Luke swallowed against the dryness in his throat, the steep rise of the road in front of his rental car sending him back two years to the hillside in Italy—to the hours spent in the crumpled Fiat, metal ticking in the descending chill of the night, pain like fire in his thigh and hip, as he prayed for someone, anyone, to find him.
He flexed his fingers and took a firm grip on the steering wheel, the gearshift, and his fricking neuroses. It was only a mountain, for God’s sake, an inanimate geological formation. Impossible for it to harbor some hidden evil agenda. He put the car in gear and crept up the first incline, the needle of his speedometer barely quivering above zero.
Suddenly, a big-ass black car barreled past him one hairpin curve up the hill and nearly blew his mid-sized rental off the road. Shit. He blotted the sweat off his upper lip with the back of his hand. Between the mountain and the trip up the coast, he’d learned his lesson: next time, he was springing for the full-sized model. Hell, the biggest SUV on the lot, screw the cost. Then he’d load the trunk with bricks.
Nearly two hours later, he nosed the car up the last rise and parked at the edge of a rough plateau. The odometer swore he’d only driven seven miles. Luke swore back and escaped from the car, gulping in lungfuls of damp air laced with the tang of pine.
He leaned on the hood while his heart rate returned to normal, and checked out the forger’s setup. A post-and-pier log cabin stood off-center in a clearing ringed by shaggy evergreens. Fifty feet beyond the cabin, nearly at the forest’s edge, was another structure, twice as long and half as wide, like a single-gabled house sliced in half down the roofline, with high and low banks of windows on the taller north side. Typical artist’s studio, although Luke hadn’t seen a telephone pole or transformer tower for miles. This whole place had to be off the grid.
A survivalist forger. Outstanding.
Matte-black solar panels covered the south-facing roof slope on both buildings. Luke shot a glance at the looming trees, cloud cover, and spitting rain. Yeah, good luck with that. The long white lozenge of a propane tank behind the cabin and the generator behind the studio suggested Survivalist Forger wasn’t a total moron. He had his backup power plan in place.
A curl of smoke drifted out of the cabin’s chimney pipe, but no vehicle stood in the patch of weedy gravel in front of the shed-roofed porch. Could Survivalist Forger have been the homicidal driver who’d nearly sent Luke hurtling over the edge of the road? Unlikely. That shiny black tank didn’t match these less-than-luxurious accommodations. But how else did the guy get around? Mountain bike? Pack mule? Broomstick?
Luke crossed the clearing under the goggle-eyed stare of the cabin’s windows, fir trees closing behind him like a ragged green cage, and mounted the sagging porch steps. The hair lifted on his neck, and he paused, scanning the woods, suddenly sure that he was being watched.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he tried to shake it off. One of the meager pieces of information M.C. had given him before he’d taken the job had been a link to some bogus paranormal investigation show. It had been filmed in Oregon, so Luke had taken it as a weather warning and packed accordingly. He didn’t buy the woo-woo shit, but this place was pretty remote. It didn’t need haunting to make it one creepy-ass spot.
He steeled himself and turned his back on the trees.
The cabin’s unpainted door had no dead bolt, and the door handle was a simple lever. Pretty ballsy to live out here with no locks. He offered a brief prayer that Survivalist Forger didn’t rely on a blue-ribbon gun collection for security.
Luke knocked on the door: three sedate raps. See? I can be polite. Even to lying, cheating, scum-sucking art forgers. No response, as he expected. He raised his fist to indulge in a little cathartic door-pounding, because really, who’d complain? The raucous crows circling the clearing? The soggy squirrels eyeing him from the trees? His hostile imaginary observer? But before he let fly, he heard the pad of feet approaching from inside.
The door creaked open, then stuck halfway on an uneven patch in the floor. “Thomas, you don’t have to knock.” A long-fingered hand grasped the edge of the door and tugged.
Luke’s stomach swooped at the sound of that voice, at the shape of that hand, and he nearly launched himself off the porch.
Stefan Cobb.
Shit-fuck-goddamn-son-of-a-bitch. He was going to kill Mystery Client.
His Survivalist Forger was Stefan fucking Cobb.
The door unstuck, leaving Luke face-to-face with his ex-lover for the first time in seven years.
He didn’t know whether to cry, yell, or run like hell.
Stefan’s eyes widened, and his mouth opened on a quick inhale. With his broad forehead under shaggy hair the color of brown sugar, his prominent cheekbones and those eyes, still the same blue as the Gulf beneath Luke’s balcony window, he looked like an orphaned Siamese kitten.
“Luke?” Stefan’s voice was a rough whisper, half wonder and half fearful disbelief. Before Luke could react, Stefan lunged and trapped him in a clinch.
With Stefan’s arms wrapped tight around his ribs, the run like hell option was off the table, but Luke kept his back straight, his chin up, and his fists clenched at his sides, because, ex-lover or not, Stefan Cobb could very well be a lying, cheating, scum-sucking art forger.
But Stefan’s breath hitched, and he pressed a damp cheek against Luke’s neck.
Oh, hell.
Luke’s hands crept to the small of Stefan’s back, even as the same poisonous inner voice that had triggered his exit all those years ago whispered, Who’s Thomas?
A dozen questions raced through Stefan’s mind while he hung on to Luke like a freaking leaking barnacle: chief among them, How did you find me?, followed closely by, What took you so long? But he trapped them all behind his teeth because they no longer mattered. Not with Luke in his arms again. Stefan raised his head and angled his face for a kiss, but Luke tilted his chin far enough to make it awkward.
Oookay, then. The lovers-reunited-at-last scenario wasn’t an option, but Luke was here. Finally. That had to count for something.
Stefan backed inside, his eyes locked on Luke’s face. He gestured for Luke to follow, then stumbled on the edge of the area rug.
Heat rushed up his neck, clear up to his hairline, but Luke didn’t laugh or raise an eyebrow or comment on Stefan’s legendary clumsiness as he once would have. Instead, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his pea coat and studied the interior of the cabin as if there’d be a test later.
Stefan tracked Luke’s gaze as he looked everywhere except at Stefan. At the open-beam ceiling festooned with cobweb swags. At the clothesline stretched down the hallway, sagging under Stefan’s ratty laundry. At the sofa, its oxblood leather cracked and veined with the dirty white of ancient bones.
Stefan’s face burned hotter. Juxtaposed with Luke, in his pressed khaki trousers and navy wool coat, the crisp waves of his dark hair beaded with rain, the cabin was depressingly squalid.
“Interesting digs.” Luke’s voice had an odd inflection, as if he were both accusing and questioning. “More rustic than your usual style.”
Stefan shrugged and retreated behind the kitchen island. “It has indoor plumbing and a roof.” Two up from some of the places he’d stayed since Marius died. “I’m good.”
Luke grunted, lips flatlined and a deep groove between his brows. He walked across the room, catching his heel on the same rough spot in the rug that had tripped Stefan. The stumble robbed him of his old predatory grace. He caught himself on the island and winced, the fleeting pinch of pain disrupting his perma-scowl.
“Are you okay?” Stefan reached toward him but dropped his hand when Luke drew away, his gaze focused on the scatter of mail on the counter. Tilting his head, he teased an envelope closer with one finger, hazel eyes narrowing.
Crap. The collection notice. Stefan shuffled the mail into a messy pile and dumped it in the drawer of the battered rolltop desk. “Sorry. Wasn’t expecting company.”
L
uke pointed at the drawer. “‘Cobbe’? When’d you pick up the trailing e?”
“Marius’s idea. He thought it made me sound less bourgeois.”
“Pretentious prick.”
“Well, yeah. That was part of his charm.”
Luke’s scowl returned, darker and deeper. Uh-oh. Belatedly, Stefan realized he should have made something up or claimed it was a typo. Luke had never been rational when it came to Marius. Stefan opened his mouth to apologize, to change the subject, but Luke beat him to it.
He jerked his chin at the oil hurricane lantern and the low-wattage fluorescent lamp flickering on the sideboard. “That solar shit really work?”
Christ. Luke Morganstern, King of Avoidance. Stefan fought the urge to roll his eyes. If Luke had ever talked about his resentment of Marius instead of burying it under a pile of stoic he-man bullshit, Luke might have never walked out.
Fine. He could play this game. God knows, he’d had enough practice back in the day. “Good enough. Keeps me out of the dark.”
Luke whirled, a muscle ticking in his jaw, and finally looked Stefan in the face.
“Damn it, Stefan. What the hell are you thinking?”
“I . . . uh . . . What?”
“Do you even have a phone?” Luke’s voice was harsh and overloud for the cramped cabin. “I lost cell reception miles from this fricking mountain.”
Bewildered, Stefan pointed to the sideboard. “I’ve got a sat phone, but it only works if I take it down the hill and get clear of the tree-cover. Do you need to make a call?”
“Not me. You.”
“Me?” Stefan snorted. “Not likely. Listen, Luke, if you bothered to come all the way out here to find me, you might act less like you want to drop-kick me off the mountain.” Luke’s gaze snapped up to Stefan, then cut to the right. Stefan’s stomach curled in on itself. “You didn’t come to find me, did you?”
Luke’s shoulders dropped. He held his hands up, palms out. “Look. Sorry. Can we just . . . pretend the last ten minutes didn’t happen? Let me take you to dinner.”
“I don’t think that’s such a hot idea. I’m okay here, thanks.”
“‘Okay’? Cut me a fucking break, Stefan. You’ve got paintbrushes with handles thicker than your wrists. Let’s go.”
Stefan lifted his chin. “First, tell me. Why are you here?”
“I—” Luke sighed and scrubbed a hand across his face.
“What’s the matter with you?”
Luke snorted a laugh. “Nothing that a lobotomy won’t cure. Come on.”
“Shit. I thought going up the mountain was bad.” Luke eased around the first switchback, his fingers clenched on the steering wheel.
Stefan shifted in his seat, probably wondering what the hell was wrong with Luke. “I’ll drive if you want.”
Did he want? No. He wanted to be able to get behind the wheel without fear, to drive up, down, or sideways—well, not sideways. That hadn’t turned out so great. But if his intent was to feed Stefan before next week, he needed to get over himself.
He nodded and pulled over, so they could switch places.
Stefan put the car in gear. “You okay?”
“Fantastic. Slow down.”
“I’m riding the brake, Luke. We haven’t hit ten miles per hour yet. The only thing moving us forward is gravity.”
“Gravity sucks.”
“If I don’t speed up, we won’t get down the hill until tomorrow.”
“Really? My estimate put us at next Tuesday. Give me a minute.” Luke closed his eyes and willed his heart rate to slow, gripping the oh-shit handle for all he was worth. “Had a little incident in the Alps. Fiats? Not aerodynamic.”
“I see. I think quick is better than slow, though. I’ll try to make it smooth.”
Luke nodded and tried not to freak when the car started moving faster, tried not to remember the accident and the reason he’d been flying down the mountain like a bat out of hell. People had chalked it up to his meltdown after the Hernandez trial blew up his career. But that wasn’t it.
He’d had a fucking vision, for God’s sake. He’d woken up from another bender mourning his dead career with dream images seared into his brain—Stefan, standing alone in front of the locked gates of the Prescott estate. Stefan, shivering under a suit jacket in the backseat of some ridiculously retro car. And he’d been convinced that Stefan needed him right that fucking minute.
But since that would have made him seem insane rather than merely contemptible, he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone—not the police who’d questioned him, not his doctors or physical therapists, and definitely not the guy who’d found him in the middle of nowhere because he said his dog had insisted on it.
Besides, by the time he’d gotten out of the hospital, it had turned out he was the one standing in front of the Prescotts’ locked gates, with everyone in the house refusing his calls and Stefan MIA.
“We’re here.”
Luke took a deep breath and opened his eyes, although the look on Stefan’s face almost sent him back into tachycardia. To avoid the intensity of that gaze, the pity in those eyes, he peered out the windshield at the sign on the front of the brown-shingled restaurant.
“Karla’s Krab Korner? Seriously?”
“Don’t mock.” Stefan pointed to the marquee next to the sidewalk. “Best krab kakes in town. Says so, and it’s true.”
“You saying you pop down from your mountaintop retreat regularly to sample the local fare?”
“Not now. But I lived around here for a while before I moved into the cabin.”
Stefan led the way across the pothole collection masquerading as a parking lot, hitching his jeans up on his hips for the fifth time since Luke had walked in the cabin door. Not that Luke was counting. Or looking. Nope. Not at all.
Inside the door, the hostess, a matronly woman with a grin that compensated for the gloomy weather, squealed like a teenager and enveloped Stefan in a hug.
“Stefan. My dearie-dear.” She leaned back, her hands on Stefan’s shoulders. “Look at you. You haven’t been eating again.”
Stefan smiled and kissed her cheek. “I eat, Karla. Don’t fuss.”
“Go. Sit in your old spot. I’ll bring you the usual.” She winked at Luke. “And another for your friend.” She bustled off toward the swinging door leading to the kitchen, the bow on the back of her apron bouncing on her ample backside.
“She this friendly with everyone?” Luke followed Stefan through the maze of tables. A number of diners lifted a hand in greeting, and Stefan nodded back.
“Probably.” Stefan dropped into a booth tucked in the corner. “She’s a peach. But she gave me a job when I was new in town, so we’ve got history.”
Karla set two lemonades on the table and beamed at them. “Special of the day coming right up.”
Luke waited for her to disappear into the kitchen. “So.” He nudged his glass aside and rested his arms along the back of the booth. “Career going well?”
Stefan’s gaze slid off Luke’s face, and he jerked his chin down. “Absolutely.” He picked up his straw and tore a long strip off the wrapper, balling the paper into a pill. “You?”
“All good. Spent some time in Europe.”
“Yeah. I know. I—” Stefan broke off when Karla set two bowls and a salad the size of New Jersey on the table.
“Family style, boys. Enjoy.”
Stefan shoveled half the salad into his bowl. Luke took a smaller helping in case Stefan wanted another serving after he finished inhaling his own.
“How’d you end up here?”
“I was working my way up the coast, headed for Seattle,” Stefan said between bites of salad. “My car broke down about ten miles south.”
“Your car?” A frisson skated across Luke’s nape. “What kind of car?”
Stefan cocked his head. “Does it matter? A 1982 Renault Le Car. Yellow, if that matters.”
The frisson turned into a full-body shiver. That was the car in my vision. Luke c
lamped his jaw shut. There are lots of old yellow cars. It doesn’t mean anything. Besides, it was a fucking alcohol-induced dream. Those were always weird. He was better off ignoring this one, like he did all the others. “Why Seattle?”
Stefan shrugged. “It's different from Indio. The Jennings brothers towed me into town.” He laughed, a rusty sound. “The tow cost more than the freaking car. Had to work in their garage for a while to pay them back. That’s where I met Karla, and she offered me the dishwashing gig.”
“Dishwasher? Grease monkey? Damn it, Stefan, why weren’t you painting?”
“With what? Marius’s homophobic psychopath of a sister had the locks changed on the house and the studio. During the funeral, for God’s sake.”
Luke’s fork stalled halfway to his mouth. They locked him out. But it had been Marius’s house, not the Prescott estate. Not my vision. Not my vision. “His sister? He hated the bitch. He’d never leave her so much as a cufflink.”
“Not his choice, exactly. No will.” Stefan shrugged. “She’s next of kin. She made sure I couldn’t get back in when I returned from Connecticut, not even to pack up my stuff. I was lucky I had a change of clothes at the gym or I’d have had nothing to wear but that damn suit.”
Luke set down his fork, forcing his fingers to release their death grip. He’d never doubted that alive or dead, Marius Worthington Prescott the fucking Fifth could take better care of Stefan Cobbe than Luke Morganstern ever could. That had been one of the reasons why he’d known his stupid visions were bogus, one of the reasons why he hadn’t pushed when the Prescotts stonewalled him.
Awesome. Another wrong move in his never-ending string of craptascular wrong moves.
Luke had been trying so hard not to ogle Stefan-the-forger that he hadn’t really considered Stefan-the-ex-lover. He did now, hitting Pause on the Fuck, no loop running nonstop in his brain, and pulled his head out of his ass long enough to see the light. Were the faded shirt and holey jeans more than a fashion statement? Stefan had never been into fashionable grunge. He’d always said ripped jeans were like Russian roulette for a painter looking for someplace to wipe a brush.
The Artist's Touch Page 2
