One-Click Buy: February 2010 Harlequin Blaze

by Betina Krahn

  Her grandfather answered the door after only thirty seconds of constant ringing. He carried a paint-stained rag and wiped his fingers as Tenley greeted him.

  “You brought the sleigh out. Give me a few minutes and I’ll get my jacket.”

  “No, we need to talk,” Tenley said.

  “We can talk and ride,” he said.

  She nodded, impatient to get to the subject at hand—Alex Stamos. When her grandfather returned, bundled against the cold, Tenley helped him into the sleigh, then handed him the reins.

  “Oh, this brings back fine memories,” he said, urging the horse into a slow walk. “How long has it been since we’ve had a ride? Last year, we barely had snow. And the year before that, I spent most of the winter in California with your father. Three years? My, time really does fly.”

  “Grandpa, I need your help. There’s this man—”

  “Is someone giving you trouble, Tennie? It’s not Randy, is it? Is he making a pest of himself again?”

  “No. It’s not Randy.” Randy Schmitt had been pursuing her since high school and she’d been fending off his affections for just as long.

  Tenley fiddled with the fingers of her gloves, searching for a way to enlist her grandfather’s help. It wasn’t difficult to predict his reaction to her dilemma. But she couldn’t think of any way to make Alex’s offer sound insignificant.

  “I made a little comic book for Josh as a Christmas gift. Just a story with some pictures to go with it. And he loved it so much, he sent it to a publisher in Chicago. Now that publisher has come here, hoping to put the work under contract.”

  “Tennie, that’s fabulous! I didn’t realize you were working on your art.”

  She groaned. “I don’t have any art. This was just…doodling. Crude illustrations. The problem is, Josh told the publisher the book was done by T. J. Marshall. And the publisher, his name is Alex Stamos, thinks that’s you. So tomorrow, he’s going to come by the gallery and try to convince you to sell him the rights to the book. And you’re going to tell him you’re not interested.”

  Her grandfather scowled, his eyes still fixed on the road ahead. “Why would you want me to do that? This is your chance to do something on your own. Tennie, you have to grab an opportunity like this. Not many artists can make a living off their talents.”

  Tenley shook her head. “But I don’t have any talent. And I’m just too busy with my work at the gallery.”

  “You can do both.”

  “I’ve never really thought about a career as an artist,” she said.

  “You’ve never really thought about a career, period,” he said, drawing the horse to a stop at the corner. “Everything went to hell before you had a chance to decide what you wanted to do with your life. You’ve been afraid to be passionate about anything, Tennie. Afraid if you showed any interest, it would be taken away. But your talent can’t be taken away. It’s in your genes.”

  She really had no excuse. Her grandfather was right. But she’d never wanted a career as an artist. She wasn’t prepared. “I love my life exactly the way it is.”

  He shook his head. “No, you don’t. Every day, I look at you trying to avoid living, trying to keep things on an even keel. You hide out in that old cabin. You hide behind that makeup and that silly hairdo. You dress yourself in black, as if you’re still in mourning. Everything you do is meant to push people away. It’s time to take a chance.”

  He was talking about her art, but what her grandfather said applied to Alex as well—or to men, in general. Reward didn’t come without risk. She slipped her arm through his and rested her head on his shoulder. “I don’t mean to be such a mess,” she said.

  Her grandfather laughed. “You’ve always been a bother. But that’s why I love you, Tennie. We’re not so different, you and I. I was lucky to find your grandmother. She was a sensible woman and she put me in my place. And I loved her for it. I’d like to think there’s someone out there who can do the same for you. Someone who can bring you balance.”

  Tenley sighed, her breath clouding in front of her face. “Do you ever wonder what he would have been like? He would have changed as he got older. I always try to imagine what kind of man he would have become.”

  “I know one thing. He would have been mad as hell to see you wasting away in that cabin. He would have told you to get off your butt and make something out of your life.”

  “He would have,” Tenley said with a weak laugh. She gave his arm a squeeze. “Would it be all right if we cut our ride short? I have some things I need to do.”

  “Sure, sweetheart.” He handed her the reins. “I’m going to walk from here. I need some exercise. And I want you to think about what I’ve said. Carpe diem. Seize the day, Tenley Marshall.”

  He jumped down to the ground, then knocked on the side of the sleigh. Tenley clucked her tongue and sent Minnie into motion. Though she could have taken a quick way out of town, she decided to ride past the inn.

  She slowed the sleigh as she stared up at the window of Alex’s room. What was he doing now? Was he lying on the bed, thinking about the time they’d spent together? Was he reliving all of the most passionate moments between them?

  She fought the urge to park her sleigh and climb the trellis to the second-story porch that fronted his room. But someone would see the sleigh and question what she was doing at the inn. There’d be all sorts of speculation. Though small-town life could be nice, there was a lot of bad with the good.

  “Get up, Minnie,” she called. “Let’s go home.”

  Tomorrow would be soon enough to tend to her future. For now, she wanted a quiet place to think about the past twenty-four hours.

  THE WHITE CLAPBOARD inn was as quaint on the inside as it was on the exterior. Two huge parlors flanked the entry hall and a wide, open staircase led to the second floor and Alex’s room.

  Tenley had been right about the choice. The room, furnished with a mix of real and reproduction antiques, was spacious, but cozy. It overlooked a wide upper porch with two sets of French doors that could be thrown open in the warm weather.

  After checking in, he’d walked down to a small coffee shop and had dinner, then spent a half-hour looking for a place to buy a new pair of shoes for his meeting with T. J. Marshall. The only men’s shop in town was closed and wouldn’t open until ten the next morning, so Alex decided to return to his room.

  An attempt to kick back and relax only made him more restless. He felt imprisoned amongst the chintz curtains and the overstuffed furniture, used to the soothing mix of rustic charm and natural comfort in Tenley’s cabin.

  Alex opened the French doors and let the cold wind blow through his room, breathing deeply as he tried to clear his head. Maybe Tenley had it right all along. Maybe people weren’t supposed to live with all those silly conveniences like televisions and clocks and microwave ovens.

  Though he’d only spent a day with her, Alex sensed something inside him had changed. He looked at his surroundings with a greater awareness of what was necessary for happiness and what could be discarded. And in his mind, Tenley was standing with the necessities.

  He looked over at the bed, to the pages of the novel that he’d spread over the surface, the papers fluttering. Tenley. Something had been nagging at him since he’d left her place, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He locked the doors against the wind and then crossed the room.

  His thoughts focused on the drawings he’d found inside her grandfather’s books, the little sketches that seemed familiar in a way. Gathering up the pages, Alex stretched out on the bed and began to read the novel again, carefully studying each illustration before moving on.

  The haze of desire that had clouded his thoughts slowly cleared and Alex realized instantly what had been bothering him. The heroine in the story was Tenley. A girl who’d lost her family in a tragic accident and who had discovered a way to bring them back to life. Cyd was Tenley. But it was more than that.

  The story was so personal, so rooted in the her
oine’s viewpoint that it could never have been written by a man. Nor had it been illustrated by Tenley’s grandfather. She’d done the drawings. And she’d written the story.

  He rifled through the pages until he found a close-up of Cyd’s hand. The rings that Tenley wore were exactly the same as Cyd’s. The shape of the hands, the long, tapered fingers and the black nail polish. Hands just like those that had touched his body and made him ache with need.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered, flopping back against the pillows. This was all his fault. He’d made some rather big assumptions about T. J. Marshall—pretty sexist assumptions—that had been completely wrong. He was looking for an artist by that name from Sawyer Bay and he’d found one. But he’d never considered that the T in T.J. might stand for Tenley.

  Alex tried to rationalize his mistake. He’d been blinded by desire, anxious to believe everything she said and even things she didn’t say. “The surprises never end,” he said.

  Tenley had never claimed to be a conventional girl, but what artist wouldn’t want to make a living from their work? There were thousands upon thousands who struggled to make ends meet every day. And he was offering her a chance to do what she loved and get paid to do it.

  Alex carefully straightened the pages, then put them back in his briefcase. As he closed it, he noticed the phone and considered calling her and demanding the truth. But if she’d gone to so much trouble to hide herself from him, then he’d have to proceed cautiously. She’d be the one to sign the contract, so his approach would have to change.

  Her number was in the phone book under Tenley J. Thomas J. followed immediately after, and below that, the Marshall Gallery. Had he bothered to look in the phone book, he might have figured this out sooner. And maybe he wouldn’t have made the mistake of sleeping with her.

  Or maybe not, Alex mused. She would have been awfully difficult to resist, all soft and naked, her hands skimming over his body. He punched in the digits of her number, casting aside the images that raced through his head, then waited as her phone rang. He wasn’t sure what he intended to say or how he intended to say it. But that became a moot point when she didn’t answer. “She’s probably outside, chopping wood or rebuilding the engine on her Jeep,” he muttered.

  Irritated, Alex stripped off his shirt and tossed it onto a nearby chair, then discarded his khakis and his socks. The simplest way to occupy his mind was to lose himself in his work, but he preferred to think about Tenley instead. Perhaps a hot shower would clear his head.

  He strode to the bathroom and turned on the water, waiting for it to heat up. Then he skimmed his boxers off and stepped inside the tiled stall. Bracing his hands on the wall, he let the water sluice over his neck and back, his eyes closed, his mind drifting.

  Tantalizing images teased at his brain and he thought about the sauna, about the two of them naked and sweating, of Tenley’s mouth on his shaft and the orgasm that followed. Alex groaned. Just the mere thought brought an unwelcome reaction.

  If he got hard every time he thought of her, then he needed to find something else to occupy his mind. He reached for the faucet and turned off the hot water, forcing himself to bear the sting of the cold. It wouldn’t take much to ease his predicament and Alex considered taking matters into his own hands. But surrendering wasn’t an option. He was the one in control of his desires, not her.

  He tipped his face up into the spray, waiting for the water to have an effect on his body. But his mind once again drifted to thoughts of Tenley. What would they be doing at this very moment if he’d spent the night in her cabin? Would they be curled up in front of the fire, drinking hot cocoa? Maybe they’d already be sound asleep, naked in each other’s arms, after a long afternoon of mind-blowing sex.

  Alex slowly began to count backward from one hundred, challenging his body to bear the cold shower. He needed to stop thinking about sex. Even if he wanted to return to her bed, he didn’t have a car. There was no way to get back to her cabin. Hell, he didn’t even know where her cabin was.

  Finally, after his erection had completely subsided, Alex shut off the water and grabbed a towel from the rack above the toilet. His skin was prickled with goose bumps and he shivered uncontrollably. But his erection was gone.

  Alex shook his head, then stepped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around his waist. As he walked back into the room, his ran his hands over his wet chest. But when he glanced up, he jerked in surprise. “Geez, you scared me.”

  Tenley sat on the edge of the bed, dressed in her parka and fur hat, her big boots dripping water on the hardwood floor.

  “How the hell did you get in here?”

  She pointed to the French doors. “I climbed up the trellis and came across the porch.”

  “Those doors are locked.”

  She shrugged. “They are. But you can jimmy the lock with a library card.” Tenley reached in her pocket and pulled out her card. “It’s good for more than just books.”

  Alex stared at her from across the room, afraid to approach for fear that he wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off her. Why was she here? Had she missed him as much as he’d missed her?

  “I didn’t want to sleep alone tonight,” she said. “I thought maybe I could sleep here.”

  “Just sleep?”

  Tenley nodded. “I like sleeping with you. When I sleep with you, I don’t dream.”

  Alex knew once they crawled into bed, there’d be a lot more than sleeping on the menu. “Tenley, I think you and I both know that we can’t be in the same bed together and just sleep.”

  “We could try,” she said.

  Every instinct in Alex’s mind and body told him to show her the door. He had an obligation to treat her as a business prospect and the last time he checked, that didn’t include losing himself in the warmth of her body. “I’m not even remotely interested in doing that,” he said.

  Her eyes went wide and he saw the hurt there. “You aren’t?”

  Alex knew he was risking everything, but suddenly business didn’t matter. He could live without her novel, but he couldn’t go another minute without her body. “If you spend the night here, I won’t hold back.” He paused, then decided he might as well be completely honest. Then the ball would be in her court. “I’m going to see your grandfather tomorrow. If he isn’t the one who made that story, I’m not going to give up. I’m going to find that person, whoever he—or she—is.”

  She stood, her expression unflinching, and shrugged out of her jacket, letting it drop to the floor at her feet. Then she kicked off her boots and dropped them in front of the door. She still wore the goofy hat with the earflaps. Alex reached out and took it off her head, then set it on the desk.

  He hadn’t seen her in a few hours, but the effect that her beauty had on his brain was immediate and intense. His gaze drifted from her eyes to her lips. Alex fought the temptation to grab her and pull her down onto the bed, to kiss her until her body went soft beneath his.

  Slowly, she removed each piece of clothing, her gaze fixed on his, never faltering. When she was left in just her T-shirt and panties, Alex realized that he hadn’t drawn a decent breath since she’d begun. A wave of dizziness caused him to reach out and grab the bedpost.

  His fingers twitched with the memory of touching her body as he took in the outline of her breasts beneath the thin cotton shirt. He looked down to see his reaction, becoming more evident through the damp towel. Tenley noticed as well, her gaze lingering on his crotch.

  Who were they trying to fool? There was no way they’d crawl into bed together and not enjoy the pleasures of the flesh. Alex untwisted the towel from his waist and it dropped to the floor. Then he pulled her into his arms, tumbling them both back onto the bed.

  This was dangerous, he thought to himself as he drew her leg up along his hip. To need a woman so much that it defied all common sense was something he’d never experienced in the past. It wasn’t a bad feeling, just a very scary situation. How much was he willing to give up to possess her?
And when would it be enough?

  TENLEY STARED at the landscape of the harbor at Gill’s Rock. “It’s lovely,” she said, nodding. “The colors are softer than those you used on the painting of Detroit harbor. Are you going to have prints made?”

  “Definitely. The prints of Fish Creek harbor sold well. I’m thinking we ought to do some smaller ones and sell the whole series as a package.”

  “Are there any harbors left to do?”

  “After Jackson, I think I’m done with them,” her grandfather said. “I’m going to move on to barns. Or log buildings.”

  “You could start with the cabin.”

  “I was thinking of doing that. But there’s a nice barn on Clark’s Lake Road that I’ve always wanted to paint.” He stepped back, studying his painting intently. “Lighthouses, harbors, barns. The tourists love them and I do give them what they love.”

  Tenley knew the compromises that her grandfather had to make over the course of his life. Though he might have wanted to become a serious painter and have his work hang in museums, he’d come to accept his talent for what it was—good enough to provide for his wife and a family and more than enough to tempt the tourists into buying.

  “By the way,” her grandfather said, “I like the new look. All that stuff on your eyes…I never understood that. You’re a pretty girl, Tennie.” He paused. “No, you’re a beautiful woman.”

  Tenley threw her arms around his neck and gave him a fierce hug. “I have to run over to the post office. I think your paints are here. And I’m going to mail these bills, too. Do you have anything you want to put in?”

  Her grandfather scowled. “Is there a reason you’re so anxious to leave?”

  “No. I just have work to do.”

  “I thought you said that guy from the publishing house was going to stop by.”

  Tenley wasn’t sure what Alex had planned for the day. She’d slipped out of his room at dawn, leaving him sound asleep, his naked body tangled in the sheets, his dark hair mussed. To her relief, she’d managed to crawl back down the trellis and get back her Jeep without anyone seeing her, minimizing the chances for gossip.