Charlie dragged the heavy backpack upstairs. The staircase ended on the second floor, but LJ’d said Aunt Patty’s suite was on the third, so she walked down the hall. Passing a dozen open doors, she noticed signs of wear and tear. But it would be a quick fix. Slap on paint and buy bright bedspreads. See if there was decent hardwood under the worn carpet.
At the end of the hall she found an elevator and a door that led to another set of stairs. She took the elevator up and entered a clean, comfortable apartment: living room, bedroom, and bath; no kitchen; way too much chintz. It was depressingly bland, but in good condition.
The living room looked out onto the street. The bedroom, at the back, had the promised mountain view—spectacular, as a gentle sunset stroked ten shades of peachy-pink across the white-capped peaks.
LJ had lied about the bed. It wasn’t all that big, only a double, but she could imagine getting cozy with him in it. Atop the chintz bedspread lay a stack of sheets and pillow-cases and another of fluffy towels. She smiled at the unexpected touch of marigold-yellow linens, a scarlet bath towel, an aubergine hand towel, and a teal facecloth. Not her aunt’s. Who had put them there? Who on earth—except her—would enjoy such a mishmash of vibrant color?
She hefted her backpack onto a chair, then sank down on the side of the bed. Some things had been worse than she’d expected. The scale of the renovations. The small-town rumor mill. God, even that apprentice had heard stories about her.
And the memories, triggered by the Christmas decorations and by LJ’s eyes.
Some things weren’t so bad at all. Damn, the contractor was hot. She didn’t meet many tool-belt guys in The Barbed Rose, the ritzy tattoo parlor on Yonge Street where she worked. LJ was so…earthy and masculine.
There were definite possibilities there. A little hot sex to fill the empty evenings until the renos were done? That’s where they’d been heading when he spoiled things by asking her to dinner.
No way was she going out, where she might run into someone like Joey’s mom. The Ms. Andersons wouldn’t care about the changes she’d made in ten years; they’d just see the piece-of-trash bad girl.
Sounds carried from downstairs. The radio, the intermittent whine of the saw, an occasional male shout. LJ, the apprentice Joey, and someone else. The noise was companionable.
Charlie unzipped her pack. Shoving aside the few clothes she’d brought, she took out a sketchpad and sets of water-soluble oil pastels, water-soluble crayons, and watercolor pencils. Drawing was as essential as food. In fact, as a teen, any money she’d earned had gone to art supplies, not to stock the bare shelves in her parents’ kitchen.
She set up at a small desk by the bedroom window. The light wasn’t the brightest, but it didn’t matter. She drew the way she breathed: by instinct, not deliberation.
When sounds faded away downstairs, she put aside the sketch she’d been working on—gold dust on sculpted male cheekbones, steady blue-gray eyes framed by dark lashes—and walked across to the living room of her aunt’s suite. Both trucks were gone. Now that night had come, the Christmas lights up and down the street were even more sparkly.
Directly across, in a town house, golden light glowed from uncurtained windows. Downstairs, a tree glittered in silver and gold. Upstairs in the kitchen, a man poured wine and a woman stirred something in a big pot. Charlie hated Christmas trees and wasn’t the domestic sort, so why did she feel a twinge of yearning? Maybe because the scene was the polar opposite of the way she’d grown up.
Hungry, she found a phone book and ordered a Greek pizza. In the morning she’d head into Whistler Village before most people were up and about, buy enough groceries to last a week, then hibernate until the renos were finished.
Hibernating would be a lot more fun with the sexy tool-belt guy to heat up the nights. When she wasn’t travel weary and in Whistler shock, she’d see if he still looked as appealing. If so, she’d flirt him out of thinking about food, and straight into her bed.
3
The next morning, LJ yawned as he drove to the B&B. He’d spent a mostly sleepless night, thinking about Charlie. Sexy, intriguing, baffling Charlie. Yesterday she’d triggered his old insecurity. But whatever’d made her pull back, he was determined to overcome it.
At the coffee shop, he duplicated his order for a cranberry bran muffin and strong coffee. With any luck, she wasn’t into vanilla soy designer drinks.
As planned, he arrived at the Mountain View before his crew. Joey was a good kid but hadn’t mastered the use of an alarm clock. Will, a few years older than LJ, drove from Creekside with his wife, a pretty redhead who worked in a clothing shop and dreamed of being a designer.
Banfield Renovations was LJ’s company. Over the years he’d bought out his uncle, who’d taken early retirement.
Hoping Charlie was up, he unlocked the front door and went through to the kitchen. When he saw her at the kitchen table, wearing a long-sleeved tee the shade of a ripe peach, her shiny hair pulled into a messy ponytail, he felt a rush of that old, overwhelming feeling of pure fascination.
Before he could find his tongue, she gestured toward the open pizza box in front of her. “There’s no microwave, and the stove’s in the middle of the floor. I can’t heat this up.”
Her disgruntled expression freed his tongue and made him grin. “Morning, Sunshine.”
Humor kinked her lips. “Easy for you to say. You’ve had breakfast.” She yawned. “I’d kill for coffee.”
Remembering their easy banter the day before, he said, “What else would you do for it?”
Another twitch of her lips. “Can’t even think about that until I get some caffeine in me.”
“In that case”—he put the muffin bag on the table, along with a lidded takeout cup and his own insulated mug which he’d had filled to the top—“here.” He shoved over the cup, then opened the bag. “Brought sugar and milk.”
She shook her head. “Black’s great. This is nice of you.” She took a cautious sip.
He sat across from her and reached into the bag. “I can be nice, Charlie.” He held up a muffin temptingly.
“Oh, yum.” She grabbed it. “Really nice of you.”
Relieved she’d gotten over whatever had been bugging her yesterday, he gave her his best suggestive grin. “I can be really nice.”
“I just bet you can.” Grinning, she tore off a chunk of muffin. “I bet there’s a string of women who’d attest to that.”
There had been, when women first started noticing him. He’d had a lot of geek years to make up for. “I don’t kiss and tell.” But casual sex wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and the couple of serious relationships had run their course. Truth was, no one had ever compared to the image of Charlie he’d carried around in his head.
“Aha. A love ’em and leave ’em guy.” She put the bite into her mouth.
“Nope. Haven’t loved one yet. Closest I got was a year-long relationship, but we both knew something was missing. And no, I don’t lead them on.” He’d never take advantage of a woman.
She studied him like a cat sizing up a bowl of cream. “I bet some of them get their hopes up.”
“Can’t stop a person from hoping.” Just like he’d once hoped Charlie Coltrane would see beyond his geekiness.
She nodded. “Yes, a person’s responsible for their own feelings.” A pale ray of morning sun slanted through the window and she tipped her head into it, smiling. She had a beautiful face, so much prettier without the weird makeup she used to wear, and a long, elegant neck. “And right now, I’m feeling good,” she said. “Caffeine, food, sunshine.” One lid lowered in a slow wink. “Scenery’s not all that bad either, Tool-belt Guy.”
“Same goes, Tattooed Lady.” Hard to sound cool when his sixteen-year-old self was doing cartwheels inside his grown-up body—a body that was responding to the early morning freshness of her unmadeup face and tousled hair, not to mention the slender, curvy figure showcased by that T-shirt.
Trying to find something
clever and sexy to say next, he didn’t know whether to be sorry or relieved when the front door opened and Will and Joey trooped in.
After he introduced Will everyone sat around the table and he filled Charlie in on the general plan: open up the rooms on the first floor, turning small ones into larger, more dramatic ones, then move on to totally renovate the second floor.
“Uh-uh.” She held up a hand in a STOP signal. “Forget renovating the second floor. Let’s rip up the carpets, since you say there’s good hardwood underneath. Other than that, fresh paint, new bedspreads, curtains, and linens, and that’ll be enough.”
“Patty wanted—”
“Do I look like Patty?”
The three men chuckled, and she grinned back. “I’ll start the painting myself.”
“Murals?” Joey asked excitedly.
“Yeah, that’d do wonders for the sale price,” she said wryly. “Better stick with neutral.”
“Patty had taupe in mind.” LJ waited in anticipation.
She didn’t disappoint him. Screwing up her face, she said, “Bleck. That’s not neutral, it’s hideous. We want light and warm. Pale golden yellow.”
“Come with me and pick out the color.” He wanted to get her alone again.
She shook her head. “I need to buy groceries. A tool-belt guy ought to be capable of finding paint the color of butter.”
“Okay. But it’s not in the deal that you have to help with the renos.” He liked that she was taking an interest, though. Maybe she’d come to care for the place and want to stay.
She thrust to her feet. “Anything to get the job done faster.”
Or maybe she wouldn’t.
Four hours later, LJ headed upstairs to the second floor. Who’d have ever thought he’d see the onetime graffiti muralist rolling creamy yellow paint onto the walls? She was up on a ladder in the middle of the hall, her back to him, humming along to the music drifting up from downstairs. He took a moment to enjoy the view.
Curvy butt in snug-fitting jeans, hair pulled up in a sloppy pile, arms and shoulders bare because she’d stripped down to a red tank top that looked vivid against the pale yellow wall.
“Charlie?”
She broke off humming and swung around on the ladder, smiling. “Uh-huh?”
“We’re breaking for lunch. Gonna have something delivered.” She’d stocked the fridge and cupboards with enough supplies to last a week, but he hoped to tempt her into eating with them. “Join us?”
As she carefully placed the roller in the paint tray, he stepped closer, studying the dragon. It was fully revealed but for a red strap that lay like a collar across its neck. The body curved around her shoulder, the tail wrapped her upper arm almost to her elbow, and the head came down over her collarbone. The mouth was open, breathing flames across her chest and into her cleavage.
Lucky dragon, hugging her body like that. “Cool tattoo.” The work was intricate, dramatic, beautiful.
“Thanks.” She gazed steadily down at him from the third step of the ladder. “He guards my heart.”
Was that a warning? Why did her heart need guarding? “And the one on your neck?”
“It’s a memorial to my best friends. Ginger was the warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever met, and her husband Jake came second. He did my dragon, got me started tattooing. The feathers are for him, he was Cree, and the flowers are for her because she loved them.”
“They’re…gone now?”
Still holding his gaze, she nodded. “An accident on an icy road.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” Her hand stroked down the back of her neck. “This way, they’re always with me.”
“That’s nice.”
They were both quiet a moment, the only sound a rock tune from downstairs, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. He liked the new Charlie. The old one would’ve come up with a flip comment rather than reveal something personal.
“Any more tattoos?” he asked.
Her eyes warmed, sparking with sexy mischief. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The idea was tantalizing. “No question. Want to share?” She wouldn’t have anything as conventional as a butterfly at the small of her back, but just thinking about the small of her back made him horny.
“I’m afraid I don’t know you that well,” she teased back.
“That could be remedied.” He opened his mouth to ask her out for dinner again.
A voice called out from downstairs, competing with the music. “LJ? Chinese or Thai?”
LJ raised his eyebrows at Charlie. “Your choice.”
“Either’s good.”
“Thai,” he called downstairs. “Order enough for Charlie, too.”
“Thanks for the invitation,” she said. Then, with a grin, “But you’d better stop goofing off. You’re on a tight time-line.”
He headed back downstairs, feeling only a little guilty that he’d misled her when they’d discussed the renos earlier. He’d let her believe the work could be completed in a week, when really it’d be closer to two.
He wanted two weeks. Enough time to for them to get to know each other. For him to find out if Charlie was just a teen crush or the woman his heart had been waiting for.
An hour or so later, Charlie sighed contentedly as she took her last bite of chicken in yellow curry sauce. Not only was the food great but she liked the three guys. Hanging out with them was fun, like being at The Barbed Rose except without the sniping that made her long to set up her own business and hire her own, more compatible colleagues.
It was the best social time she’d ever had in Whistler.
It didn’t hurt that LJ sat across from her at the kitchen table, sending her flirtatious glances when Will and Joey were concentrating on their food. He’d pulled a flannel shirt over his white tee, and its blue plaid pattern made his eyes even more vivid.
He shoved the container of stir-fried beef with basil toward her.
She shook her head. “I’m full. Great food. But you should have let me pay my share.”
“Nah, I’ve got it.” He winked. “Won’t complain if you make lunch for us one day.”
“I’m no fancy chef, but I make a mean roast-beef sandwich, and I can open a can of soup with the best of them. Of course, if you actually want hot soup, someone’s going to have to reconnect the stove.”
“We’ll find a corner where it’s out of the way,” Will assured her. “Whatever you need, just let us know.” In his early thirties, he had a strong build, but his wire-rimmed glasses and neat mustache and beard looked more professorial than blue collar.
“Thanks.”
Joey, wiry and redheaded, polished off the basil beef. “You’re really a tattoo artist? Like, seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“I thought they dressed all in black, and their arms were covered in ink.”
She grinned. “I didn’t say I was your typical tattoo artist. I love doing tats, but I love drawing, painting, and graphic design, too. As for being covered in tattoos, that’s not my style. For me, each is a serious decision with personal significance.” She glanced at LJ. She was used to people asking about her tattoos, and liked the way he’d reacted. Interested, but not prying.
“I’ve been thinking about getting one,” Joey said. “Maybe you could do it.”
“A tattoo’s serious business,” Will said. “You have it for life.”
“That’s right.” She always made sure her clients knew what they were doing. Studying Joey’s face, she said, “What do you have in mind?”
“I’ve always had a thing for eagles. They’re so, you know, wild and free and strong. I’ve seen some flash in two or three tattoo parlors, but it didn’t feel right.”
“Flash?” Will asked.
“Designs,” she told him. “You find them in albums and on walls in tattoo parlors.” She turned back to Joey. “I don’t work from flash. I develop an original Coltrane for each client.” People said she had a magical ability
to create the right tattoo. All she did was ask questions, listen, and use a bit of intuition.
“Would you do one for me?”
“We’ll talk some more.”
“It’s time you guys got back to work,” LJ said. “I’m heading out, back in half an hour.”
“The dog?” Will asked.
“Yeah. He’s too old to be left alone all day.”
“You have a dog?” Charlie asked.
“Long story. He’s my sister’s, but she’s in Vancouver working on her law degree, and our parents are on a cruise. So, I have dog duty. Poor guy, he’s not used to being alone.”
Charlie loved animals. They didn’t label and judge the way people did. “Bring him here.”
Twenty minutes later, LJ let Romeo, Emily’s twelve-year-old beagle, out of the truck. Might Charlie remember him?
As a pup, Romeo’d been an escape artist. One summer morning when he was less than a year old, he’d gotten out of the yard. That afternoon, the vet phoned. The pup had been torn up by a bear. Charlie had found him in the woods, bleeding and unable to walk. She bound up his wounds and took him to the clinic.
Lester knew it wasn’t the first time she’d rescued an animal. He’d followed Charlie more than once. Enough to know she’d preferred the outdoors to home, had roamed around with a sketchpad in her backpack, and had a soft spot for animals.
He leaned down to stroke the beagle, rubbing his hand over the parallel scars that marred his glossy coat. “You’re about to see an old friend, boy.” He opened the front door of the B&B, and the dog darted in. Romeo might be twelve, but he was active, healthy, always curious. He ran around sniffing, then headed to the kitchen. LJ followed, smiling as Will and Joey stopped work to pat Romeo.
The dog’s tail wagged happily, then he paused, scenting the air. He put his nose to the ground and headed out of the kitchen and over to the stairs. Up he went, LJ behind him, to the second floor. Spying Charlie on her ladder in the middle of the hall, Romeo let out an excited bark and ran over.
The Naughty List Page 21
