the hints he’d tossed her way tonight.
He hadn’t been subtle. He wanted her in his bed. She’d reiterated once more when he’d picked her up that this was not a date and she wasn’t getting romantic with him, but he’d acted so affronted she’d let it go.
His hands were like little tentacles roaming over her backside, just barely keeping his touches PG.
Annette almost welcomed the prickle she felt at her shoulder blades. Even though his manicured hand was on her lower back, it was cold and dry. The heat she felt at the base of her neck was blazing, spreading out on her exposed shoulder blades.
It was like someone was setting her body on fire with just one look, and she couldn’t stop herself from craning her neck to see who it was.
Amber eyes just behind her. Amber eyes she had drawn more than she forgot, even though after that kiss, she knew she had to forget. That kiss which spoke of nothing but possibilities. Possibilities of sleepless nights, sweaty sheets, and breakfast in bed.
She almost groaned aloud at his appearance. It wasn’t just the fact he was here, which shouldn’t have surprised her because it seemed the whole town was here. But he wore a firefighter’s dress uniform like he was born to wear it. The red stripe down the pants leg, the shield on the breast pocket, the silver buttons going down the double-breasted jacket that fit over his biceps li
ke a second skin, the hat tucked under his arm.
It figured he was a firefighter. That gave him another layer of hotness—one she couldn’t deal with. If he was hard to resist before, just the fact he was someone who ran into danger willy-nilly to save lives detonated her panties.
She turned her head back to the dirty-joker, trying to ignore him, but as if Jude knew what she was up to, he spoke.
“Drake, my man, how’s things? You bid on the cabin yet?” Jude clapped Drake on the back as if they were old friends, which also figured.
This whole cabin thing had her flummoxed. Drake had made a huge deal out of making sure she didn’t have a job—a subtle reminder of what he perceived she owed him—and was bidding on this cabin on the mountain as a retreat for her so she could finish the pieces for the gallery show. On the surface, it was a generous offer, especially after she saw how much he bid on it, but she knew Drake’s type, and he was calculating. She had clarified that she would be alone at the cabin, and he’d acted insulted she would think otherwise.
But she wasn’t stupid.
“Jude, I’d like you to meet my latest discovery, Annette Young.” Drake pushed her with his hand at her back, yet he left it there possessively. He was staking his claim and flaunting her in another man’s face, and it was starting to piss her off.
Instead of shaking her hand, Jude leaned down and kissed her knuckles, his lips a reminder of their shared kiss. His warm lips were soft, slightly parted, and if she wasn’t mistaken, his tongue snaked out for a taste.
As Jude’s golden eyes glowed at her in the darkness, Annette felt her body’s reaction to him. She was panting, her knees were slightly weak, and the blazing, tickling feeling she’d felt between her shoulder blades earlier was now traveling through her bloodstream, pooling low in her belly.
Yep. Needed to steer clear of this guy.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Are you the lucky girl who’s going to make art at my cabin this year?” His voice was low, and she had to lean forward to hear. Drake was talking to someone else. His hand had left her back and moved to her shoulder, where it rested, claim still staked.
