Blogger Bundle Volume VI: SB Sarah Selects Books That Rock Her Socks

by Kathleen O'Reilly

  And that was only above the shoulders—and what shoulders they were. In Catherine’s profession she saw nude men by the crateload, and she knew sculpted shoulders when she saw them. The hard plane of the trapezium sloped down to a marvelously projected deltoid. His forearms were balanced on his knees, showing off rounded biceps and triceps, not in the wimpy expressionistic manner, but crafted in the more vivid Hellenistic style. Stalwart, capable and brutally real.

  With busy eyes, she studied all of him, tracing over the sinews and the tendons that visibly flared when he moved.

  Her hands flexed, aching to study, and even more daring, to touch. Eventually, she was unable to resist any longer, and she pulled out her sketch pad and pencil, and her fingers flew, guided by equal parts artistic endeavor and lust.

  As his shape began to reveal itself on the paper, she knew she was wrong. Gods were unmarred perfection. No flaws, no scars, all-powerful, all-seeing. This man wasn’t a god, but a mortal, complete with the scars that sprang from humanity.

  This man was Odysseus, searching for home so far across the sea. Feverishly she sketched in the face, drawing from perfect memory now. The forehead cast a shadow over the rest of his features, sadness inherent in his brow. She left the eyes for last because she couldn’t imagine the loneliness that echoed there, desperate to see his family, the broad, capable arms so uselessly empty.

  Her quick fingers sketched out his body, a warrior’s body, but with him sitting in the deck chair, the anterior view of his chest—along with the complete view of his lower torso—was obstructed. Conventional wisdom said that she needed two yards between her and the subject. In this situation—solitary woman ogling strange man—two yards was too close, but she could do better than her current spot behind the windows. Quietly, she opened the French doors that led out to the wooden deck, careful so that he wouldn’t hear and be disturbed.

  The deck was small by Southampton standards. Four wooden Adirondack chairs, a green-and-white striped umbrella that shaded most of the area and a few plants scattered here and there. The plants had to be replaced on a regular basis because although there were many talents in the Montefiore family, a green thumb was not among them.

  After settling herself under the umbrella and adjusting the chair to the locked and upright position, Catherine picked up her pad and pencil and stared out toward the western horizon. It was the innocent picture of a woman sketching the sun over the ocean—not a woman fantasizing about the man that was parked on her beach. Catherine tilted her head a mere twenty degrees westward, achieving the perfect view.

  Her sigh was louder than she intended, but really, it couldn’t be helped. His chest was powerful and broad, a sheltering bulkhead in any storm, delineated down the long axis by rippling abdominal muscles. His skin nearly bronze in the sun. Dark chest hair formed a narrow line down the sternum, leading to…Catherine smiled to herself. There was art, and then there was man art.

  Guiltily, Catherine wiped away the drop of damning saliva that had dripped onto the sketch.

  Catherine was nothing if not a product of her environment—her work environment, actually. Her grandfather was Charles Montefiore, owner of Montefiore Auction House, one of the nation’s premier art and antiquities auction houses, thank you very much, and Catherine had worked her way up through the trenches. Starting as an assistant appraiser, then appraiser, and now she was an assistant to her grandfather on special projects, mainly high-profile auctions.

  Not that she coasted on the family name, no way. Catherine had graduated with honors from Columbia with an undergrad and masters in art, yet in many ways she knew she was the disappointment in the family. She didn’t have her mother’s style, or her grandfather’s showmanship. Catherine had attended Manhattan’s most elite private school, summered in Europe, but a classical education didn’t solve personality defects. Her mother called her an introvert; Catherine preferred the more elegant “reclusive artist,” but technically both of them were right.

  She studied the sketch in her hand with a critical eye. As an artist, it was the male form that captured her imagination. The power behind it, the strength of it, but unfortunately, most of the men she worked with were either gay or nearing retirement. Her exposure to rages of testosterone was limited to two-dimensional figures, flat and lifeless, and she liked the safety of the one-way relationship where she was in complete control. In the past eight years, she’d had two relationships in the accepted sense of the word. The one with Leon, which had sadly fizzled into abject nothingness because he was, well…blah, and the relationship with Antonio, which ended when he realized he was a woman trapped in a man’s body.

  After the Antonio fiasco, Catherine was faced with a choice. To be aggressive and search out single men in their natural habitat—bars—or resign herself to days spent appraising the male torso and nights spent dreaming about it. Catherine had wisely stuck with two-dimensional men on a sketch pad, or a canvas. It was easier on her ego.

  While she was busy on her sketch, a bikinied blonde approached him. Catherine frowned because Odysseus should not be bothered by the obviously fake melons that were bobbing in front of his face. Thankfully, his expression didn’t change when tempted by this modern-day Nausicaa, and the loneliness in his eyes stayed constant.

  Classical baroque art would have been altered forever if some Hamptons Hussy had turned Odysseus into Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky Melon-Grabber.

  No, Odysseus was worthy of so much more.

  The blonde, not appreciating the rare masterpiece on the sand, waved blithely and then flitted away. Eagerly, Catherine went back to her work, shading, erasing, sketching, correcting, until, at last, the piece was finished.

  For a moment she was caught breathless by the image on the paper. It was good. Really good. A smile curved her lips because it wasn’t something that she thought often. Even Grandpa would be proud of her for this one. Her sketches were a sideline brought on by too much exposure to great art, and too little talent to do anything serious with it. When you dealt with Van Gogh on a daily basis, Catherine’s pictures of the male form resembled a kindergartener’s. A talented kindergartener, but still—a kindergartner.

  But not this sketch. This sketch was special. She had captured the solitariness of him, the weariness juxtaposed against the noble bearing. The more she looked at the man—the live man, not the two-dimensional likeness—the more she wondered about him. She’d never seen one human being stay so still for so long, a master of self-control. People in New York never looked lonely. It was, like, a cardinal rule of the city. How could you be alone with eight million other people? Yet Catherine knew it was possible. Maybe that was why the man intrigued her so. Maybe…

  Unfortunately, if she kept this up, she was going to get caught, so she stashed her sketchbook away, pushed on her sunglasses and stretched her legs out in front of her. Finally, he moved, rising to his feet, and she drew in her breath. She was still smiling to herself when he turned around, and quickly her smile disappeared in case he mistook it for an invitation. Catherine wasn’t built like the bikinied, sun-streaked blonde. She was a tall dishwater blond, fifteen pounds overweight on a good day, and she didn’t even want to talk about the bad days. She only bought one-piece bathing suits that minimized her butt, which was where most of her weight settled when she overindulged in cupcakes—something she often did on her bad days.

  He looked at her, his eyes skimming over her, not sexually, but automatically, taking in the details of his surroundings of which she was a part. She fought the urge to cover herself. Better to ignore him, as if he were a painting on the wall and nothing more. He paused, and she could sense the indecision, but then he walked forward—toward her.

  As he moved closer, Catherine glanced down, making sure her sketchbook was lying innocently closed on the ground. Check. No reason to be nervous at all.

  He approached her, bare feet sinking in the sand, and sadly she realized that even his feet were glorious. She’d never sketched a foot in detail before,
but now she thought she might.

  “I hope I’m not intruding,” he said, and she shook her head as if he had hadn’t intruded on her brain since she’d first caught sight of him.

  “You’re welcome to sit as long as you want.”

  When he was this close, she could see his eyes. A dark, rain-fogged gray. His gaze was detached, not in a cold way, but empty and lifeless like the people captured in paintings by Piero.

  “I thought this place was empty, and next door’s been a nuthouse,” he told her, automatically endearing him to her because in her mind she knew next door was a nuthouse. Loud, laughing, filled with happy, beautiful people who splashed away in the pool. Yeah, right. When you worked in art, you learned that anything could be forged.

  “Please, don’t apologize.” She spoke graciously, adapting the lady-of-the-manor poise of her mother. “It’s not necessary. Stay.”

  Restlessly, he shifted on his feet, so staying didn’t seem to be in the cards. She knew the stance. She’d done it often enough. The man was itching to leave her company, but he waited, as if he knew he was only three words shy of being polite. Again, all familiar territory for Catherine. “I’m Daniel,” he said finally.

  “Catherine.” She lifted her hand to shade her eyes from the sun, which was totally a great idea because when she blocked out the glare, and the shadows fell across his face, he seemed more alive. And she could see the neat symmetry in his facial structure.

  Oh, yeah, she was going to draw him. Capture the tiny dip in his chin, capture the stubble that dotted his jaw. Oh, yeah.

  “Thank you, Catherine.”

  “My pleasure,” she answered, because it was.

  All polite obligations now out of the way, Daniel went back to his chair, and there he sat for several more hours until the sun set for the day.

  Catherine stayed in the lounge, sipping on tea and pretending to doze, and not once did he go into the water.

  2

  THAT NEXT MORNING, after a mere three hours’ sleep, Daniel rose, rubbing tired eyes. He’d forgotten the infinite joys of a summer share. The long hours of drinking, the bed-hopping, the endless unfunny jokes. In search of peace and quiet, he’d first tried sleeping on the lounge outside, but when Chelsea and Bill went skinny-dipping in the wee hours of the night, Daniel gave up, creeping over to Catherine’s deck before finally settling into a deep sleep in one of the chairs.

  Sean was going to owe him for this, and Daniel occupied those first waking thoughts creating endless painful punishments for his brother, almost all involving testicles being squeezed into a vise. Only two more days, he reminded himself, rubbing at the empty spot on his ring finger. Still that didn’t stop the nightmares about losing it. With an empty ring finger, the hole inside him seemed impossibly bigger. Some things just weren’t meant to be left behind.

  After a long stretch, he walked back to the nuthouse and was safely on one of the summer share’s loungers when Catherine emerged on her deck. She waved, he waved, and they ignored each other for most of the morning until some dipwad got the bright idea of tapping a keg on the sand, which he couldn’t even do right. Daniel chose not to educate him on the finer talents of keg-tapping. That was long ago and far away. Instead he fled back to Catherine’s beach, praying she wouldn’t mind.

  It took her an hour to approach. “You’re having problems next door, aren’t you?” she asked, collapsing down into the sand next to him.

  Daniel laughed with little humor. “Yeah. I’d love to go home if I could, but the lawyers would report back to my brothers and I’d just have to do it again another weekend.”

  “The lawyers?” she asked, taking off her sunglasses.

  “My brother’s firm. Long story. You don’t want to hear it.”

  She looked at him, looked out at the water, then looked next door. Eventually, she stared at him again, frowning. “Why are you here?”

  “Not by choice.”

  “I can see that,” she said, so quietly he almost didn’t hear.

  That was what he liked about her. Her quiet. Everything about her was designed to escape notice. Her swimsuit was nearly identical to the sensible one-piece she wore yesterday. Built for swimming, not for looks. Her blond hair was long and unstyled, falling past her shoulders. He didn’t think she was wearing makeup, but Daniel was no expert.

  Although he really liked her eyes. Without her sunglasses he could see that she had nice eyes. Big, brown eyes that watched him steadily…until he met her eyes, and then she blinked, looking away, a pale flush rising up her cheeks. Next door, one of the lawyers—Samuel?—chased a woman down the beach, until she turned and let him catch her.

  Why did everyone have to be so damned loud? Daniel shook his head. He noticed Catherine watching the people next door. “You want to go over there?”

  Quickly, she shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m comfortable here. What about you?”

  “I’m happier from a distance. This way I get to study people.”

  “Ah, a zoologist,” she said, her lips curving up for a moment.

  “People are fairly easy to peg.”

  “Really?” she asked skeptically, pulling her legs up underneath her and digging her toes into the sand.

  “Oh, yeah,” he answered, as if he were the world’s foremost expert at psychology. Gabe would have laughed his ass off, but okay, Gabe wasn’t here.

  “So tell me about the man in the blue swim trunks.”

  Daniel thought for a second. He didn’t know these people well, but he knew the types by heart. “Anthony. He’s a clown, goof-off, doesn’t take anything seriously.”

  “What about the pale guy, the one who’s going to be hurting from the sunburn tomorrow?”

  “Bill. I think. William. Bill. Billy. Something. He’s a little weird. Drinks too much. Works too hard.”

  “What about the girl with the dark hair under his arm?”

  “Her name’s Chelsea, ambitious, but does things with no half measures.”

  “So why is Chelsea, who does things with no half measures, wasting time with weird Bill, when she really wants Anthony?”

  “No way,” he said, but then he glanced over at Chelsea and realized that Catherine was right. Chelsea might be spending her nights skinny-dipping with Bill, but when Bill wasn’t looking, her eyes were glued to Anthony. That didn’t even make sense. “Okay, assuming that you’re right—possibly. Then why’s she wasting her time with Bill?”

  Catherine moved her head, and her hair fell across her shoulder, following the blue fabric of her bathing suit, stroking along the curve of her breast. Daniel immediately looked back at Chelsea and Bill.

  “She doesn’t want to be alone, and she doesn’t think Anthony will like her enough. Most people will latch onto anything rather than learn how to be by themselves.”

  “I didn’t think that could be taught.” He’d spent the last seven years alone and didn’t have too many problems with it.

  “I think so. It’s a good thing to be comfortable with yourself, knowing what you’re capable of, and what you’re not. You don’t have to waste so much time faking your way through life. Sometimes faking is worth the effort, but most of the time it’s not.”

  The quiet voice of reason. Daniel liked her even more. “You do this for a living?”

  “No, not even close,” she said, laughing.

  “So how come you know so much?” he asked, because she had noticed details he missed. Coming from an accountant, that was just sad.

  “Like you said, people are easy to peg.”

  He looked at her again, checking for the details he might have missed. She surprised him, but in a good way. It wasn’t that he was antisocial, it was mostly that everyone he met was chock-full of filler conversations that contributed absolutely nothing to anything—or so he thought. Yet here he was, having a filler conversation that contributed absolutely nothing to anything…or did it?

  Catherine’s theory explained a lot. Why Warren in the office took off every Thursd
ay for drinks after work with Thom, when he couldn’t stand the guy. Why Kim went to lunch with Madeline on Fridays, which was about the stupidest thing ever, since Madeline had taken Kim’s job as operations manager. How hard was it to eat alone?

  “You have needy friends like that, too?” he asked curiously.

  “One friend who keeps seeing her ex, who makes her miserable.” She leaned forward, her hair brushing over her shoulder again, down her breast. This time Daniel looked for a long minute before glancing away.

  “Maybe she loves him,” he said, his voice rough. The heat was getting to him, making him light-headed, his skin hot.

  She slipped up her sunglasses, her feet digging under the sand until they were completely covered. “She doesn’t love him. She doesn’t even like him.”

  “People are strange,” he said, looking away from her, focusing on the waves until his brain righted itself.

  “Got that right,” she agreed.

  Their conversation drifted on from there, moving from one nothing topic to another, but he definitely liked this. As they talked, the sun shifted in the sky. Daniel leaned back in the chair, relishing the warmth of the rays that reflected off the water. All in all, it was definitely good. Definitely.

  Eventually the conversation dwindled, and the silence fell, perfectly balanced to the soothing ebb and flow of the white-capped sea.

  Catherine watched the waves lap up onto the beach, and then cleared her throat. “You’re welcome to sleep here if you’d like.”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in and Daniel’s brows shot up at the invitation, in shock, and more than a little fear. She couldn’t have noticed. When it came to hiding things, Daniel was an expert.

  Then Catherine glanced in his direction, caught his deer-in-the-headlights look and laughed, a gurgling hiccup of noise.

  “Not that way,” she told him. “We have a bunch of rooms, and I don’t play volleyball, or much else. Your brothers would never have to know.”