“Oh, Eva!” Beth jumped up and hugged her grandmother. “I’m so happy for you! You deserve this, you’ve worked so hard!”
Eva hugged her back, laughing. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” In an uncharacteristically grandmotherly gesture, Eva rubbed a smudge of pastel from Beth’s cheek. “If you hadn’t lent me the money for the trip—”
Beth waved away her thanks. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing was your entire savings.” Eva’s already husky voice deepened. “Your rainy day fund.”
Beth laughed. “I still have eighteen dollars and fifty-three cents. Besides, haven’t you always told me that rainy day funds are for worrywart pencil pushers?”
“Like your father.” Eva shuddered in dramatic disapproval, all traces of sentimentality gone.
Beth shook her head. “Dad’s an accountant. And I’m changing the subject now.”
“You always do that.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
Eva sniffed and crossed to Beth’s work table and looked down at the work in progress. “New sketch? It’s nothing short of fabulous.”
Beth smiled, accustomed to Eva’s exaggerations, especially when it came to her artwork. “I do think it’s special. This whole series has me, I don’t know... almost tingling with excitement. I know that sounds silly, but it feels like magic. Like something I conjured from outside myself.”
“You know,” her grandmother murmured, patting her sleek gray bob, “I’ve been thinking, why don’t you ask your boss to take a look at your work? He’s launched a lot of artists. I’ve heard his instincts haven’t failed him yet and that if he thinks you’ve got it, you have.”
“No,” Beth said quickly, a thread of panic curling through her at the thought of sharing her work. “It’s too soon. I’m not ready.”
Her grandmother made a sound of impatience. “You’re never going to be discovered if you keep your work hidden in here.”
“I don’t want to be discovered,” Beth said. “I just want—”
“To spend your life painting pictures no one will ever see,” Eva supplied.
Color flooded Beth’s cheeks, and she inched her chin up. “I make art because I have to. It’s in here,” she said softly, pressing her hand to her chest. “It’s who I am. I don’t do it because I’m a great talent or because I have a great vision to share with the world.”
“But what if you do?” her grandmother countered. “What if you’re—”
“You’re my grandmother. You have to believe in me.”
She and her grandmother always disagreed on this one point. It was ironic. Her parents had never believed in her or understood her need to create; her grandmother believed in her, but couldn’t understand her fear of sharing that part of herself with others.
For a long time after her grandmother left, Beth brooded over what the older woman had said to her. Was her grandmother right? Would she spend her life painting pictures no one would see? Was that what she wanted?
It wasn’t. But the alternative—showing and sharing her work—terrified her. Memories of all the times she’d put herself on the line and all the times she’d been rejected, came barreling back. Show her work to Chance? Ask him to evaluate it?
Beth shook her head, her chest tight. No. No way. She was who she was. Sure, she sometimes fantasized about being courageous, more like her freewheeling grandmother. Sometimes she let herself imagine being discovered.
But those were fantasies. She was shy, timid Beth. Quiet, reserved, cautious.
Only a fool would pretend to be someone she wasn’t.
Chapter 2
The next morning Chance yawned as he watched the coffee drip from filter to pot. He’d worked late the night before, and here it was barely eight a.m. and he’d already been at Art One an hour.
So much for getting out of town for a weekend, he thought, rubbing the side of his just-shaved jaw. He couldn’t even get home for a decent night’s sleep. Finding a new assistant had better become a priority. Or he’d better move a cot in.
Chance yawned again, poured himself a cup of the strong coffee, and started back to his office. He had to call the insurance company about the piece that had been damaged in transit yesterday. Considering the seriousness of the accident, they were damn lucky that more than the piece’s glass and polished oak framing hadn’t been ruined. After that, he needed to contact the artist who—
Chance’s thoughts came to a sudden stop as he realized he was no longer alone. Beth sat at her desk in the reception area, craning to see in a small mirror as she French-braided her hair. Her fingers moved quickly, slipping over and through the fiery strands. Her hair, wavy to the point of crinkly, looked soft and fine, like the hair of a wayward angel.
He wondered how those strands would feel against his own fingers.
Fatigue forgotten. Chance trailed his gaze over the rest of her. Beth Waters was... cute. He shook his head, smiling. Most women would hate that description—hell, maybe Beth would as well. But, with her gamine, heart-shaped face, perky nose, and riot of freckles, it fit.
But for her mouth. Soft and full and the color of a sweet blush wine, her lips brought to mind many descriptions, cute not among them. Promising. Sensual. Totally distracting.
His gaze lingered, his gut tightened. Would those lips taste as luscious as they looked?
Realizing the direction of his thoughts. Chance frowned and jerked his gaze away from her mouth. Her clothes were simple, a short-sleeved white blouse with a small, frilly collar, a navy cardigan thrown over the back of her chair, and, he’d guess, a damnably long navy skirt. Her cosmetics and jewelry were as understated—plain, really—as her garments.
Plain. Prim. Shy. The adjectives fit the picture; nothing in her behavior suggested a woman other than the one she presented. But, for him, something didn’t add up. Maybe it was her hair, darker than carrot but not quite auburn, or the speed with which her cheeks could heat. Fire. It was there; he was certain of it.
Still waters ran deep.
Chance laughed to himself at both the cliché and the pun. And at his own imagination. Beth Waters was exactly what she seemed to be. He really did need to get a new assistant.
He took a step toward her. “Good morning.”
Beth jerked her head up, startled.
Chance looked over his shoulder, then down at himself. “Did I sprout horns or something?”
She blinked. “No, I just didn’t expect to see you so early.”
Chance laughed. “Until I find a new assistant, I’m afraid it’s going to be in early and out late for me.” He crossed to her desk, then rested on a corner. “I’m going to be a very dull boy.”
Beth swallowed—hard. Maiden aunts were dull. Ironing was dull. Chance Michaels couldn’t be dull if his life depended upon it. Even though the blood thrummed crazily through her veins, she said evenly, “Is there something I can do for you?”
“No.” He leaned toward her, wondering if her skin would feel as soft as it looked. “What must you think of me, Ms. Waters?” he teased, arching his eyebrows. “Care to share?”
“I think I’ll pass.” She folded her hands on top of the chain letter, hoping he wouldn’t notice it. “Can I get you some coffee?”
Chance held up his cup, then took a sip, studying her over the rim. She looked like a child caught smack-dab in the middle of a no-no. “What brings you in so early?”
“Nothing special.” She cursed the guilty answer the minute it passed her lips. “Just trying to catch up on... things.”
She lowered her gaze to the desk in front of her, then, as if realizing what she’d done, lifted it quickly back to his. Chance bit back a sound of appreciation. Did she have any idea how guileless her eyes were? Or how appealing that lack of artifice was?
He motioned to the paper in front of her. “What’s that?”
“Just an email I printed out.”
He pinched the paper’s corner and slid it out from under her folded hands, then scanned
its contents. “A chain letter?”
Beth snatched it back. “That’s right.”
“Covering your bases, huh?”
She glared up at him. “I don’t believe I asked your opinion.”
“Hey”—Chance held his hands up—”I wouldn’t want to get hit by a bus either. This is pretty frightening stuff.”
Beth let out her breath in a huff. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“Lots of it. But I’m having a lot more fun sitting here bothering to you.”
She tried glaring at him again, but he only poked through the stack of papers on her desk. “Mail hasn’t come yet?”
He knew darn well it hadn’t. “I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.”
“No mail.” He grinned. “Okay then, any calls?” At her expression he laughed. “All right, all right, I’ll leave you alone.” Chance started to stand, then stopped as he saw an edge of brilliant color peeking out from the stack of white papers on Beth’s desk. “What’s this?”
Her sketches. Beth stared at them, horrified. They’d been stuffed into the portfolio she’d brought this morning. She’d thought nothing of taking them out, had meant to slip them back in before he arrived for the day.
Now Chance had them.
Mouth dry, pulse hammering in her head, Beth watched as Chance picked up the drawings and studied them. It took all her control to keep from snatching them from his hands.
One second became two, then became minutes. To Beth it seemed like years, centuries even. The silence between them deafening, she wished he would say something, anything.
“Whose are they?” he asked finally.
Beth wetted her lips. No words of praise, no opinion. Her chest ached; each breath hurt. “Those?”
“Yes.” Chance smiled and lifted the drawings. “These.” He paused, his smile slipping. “Beth? Is something wrong?”
“No. They’re my sister’s sketches,” she said quickly, the words popping out before she could stop them. “My sister... Liza.”
“Liza,” Chance repeated, as if testing the name on his tongue.
“Yes. I brought them by mistake.” Beth held out her hand for the drawings. “She’d be furious if she knew I had them.”
Ignoring her outstretched hand, Chance continued to study the drawings. He drew his eyebrows together. “I didn’t know you had a sister, one who’s an artist, no less.”
“It never came up.” Dear heavens, what had she gotten herself into? And how was she going to get out?
“Until now,” he murmured, lowering his gaze once more to the drawings.
What did he think of them? Beth wondered, wishing he would either put down the drawings or say something. Anything. But he continued to study the sketches in silence.
She folded her arms across her chest. “We’re nothing alike,” she offered nervously, needing to fill the silence. “She... Liza, that is, is daring and outgoing. A real character.”
“Like your grandmother.”
Beth drew her eyebrows together, forgetting for a moment that he had met Eva, that her grandmother occasionally dated one of his best-selling artists. “Yes,” she said finally. “But I’m more like my—I mean our—mother.”
She struggled to keep from grabbing the sketches and stuffing them back into the portfolio. Blasted thing! Why hadn’t she taken the time to check what was in it before she’d brought it this morning?
“These are roughs?”
“Yes. For paintings.”
“Mmm.” He cocked his head and her breath caught. “What’s her medium, do you know?”
“Mixed. Acrylics mostly, some with collage elements and graphite. Whatever it takes. She’s just started using oils as well.”
He nodded without commenting. “Scale?”
“Large. Four foot by six. Some larger, some smaller.”
Chance dropped the sketches to the desk. “They have a nice depth.”
Depth. Beth’s heart lurched. He thought they had depth. If Chance Michaels thought they had depth, she wasn’t a failure and her parents had been wrong.
She released her pent-up breath in an excited rush. “She’s trying to show, through color, shape, and transparency, something of the human condition.” Hands shaking, Beth pointed to an area of the sketch. “By juxtaposing this heavy, dark element with this light, colorful one, she’s pictorializing the great balancing act of life. You know—love and fear, alienation and connection. We’re all human and we all belong to one family, yet so often we exist in a state of separation.”
Beth lifted her gaze back to his only to find him staring quizzically at her.
“You two must be very close,” he murmured.
“Why do you say that?”
“You know her work so well. Not many siblings get quite so involved in the other’s creative expression.”
She stared at him a moment, horrified at how tangled this situation had already become. “I am... very close to Liza.” That, at least, wasn’t a total fabrication—she couldn’t get any closer.
“And you love her work.”
“Yes, I do.”
Chance cocked his head, and his dark hair tumbled over his forehead. “I always wondered what it would have been like to have a brother or sister.”
He seemed to be waiting for some sort of reply, so she smiled brightly. “It’s nice.”
Chance stood. “Maybe I’ll meet your Liza sometime. I’d enjoy talking to her about her paintings.”
“No!” At his expression, Beth cleared her throat. “I mean, that’s not likely. She’s away a lot. Right now she’s... biking through the mountains.”
“Really? Which ones?”
Beth stared blankly at him. “Which ones, what?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Mountains, Beth.”
“Oh.” Beth paused, searching her memory for mountain ranges, wondering which ones people biked through. She took a stab. “The Rockies.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “She is daring.”
After he walked away, Beth lowered her gaze to the chain letter and glared at it. Terrific. Now her boss thought she had a sister. A sister he wanted to meet. If she’d just left the offensive letter in the trash, she wouldn’t be in this predicament. No doubt Eva would find this whole situation beyond amusing, a cautionary tale about the perils of…caution.
Muttering an oath, Beth ripped the letter in half and dropped it into the trash. This time it would stay there.
Besides, she didn’t see how her luck could get any worse than it already was.
* * *
Three days later Beth realized she’d been wrong. Her luck could get worse. Much worse. Near tears, she rested her forehead on her steering wheel, trying to ignore the cacophony of horns from the cars stuck behind her.
Until this morning the wave of bad luck could almost have been called a ripple of petty annoyances. Then Flash, her goldfish, had gone belly-up, and her utilities had been cut off because crazy Irene Braswell from next store had been collecting her mail again. Now her heap of a car was dead, and she was stuck on the Santa Ana Freeway in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Eventually, Beth made it to a service station. There she learned from the mechanic that it would take more to fix her old beater than it was worth. Left with a decision—try to live in southern California without a car or take out a loan to buy another car in worse condition than the one that had just croaked—Beth chose financial poverty and wheels.
Exhausted from the daylong ordeal, Beth turned into the lot adjacent to her flamingo-pink stucco apartment building. Mrs. Braswell, still in her paisley print housecoat and slippers, was out front watering the geraniums. The woman stopped and gaped at her as if she were a complete stranger.
“New car,” Beth called, stepping out of it. “My other one died on the freeway this morning.”
Still her neighbor stared. Beth cleared her throat as she crossed to her. “Is something wrong, Mrs. Braswell?”
“I thought you moved.”
“Moved?” Beth shook her head and hiked her purse strap onto her shoulder. “No. Just went to work.”
“Then who moved?”
Not up to one of Irene Braswell’s fantasies, Beth started inching toward the front steps. “Don’t know. Sorry.”
She reached the stairs then and grabbed the railing like a lifeline. She thought about mentioning the email and asking her not to send anymore like them, but figured it wouldn’t do any good. With her luck, the woman would think she wanted more of them instead. “See you later, Mrs. Braswell.”
With a final wave, Beth darted into the building. Keys in hand, she jogged up the stairs. She stopped short at the top, her heart rapping uncomfortably against her ribs. Her apartment door stood ajar, and light tumbled from the opening into the dim hallway. She’d locked her door this morning, she knew she had. Tightening her fingers on her keys, Beth took a cautious step toward the door. Then another. When she reached it, she slowly pushed it open.
Her heart stopped beating altogether, then started again with a vengeance. She’d been robbed. Folding her arms across her chest, Beth propelled herself into the now-empty apartment, stopping in the very center of her empty living room.
“I told you you’d moved.”
Startled, Beth gasped and swung around. Her neighbor stood in the doorway, a dripping watering can in her right hand. Beth drew in a steadying breath. “Mrs. Braswell, were you here when this happened? Did you see the thieves?”
The woman frowned. “Didn’t see no thieves. Moving men. They were here this morning.”
“This morning,” Beth repeated, light-headed. “What time?”
“Don’t know. Early.” Her neighbor looked around. “They gave me a card.”
The older woman fished in her pocket for it, then handed it to Beth. The card read:
Trusty’s Moving Service -We move it fast!
They sure did.
“Mrs. Braswell... Irene, you have to go.” Beth took the woman’s arm and led her to the door. “Now is not a good time. In fact, it’s a really bad time. We can talk... later. Much, much later.”
Tempting Chance Page 2