“This looks like it hurts. Can I kiss it better?” He didn’t exactly wait for permission. His lips were soft, gentle, and they warmed her all the way through to her toes.
Ava relaxed into his arms and let all the tension of the past hour flow out of her. Kellen’s broad shoulders provided a perfect place to nestle against, and she felt small and safe in his arms as they encircled her. It made her think back on the maxims from How to Snare a Modern Man. The very last chapter was Make him feel like you’re the woman and he’s the man. However, the fact was that Kellen McMullen made her feel like she was the woman, and he was the man—always. He’d had to slay a bear and live in the wild, for heaven’s sake. How much manlier does it get than that? With Kellen on guard, Ava would always be safe.
“After the bear incident in Alaska,” Ava asked when they came up for air after a few minutes, “did you ever get another dog?”
“Never did.” Kellen traced the veins on the backs of Ava’s hands. “Got involved in the gold mine, and…it’s hard to replace a best friend.”
Ava thought he might mean more than just the dog with that statement, so she decided it was time to break the news to him about Ford.
“Well, I’ll be jiggered.” Kellen rested his head against the back of the couch. “I knew he went a little off when Natalie died and he took up with that heinous Billows woman, but I didn’t think he’d gone that far off the rails.” He ran a hand through his hair. It stuck up in odd places and looked better than Ava had ever seen it look. The tips were all golden, and she noticed for the first time tonight that the bridge of his nose had a bit of sunburn too. “It’s sad, you know. Really sad. What with his obsession with Natalie and her untimely loss, he just wasn’t ever the same.” Kellen made the rivalry sound really low-key, at least on his own side. Pity filled her for Riccardo and how he let his envy control him.
There was a rattling in the lock, and Ava slid off Kellen’s lap and sat more appropriately to the side of him as Zoe came in the door.
“Ava! Oh, darling. You have to forgive me for bursting in on your moment here.” She swooped toward Ava and gathered her in her arms. “Hello, Kellen. I’m sorry, but I have to take possession of her for a few minutes.”
“That’s fine. I’d better be going.” Kellen got up and brushed himself off, smoothing his hair back down. A shame. “I’ve got work in the morning. But I’ll call you. We’ll go to dinner, my love.”
Ava stared up at him and nodded. He called her “my love.” And what exactly did the words “my love” imply? It could be anything from a vocal crutch of an insincere guy who liked to keep a girl on the knife’s edge wondering to a declaration of intent. He might propose or he might never call her again. She just didn’t know. There’d been that time when he’d set up dinner and then not called for two weeks. He kept her in suspense. And everyone knows there’s no agony so exquisite as the pain of suspense.
“Goodbye, Kellen.”
* * *
Ava and Zoe put the furniture back in order while Zoe gushed.
“Oh, Ava! I have been the worst friend. You have to, absolutely have to forgive me.” Real tears pooled in Zoe’s eyes, and Ava grabbed a box of tissues. “You look so fresh without your makeup on, by the way. It’s nice. I think the blonde hair brings out the pink tones in your cheeks. You’re very pretty. And forgive me for never saying so before.”
Contrition filled Zoe’s face. “I’ve been a bad friend. I’ve given you cast off clothes and half-hearted compliments for years. I can see that now. I don’t know why it took seeing you with Kellen McMullen for me to realize it. I’m so sorry. He’s a great guy, and seeing how desperately he’s in love with you, I guess it made me suddenly realize just how much worth you really have and how much you’ve been there for me all these years while I’ve been the one hogging the spotlight and standing on your shoulders.” Zoe frowned and sniffled, taking a second Kleenex. “Truthfully it made me insanely jealous at first. Like, I should be the one Kellen likes. But then when my stupidity almost detonated our friendship, I got a wakeup call.”
They sat down together on the couch, now that it was back in place. Ava didn’t really know what to say to any of this. A lot of it seemed at least partially true, and yet painful for Ava to even admit to herself—that she was the ugly friend next to which the pretty girl could shine. And then when the ugly girl got shiny, the pretty girl couldn’t take it. Classic cliché female relationship stuff.
But that wasn’t Zoe, really. Ava couldn’t let her friend hang herself on that gallows.
“Come on, Zoe. You haven’t been a bad friend. You were kind. You called me, included me in your exciting life, sent me great clothes.” Ava knew this sounded shallow, and maybe it was. But it was better than nothing. “And the truth is, you’re the best friend I ever had.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “Oh, that just makes it even worse,” she moaned. “All these years I could have been a good friend, and I was patently not. But starting this very moment, I intend to make up for it. No more of my pettiness. I’m through with all of that.” She sat up straighter, as with the strength of resolve. “You’ve always been my superior. I’m not going to lie. And maybe there was a little seed of jealousy all along that just got some kind of Miracle Gro treatment when Kellen stepped into the picture. He’s really something, and I’m happy as can be for you.”
Ava shrugged. “I agree. He’s amazing. Every single girl on earth should rightly have a crush on him. And he’s been so nice to me while we’ve had this art exhibit thing going on. His attention is really flattering.”
A scoff exploded from Zoe. “Flattering. The guy’s a blistering mess around you. He’s a goner—hook, line, and sinker. You and your feminine wiles caught him good.”
“What? I had no intention of catching him.” Seriously, Ava did not. Sure, she treated him with the femininity she was practicing for everyday life, but at every turn she’d given Kellen reason to think she found him nothing but a tease.
“Duh! That’s exactly why it worked. Good job. Made him think it was all his idea.”
“It was his idea.” Er, wait. “If it was an idea. If it was or is anything, which I am not convinced it is.” Ava, flustered, got to her feet and walked her bare feet across the cool wood planks of the floor. Briefly she wondered if Mrs. Chowder was listening in on this conversation and cackling. She too had insisted Kellen’s behavior toward Ava was serious. But these women didn’t know Kellen like Ava did.
“Come on. He took you in his plane.”
“Yeah. So? He probably takes all his one-week girlfriends in his plane.”
Zoe shrugged in concession. Tabloids confirmed that. Score one point for Ava.
“Fine, but you’re not a one-week girlfriend. It’s been almost a month.”
“Not quite.” Ava sighed. “And a month? It’s not very long. Can a person really fall in love or know enough about a person in a month to know that he or she is a good fit? I mean, I know I’m incessantly guilty of workplace crushes and have spent many an hour letting my imagination go walking right down the aisle to the tune of ‘Here Comes the Bride’ with far too many guys I later realized needed serious therapy, but really? A month?”
Zoe got quiet and dipped her chin. A long pause ensued, during which realization dawned on Ava.
“Wait a minute. Does your silence mean you think a month is enough? Or, wait? Less than a month?” Ava reached out and gripped Zoe’s knee. Zoe’s head popped up, and her eyes glistened.
“Do you believe in love at first sight, Ava? I mean, just meeting a person and knowing there was a connection almost immediately?” Her voice trembled.
Of course Ava believed in that. But she also believed that sometimes those instant feelings of connection were a bum steer thrown at the mind by the chemical makeup of the rest of the body. They weren’t to be trusted long term.
“Have you met someone?” Ava found herself hugging the throw pillow again. “And is he worth your time?”
“If I
hadn’t come to Phoenix for this story, I don’t know how I ever would have met Clancy. It was like the painting cosmically needed to be stolen so our paths would cross. Otherwise…oh, I’d hate to think of what ‘otherwise’ would mean.”
“Clancy. Isn’t he the anchorman for the local Fox TV station? The one with the red hair and the strong jaw line?”
“You’ve noticed the jaw line too? It’s just … I love that jaw line. And I don’t even mind that he has freckles. They look right with his complexion, you know?”
“So you’re attracted to him. And have you actually talked to him yet?” Ava tamped down the skepticism in her voice. After all, she was the one who had only known Kellen a month and was considering all kinds of scenarios with him. And she’d only known Riccardo Ford less than a week when she’d allowed mental flights of fancy nearly throw her into his criminal arms.
Zoe leaned her head back, and her voice got dreamy. “He’s brilliant. I mean, I think a lot of news anchors, self included, will let the staff write some of the news stories and then we just report what’s sliding across the teleprompter. But not Clancy. He’s a digger. He does all his own investigations, writes all his own stuff. And he worked his way up from camera work and the editing room to where he’s at now. He’s a self-made man. I like that.”
So did Ava. A self-made man. Maybe that was what she found most attractive about Kellen. He’d worked his way to his success by pushing a wheelbarrow full of rocks. “Where did you meet him?”
Zoe launched into a full-detail rendition of their meeting at the stinky cloakroom in the Phoenix Metropolitan Museum of Art covering the story, to their lunches and dinners and conversations, and their co-authoring of a breaking news story about the arrest of Agent Ford that she’d just come off the writing of with Clancy.
“He wakes my mind up, you know? Like I’ve been half-asleep for the past ten years, and he’s just like a deep inhalation of peppermint oil that makes my eyes fling open and my brain move faster. He’s, like, my life caffeine.” Zoe hugged her own throw pillow and got a little swoony when she went on describing Clancy’s myriad perfections. “But I’m completely bereft.”
“Why? Has he not asked you to dinner for tomorrow night? It’s your last night in town.”
“That’s just it. I don’t want it to be my last night in town.” Zoe sat up. “I could just stay.”
“What?” In all her years as a bystander watching Zoe’s career, Ava had never seen Zoe make the slightest implication that she’d choose a man over her job. “What about Channel 4?”
“Look, Ava. I know it’s been less than a year of dating. Less than a month, even.”
“Less than a week, Zoe. And has it been dating?” Technically, it sounded like a couple of dinners and not even a holding of hands.
“It’s been different from dating. It’s been a connection. I’ve felt closer to Clancy in three or four days than I’ve felt with any man in a decade.”
“Closer even than with Drew?” Ava hated to pull out the big guns by mentioning Drew’s name, but she had to gauge how far this went. “You two dated for over a year. You considered marriage. Your mother was looking at getting paper napkins engraved with your names on them for the wedding reception and the caption ‘Today I Marry My Friend’ with little Precious Moments kids drawn on them.” Maybe Ava was taking them too far down memory lane.
“To be honest, and this is not rose-colored glasses here, I feel ten times closer to Clancy in just a few short days than in all that time with Drew.”
Ava sat back, and air whooshed out of her lungs.
“Then you’d better quit Channel 4, move to Phoenix and see where this goes.”
Zoe squealed and pounced on Ava in a huge hug.
“Oh! Thank you, Ava. You’re amazing! You get it! You totally understand. I needed someone’s permission to do this crazy thing. Thank you. Thank you!” She bounced the hug up and down and then went to her phone to call Clancy.
Ava fell exhausted into bed, but just as she was drifting, Zoe popped her head in.
“You can’t fool me, Ava. You like him.”
“What?”
“Years have gone by where you haven’t painted a single brush stroke, and tonight, you slap up an entire mural the size of a Bierstadt of your special spot of togetherness?”
“Huh? Bierstadt? I thought you didn’t know anything about art. I thought you didn’t like it.”
“Everybody likes Bierstadt. Come on, Ava. He’s totally got ownership of your heart.”
That was exactly what Ava was afraid of most. She buried her face in her pillow and prayed she wouldn’t get hurt.
Chapter 18
Ava dressed in a striped sailor top with a bright red pencil skirt with gold buttons in two lines down the front. She tied a gold lamé scarf in her hair and wore her brightest lipstick. She hoped the cheery ensemble offset the exhaustion she knew must show in the lines on her face. Well, amongst the sunburn, of course. The sailor top served another purpose—it was breezy fabric that didn’t chafe.
“You look dressed to kill, Ava. Did I really send you that? I don’t remember picking that up.” Zoe still had curlers in her hair and mascara on just one eye when Ava perched on the doorstep to leave, carrying a platter of slices of pumpkin roll—and an extra plate designated for Mrs. Chowder. Mrs. Chowder deserved baked goods every morning for a year for what she’d done for Ava. “The apartment smells like nutmeg and cloves. Heavenly.” Zoe hummed.
“I left you a couple of slices on the counter. I hope you like pumpkin roll.”
“I’ll take it for our breakfast. I’m meeting Clancy downtown at his studio.” Zoe had lain out an ultra-feminine dress on the back of the sofa to change into after her morning hair and makeup routine. The gauzy fabric and the frills were exactly what How to Snare a Modern Man recommended. Zoe would be fine.
“Did I tell you he’s ready for children right away? And he’d like eight?”
“Your mother will be overjoyed.”
Downtown, Ava stepped onto the terrazzo flooring, her sky high red heels clicking an echo that bounced against all the glass walls and off the high ceilings. The security guard gave her a broad smile as she offered him a slice of her morning’s efforts.
“Ava, you sparkle like the sun on the water this morning,” he said, his mouth full of pumpkin sponge cake and cream cheese filling.
“Why, thank you, Dave. Seeing your smile makes me happy.” She flashed a smile at him. It felt good. Smiling felt good. This whole new Ava she’d created felt good—come what may with Kellen McMullen. She couldn’t mind the loss of Enzio the government mole, or even the slightly sadder loss of Rick Ford. Neither of them would have even given anything more than a dismissive glance in her general direction if she hadn’t forced herself to make these drastic changes in her appearance, her posture and her demeanor. People like smiles. Ava liked smiles. Giving smiles and sharing warmth—it was a good thing.
And as her heels clicked toward the elevator she was happy.
But someone else wasn’t.
Harmony Billows sniffled at her desk. Her hair was unkempt. She wore all black, something Harmony never did. It almost looked like widow’s weeds, but maybe a little too much shoulder showing for that. She couldn’t change her feathers that fast.
“Are you all right, Harmony?” Ava offered her a slice of pumpkin roll and a napkin. “It’s been a really rough few days.”
A soft wail burst from Harmony’s pouting lips. “I trusted him. I really trusted him.”
Ava patted Harmony’s shoulder. “I think we all did.” Not Mrs. Chowder, of course, but she’d known Agent Ford on a different level than they had. “Here. Have a second.”
Harmony stared at the pumpkin roll. “I love this stuff. I didn’t know you could make it at home. I thought it was something you could only buy in the refrigerator section at the grocery store.”
“I can teach you how, if you like.”
Harmony cocked her head. “I don’t get it
. How can you be nice to me? I was so jealous of you and said bitter things. And before that, I was just plain mean. Are you setting me up?”
Ava shook her head no, and a puff of a laugh came through her nose. “Hardly. Look, you should know Agent Ford was never interested in me. It was all some kind of vendetta he had against an old rival. I was a pawn.”
A bit of comfort dawned in Harmony’s face for the first time, and she responded, speaking fast. “I swear, I had no idea he’d gone crooked.” She took a tissue from Ava’s outstretched hand and dabbed at the now runny mascara. “Thank you, then. And for what it’s worth, I am very sorry.” Harmony actually sounded very sorry. A warm shot of love went through Ava’s heart.
“Maybe on Saturday? I’m probably making good, old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies.”
“You can make those from scratch too? Who knew!”
Before Ava could get to her desk, an intern intercepted her, and after taking a big bite of her treat and getting powdered sugar on his navy sport coat, told her Mr. Phelps was looking for her.
“Young.” Mr. Phelps didn’t look up from his computer screen when she entered. “You’ve been gone from the office during much of the investigation.” He cleared his throat, almost accusing her. But then he looked up at her proffered plate of treats and softened. “Pumpkin roll? My mother used to make this for my birthday cake. I haven’t had it in years.” He helped himself to one and savored the first bite. “Right. You’ve been gone. However, I know you took your leaves of absence at my request. I also have heard from authorities that your efforts were the key to locking up the evidence they needed to both nail the crook and recover the painting.”
“It’s been recovered, then?” Hope sprang in her heart. They hadn’t lost Niagara after all!
Mr. Phelps described the retrieval of the painting from the dry cleaners. “It hasn’t been damaged, and all is well between us and the Glastonbury.”
“But, sir. The Glastonbury—”
“Yes, the ever onerous Dwight Huggins has been deposed as that museum’s curator. Their board of directors will name a replacement later. For now, Huggins is in custody awaiting arraignment and then trial.” Mr. Phelps gestured that he’d like another slice of the spicy cake. “Thank you. So, please, don’t leave town. You’ll have to plan to be a witness in the trials.”
The Lost Art: A Romantic Comedy Page 22
