by Isabel North
Take a chance. A leap of faith. She could do that. She’d done it before, hadn’t she? Quit the ER, quit the wrong relationship, quit the city.
Huh.
Elle stared at the search engine window she’d opened on her laptop, cursor blinking. Her third coffee of the morning steamed on the kitchen table at her elbow. That was a whole lot less I choose life! and a whole lot more I quit! than she’d thought.
And she’d planned it all. Slowly. At least three months trying to find the right way to tell Chris it was over—and in the end, she’d gone with, It’s over. Six months researching the job market before she’d sent out a load of résumés and applications in one go.
Thinking about it this way didn’t sound like much of a leap of faith. Sounded like a trudge of faith. A plod.
Yesterday a beautiful artist had told her she was his muse and had been since they were teenagers. He’d seduced her on his dinner table, made love to her repeatedly in his bed, his bathroom, on his couch, bed again, and as a big finale he’d revealed that the passionate sculpture she’d inspired was him on his knees in worship.
Somehow, jumping in her Prius to drive over, knock on his front door and say, Hey, sorry I insulted your masterpiece, called you a porn sculptor, and said you were pantsing me in front of the world, how about another date? didn’t feel like it was going to cut it. It was practical, but…
Fuck practical.
She was going to be romantic.
Elle reached out and typed the words Alex Zacharov, impotent, and Stephanie into the search engine. She hit enter.
The article wasn’t horrible the way she’d expected. Instead of a vicious attack on Alex and his art, she read it as a melancholic meditation on an artist losing his way. Sure, it was a bit cruel to call him a creatively impotent monk, but the tone of the words sounded, to her at least, more of a call to arms. A challenge to him to look up to the stars and plot a new course, rather than lie down and accept the darkness.
Damn. She took a sip of coffee. That was poetic. Did she have some artistic sensibility in her after all? Elle zoomed in on the article’s lead picture, a black-and-white of Alex standing by a complex piece of towering art. She contemplated it. Nope. No clue. Her artistic sensibilities were as stunted as ever.
She felt herself begin to smile as she took in Alex’s familiar angry scowl. He was in jeans and a Henley, sleeves pushed up over his forearms. His hair looked like he’d been out in a high wind, and his straight brows were low over his eyes, burning with impatience. Big shoulders braced, arms crossed, chin up. Elle sighed, attention shifting between his compelling face and the weird sculpture that was, according to everyone, breathtaking and brilliant. She didn’t get his work. She didn’t entirely get him, either. But none of that was important. As Jenny said, only the one thing mattered.
After some more poking about, more perving on the hot photos of Alex she found online—she was going to have to start a Pinterest board and never tell him about it—she tracked down Stephanie’s email address.
She was going to do it. A great big romantic, unpractical gesture that would leave Alex in no doubt whatsoever about her feelings. She wasn’t going to wait for Stephanie to expose her as his muse. She was going to expose herself. All she had to do was write the email, hope she didn’t come across as a deluded fan/stalker, and hope Stephanie checked her spam folder more than once a month.
Ten drafts down the line, she’d come up with something that, okay, made her sound a complete dork, but a sincere and non-threatening dork worth a few minutes of Stephanie’s time rather than a swift click to the trash. It had taken her so long that Jenny and Katie were up, had eaten breakfast, and were now coloring at the table, chattering away. Elle had moved her laptop to the countertop to give them room, and she stood in the sunshine, hand poised over the keyboard. Send it.
Hit enter.
Take a chance.
Someone banged on the front door.
“I’ll get it,” Jenny said.
“I’ve got it,” Elle said at the same time, running for the door.
Gabe Sterling filled the doorway.
Elle took an uneasy step back. This wasn’t the cheerful, joking guy she’d met yesterday. His mouth was tight and his eyes were obscured behind a pair of mirrored aviators. “Hi,” she said and hoped he couldn’t hear her nervousness.
“Hi.” That was it. No smile. Nothing. Slowly, he unhooked the aviators and tucked them in the front of his T-shirt. “Move. I’m coming in.”
Elle stared up at him, then swung the door shut in his face.
Before it latched, he shouldered it open, grabbed her by the hips to steer her out of his way, and barged past.
“Hey!”
“Where’s the kitchen?” Gabe didn’t wait for her to answer, just headed off.
“I didn’t invite you in!” Elle jogged after him.
Jenny and Katie wore identical expressions, both staring up at Gabe with his fauxhawk and bright tattoos, their crayons poised in the air.
Katie seemed particularly fascinated. “Are you a dragon, too?” she asked, breaking the silence.
Gabe didn’t miss a beat. He pushed up the sleeve of his shirt and pointed at one of the tattoos on his bicep. “Eagle.”
“Derek’s a dragon.”
“Uh-huh. What about you, kid? You got ink?”
“I’m four!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were Elle’s sister.”
Katie wriggled in her chair, delighted, but said in a severe tone, “I’m her niece.”
“You must be the sister,” he said to Jenny and smiled. “I’m Gabe.”
Jenny turned beet red.
Elle was starting to get the impression that all the tattoos squick me out protests were a cover for tattoos turn me on.
“Jenny Finley,” she choked out, directing her eyes to the table and gathering up their crayons. “I’m the sister. Who’s leaving. Now. Come on, Katie.” She scooted Katie out of the room ahead of her, giving Gabe a wide berth. She paused at the doorway and mouthed at Elle, once she was out of Gabe’s sight-line, Oh my God.
“I can see your reflection in the window,” Gabe said.
Jenny whisked out.
“You Finley girls sure can run fast. She’s cute.”
“She’s taken.”
“The dragon?”
“He’s working on it.”
“Maybe I’ll work on it.”
“Maybe you’ll leave my sister alone and explain yourself instead.”
“You first.” He kicked out a chair and sat down. He picked up a crayon Jenny had missed and started flipping it over and over.
“I’m not the one who just perpetrated a home invasion,” Elle said, “so I’m not exactly clear on what it is you think I need to explain. To you. A guy I met twenty-four hours ago. I don’t think you know me well enough to be demanding explanations. Or anything at all.”
“Weird. Because I feel like I know you really well.”
He was talking about the sculptures. “It isn’t me! Muse, not life model!”
“My mistake. Thought it was you. Thought that’s why you got your panties in a twist and decided it was okay to go ahead and gut Alex.” He drummed the crayon on the table.
Gut him?
Elle was used to confrontation. After years in the ER, she’d had all sorts of people come at her. Hell, one old lady had once had tried to poke her eye out with a syringe, screaming Elle was the devil’s whore (very original). She should be more than capable of handling attitude from this guy. Her spine stiffened. She was capable. Her eyes went to the drumming crayon. “Can you stop that?”
He didn’t, so she reached out, snatched the crayon off him, and placed it flat on the table between them.
Gabe leaned back in his chair, nostrils flaring. His gaze flickered around the room then settled. He eyed the coffee pot, looked meaningfully from it to Elle and back again.
Not a chance. “I’m not giving you coffee,” she told him. “Although
I don’t mind making you a chamomile tea.”
Gabe grimaced, then locked onto the abandoned cup standing next to her laptop. He pushed to his feet and strode over.
“Eww, don’t—” she began, but instead of going for the coffee as she expected, he tipped back the laptop screen, scanning it.
“Huh,” he said.
“That’s private!”
“Nothing’s private, honey,” he said, and hit enter.
He’d sent her email. “I cannot believe you did that!”
“Sure you can.”
“You ruined my big romantic gesture. The only big romantic gesture I’ve ever made in my life.”
“You hadn’t made it yet. You were dithering.”
“I wasn’t dithering. How could you possibly know that?”
“Time-stamps on the draft.” Gabe leaned over and propped his elbows on the countertop, computer trapped between them like a mouse between the paws of a playful cat. His shirt stretched tight over his back and his jeans stretched tight over his—
Do not look at his ass.
Elle looked, and tilted her head a fraction.
“I can see your reflection in the screen,” he said.
So she could appreciate an amazing ass in worn denim. She was allowed to. She was a woman, she had hormones, it was normal. “Do you check yourself in every shiny surface?”
“I like shiny things.” Gabe’s fingers danced over the keyboard in a rattle of rapid-fire strokes. The screen showed scrolling code for an instant, then it flickered back to the usual display.
“Wait,” she said. “What did you just do?”
Gabe turned to lean against the countertop, long legs crossed at the ankles in front of him. He gave her a slow smile.
“What did you just do to my computer?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything. I’m terrible with computers. If I had to guess, I’d say it was an automatic update installing. Nothing to worry about.” He strolled over to the chair and sat down. “Tell me about the romantic gesture.”
“No. Again, private.”
“Again, nothing’s private.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “My head is private. My feelings are private.”
“Hmm.”
“What are you even doing here, Gabe?” He glanced at the coffee pot again, and she said with exasperation, “No.”
He sighed. “Came to tell you to get over yourself.”
“You are aware that this is none of your business. Right?”
“It absolutely is my business. Alex is one of the very, very few things in the world important to me, and I had to sit by and watch him fade, Elle. For a year. Everything he’s done for me, and when it was my turn, I couldn’t save him. Couldn’t do a thing. Then you showed up and all of a sudden he’s awake, he’s alive, he’s a fucking inferno. This is great. But as far as you’re concerned, he’s wide open. No firewall, no shields, nothing. This isn’t great. This makes me nervous.”
“Uh-huh. Still not your business. And I think Alex would agree with me here.”
“Of course he would. You’re both wrong. Tell me about the romantic gesture. You might as well. I get what I want. I can wear you down.”
She met his green eyes and realized with a start that she couldn’t read them. Opaque as a predator’s. Then he sent her a sweet smile and relaxed in the chair. She was starting to get emotional whiplash.
“Tell me, Elle. Like I said, I get what I want. Lucky for you, I want to help.”
“Thanks, but I’ve got it covered.”
He blinked.
“For crying out loud. You read the email. You sent the email. What else is there to know?”
“Yeah, I read the email. I know what you’re going to do. Progress is being made, and while that plays out, I want to know why. If I approve, I’ll allow it to continue. If I don’t, I’ll put a stop to it.” He laced his fingers over his flat stomach. “I want to know your intentions.”
Gabe Sterling had a God complex, didn’t he? “You’re seriously sitting there, asking me my intentions toward Alex?”
“Yes.”
“Are you his chaperone?”
“Self-appointed guard dog. Because Gargoyle is fuckin’ useless.”
“Gargoyle is an excellent judge of character. He likes me. He doesn’t feel the need to come and growl at me.”
“I like you. This is my whimsical side. If I was growling, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at a pretty little kitchen table in a cozy little kitchen in the sunshine.”
“Let me guess. A deserted back alley somewhere in the moonless dark?”
He did that single-blink thing again.
Elle could honestly say she’d never wanted to hit someone quite this much. She’d run like hell the minute she did it, but she still really wanted to do it. “How arrogant are you?”
“Very. Now, enough flirting—”
“I’m not flirting with you!”
“Please don’t hurt Alex.” He held her gaze and, for a lightning-short moment, let her see his emotions.
The majority of Elle’s outrage drained away. She knew genuine, to-the-bone caring when she saw it. “I don’t want to hurt him. Of course I won’t hurt him. I lov—” she hiccupped on the word, “—I like him. I like him more than anyone I’ve ever liked before. And it would be nice if I could tell him that myself to his face rather than have it extracted from me in this highly inappropriate interrogation.”
“You like him, huh?”
She glared.
“All right. I approve. And you need my help. It’s a charming gesture you’re trying to make, except it’s going to be less charming and more a kick in the nuts since it’s going to take too long to set up. By the time you let Alex know all is right in his special little wonderland, it’ll be too late.”
Elle’s shoulders drooped. “I worried about that. How long do you think?”
“For Stephanie to respond to your email? Couple of weeks.”
“Couple of weeks doesn’t work.” She wasn’t waiting a couple of weeks to get her hands on Alex again. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let him spend a couple of weeks thinking she’d rejected him and his art. She was trying to be romantic, not torture the guy.
“Damn straight it doesn’t work. In a couple of weeks, there won’t be anything left. He’s threatening to destroy it all.”
“What?”
Gabe wiggled a finger in his ear at her shriek. “Come on, Elle.”
“He can’t destroy it!”
“He created it, he can destroy it.”
“You can’t let him! It’s beautiful, it’s amazing, it’s…utterly incomprehensible and I don’t care because he loves it and that’s all that matters.”
“Calm down. Jesus. So dramatic.”
Elle’s mouth dropped open. “I’m dramatic? Are you kidding me? Ow. Damn it.” This time, she shrieked so loud she hurt her own ears.
Gabe slowly dropped his hands away from his head, held them poised in the air, ready for her to yell again. When all she did was roll her eyes, he said, “I won’t let him destroy it. I’ll hide his equipment if I have to. Even Alex can’t do too much damage with his bare hands. Besides, I said it’ll take Stephanie a couple of weeks to respond to you. Me, she’ll get back to within the hour. If she answers rather than lets it go to voicemail, we’ll be set within less than that.” Gabe slipped a cell phone from his pocket, keyed something into the screen, and slid it across the table. “All you gotta do is press green for go.”
Green for go. Elle’s stomach swooped in a pulse of nerves. God, she hoped Alex liked this. She picked up Gabe’s cell gingerly. It looked more expensive than her car and house combined.
“Before you call,” he said, stopping her with a light touch on the back of her wrist, “think I can have that chamomile tea after all?”
“Yes.” She was going to brew it extra strong.
“I can get a bit—” he lifted and lowered his shoulders a couple of times in quick succession, “
—you know?”
“I know.”
“Okay. We’re good.” He slapped his palms on the table and pushed up.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“Going to go and find your sister.”
Elle pointed at the chair. “Sit down.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Alex slumped on his couch and stared straight ahead. For the first time since he’d run into Elle at the store weeks ago, he felt like he’d come to a complete stop. He ached with the suddenness of it. Even when he was sleeping, he’d been energized, switched on, alive. His dreams vivid and twisting, impatient to become sculpture, sensation, movement. And then Elle had been so revolted by what she’d inspired in him that she’d run out, and everything had…stopped.
He leaned forward, forearms along his tense thighs, hands clasped hard over the back of his neck. Holding himself down.
He wanted to stride out to the barn and take it apart. Every last piece, strip it to bones and pull the barn itself down on top, bury it. Gabe had made him swear, swear on our friendship, Alex, not to deconstruct anything. But he wanted to. He itched with the need to obliterate his complete failure. Wipe it from existence. Sooner or later, that desire was going to become overwhelming. Not today, since today his blood ran slow; today he was barely ticking over. But soon. He’d take it apart, and it would be a fury of destruction.
On the couch beside him, his iPad binged. He glanced at the screen with scant interest. Before it returned to black, he caught the mail notification message, and Gabe’s name. He reached out and turned the iPad face down. He settled deeper into the couch.
The iPad binged again.
Then it binged in a fast sequence, mails sent in perfect time to play a tune: “Shave and a Haircut.”
He hunched lower, then almost jumped out of his skin when Gabe’s voice came from the computer across the room.
“For fuck’s sake, Alex. Check your email!”
Alex turned his head to stare at the tiny green dot across the room that meant Gabe had once again hacked him and was watching through the webcam. “No.”
“Check it.”
“No.”
“Please?”
