by Box Set
She couldn’t think of any complaints about that, either.
But morning meant reality, and all of the worries she’d shoved aside when she’d basically propositioned the man rushed back to haunt her. She had no clue what her future held—possibly jail, even—and he was an honestly nice man. Could she consider for a moment dragging him into the virtual shit storm that was her life right now?
After he’d been kind enough to come to her rescue before he even knew her?
No, but then again, there was no saying he even considered it as a possibility. He had sex with her, yes. Mind boggling, fantastic, possibly record-breaking sex, but still…
She didn’t know if he intended for it to be anything more than a casual tumble. Two adults finding pleasure with each other did not equate a budding relationship. She was logical enough to realize that even when she…
No, it was foolish to even try to bring matters of the heart into their situation. Neither of them made any promises the night before, beyond coming together to have some really spectacular sex. She wasn’t foolish enough to build castles in the air supported by nothing more than a hard dick.
So she could give him an easy out. Which most men would prefer, really.
Then again, he wasn’t most men, which was what attracted her to him in the first place.
She opened her eyes slowly, planning to look at him and think more about how to handle the situation only to have his hand close over her breast.
“Good morning,” he whispered, tilting his head up to consider her. “Based on your breathing, you’ve been up for a while now. You were thinking so hard, you woke me up.”
“Hmm,” she whispered, stretching. The movement dislodged him a bit, and he rolled to the side to prop himself on one elbow to look down on her.
“Sleep well?” he asked.
“I didn’t sleep much. Thanks for that. I really needed to get my mind off things, and this was an excellent distraction.”
His warm and inviting expression closed down like someone had pulled a shutter.
Ice seemed to track through her veins. A loud voice in her brain shouted, What have you done?
But she couldn’t un-say the words. He smiled but no joy lived in the expression. In seconds, he moved away from her and stood. “Yeah, no problem. Just another service provided along with protection. What else are heroes for, after all?”
As the bathroom door closed behind him, she feared her heart was breaking.
***
She’d been an ass. After stewing on her behavior all morning long, that was the sum total of her conclusions. She might never find out what he thought or how he felt about their night together and the blame lay entirely at her own feet. Although she couldn’t take back what she’d said, and even though he’d behaved like a perfect gentleman—all polite and friendly without any of the warmth and openness she’d come to expect from him—it shredded her inside out to even look at him.
Finally, around lunch time, she cornered him at one of the patio tables near his outside pool. “Al?”
“Yes?” Again, he gave her the polite smile. It reminded her of his Jimme Money performance, insofar as there was nothing of Al in the expression.
“About what I said…” She sucked in a deep breath before continuing. His vague expression didn’t exactly beg her to continue. “Look, I like to read romance novels. I know, probably corny to admit to it, but in them they sometimes mess things up. At that point, someone does a grand gesture. Something big to prove they realized they did something wrong and to try to make it right. I’m hundreds of miles from home and can’t really pull something extravagant off without using my credit cards, but I want to do something like that for you. When I thought about it, I realized the grandest thing I can do is offer myself. You see, somewhere along this crazy time we’ve spent together, I realized I really like you. What I said before…it was me chickening out. Taking the easy out. Whatever you want to call it, it was cowardly and I wanted to say, well, I want to date you.”
If they were in a movie, crickets would’ve played on the soundtrack. He remained so silent and still, she didn’t know what to think. Maybe he considered his words. Maybe he liked her too. Maybe he’d—
He looked back at the laptop he worked on. She thought he gathered his thoughts, but in a few seconds, he went back to typing as he had been when she’d found him.
He didn’t turn to face her again. Just kept typing as if nothing happened at all.
It reminded her in a painful way of how her mother acted when she was focused on her work—like Jude hadn’t spoken at all or that her words didn’t matter compared to the magic of inspiration. Swallowing hard, she accepted his silence as an answer and went to find Pile.
“Can you get me a ticket for DFW to LAX?” she asked the estate manager.
The man’s eyes looked sad. “Just one ticket, miss?”
She nodded not trusting herself to speak. Although Al was willing to be her distant hero, it was past time she did what she should’ve in the first place. She needed to go home, face the music, and get on with her life.
***
Some paranoid part of her expected the cops to be waiting for her at the gate when she got off the plane. They weren’t, leaving her with the awkward decision of where to go from there.
She chose to turn herself into the police, fully expecting that to be that. She’d be hauled away, locked up and maybe they’d even throw away the key.
Instead, the officers were terribly polite to her. It turned out Braunberger woke up while she was off on her adventure—the next morning, so while she was sleeping in a scary motel, her name cleared. She hadn’t known it, but the police never really considered her a suspect in the first place. They suspected her boss, because apparently he was selling the paintings and then having them stolen for insurance money.
“So… I left for nothing?” she asked, blinking at the cop she’d considered so judgmental and scary before.
“We didn’t even know you left,” the officer admitted.
The gallery closed in her absence, but Schneider’s brother apparently planned to fly to the West coast to take over management. She didn’t know if she’d still have a job or not, but she couldn’t drum up the give a fuck to care either way.
All of it had been for nothing and she’d managed to screw it up royally anyway.
Once she returned to her apartment, surrounded by her things…things she’d worked so hard to earn like they made a difference in her life, she simply sat in the middle of her bedroom floor. She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what she wanted…
But that was a lie. She wanted Al. Then again, the whole thing with him was for no purpose and she didn’t know if it was her words which drove him away or if that whole part was in her head. Maybe he hadn’t cared either way to begin with.
The memory of his smile made her dismiss that thought, though. She could’ve sworn…
Heartbroken a little, she picked up her cell phone, charged for the first time in ages, and dialed the one person who might care.
“Mommy?” she whispered. Chances were good her mother would be too far gone in her work to care, anyway…
“Jude? Darling, are you okay?”
“This is dumb and you’re not going to care anyway, but…” Her voice broke on a sob.
“I always care, Jude. You just always seem to have things in order, so I don’t meddle. Are you okay? Do you need me to come there—?”
In tears, she whispered the words she was thinking but hadn’t had the guts to tell Al. “Mom, I think I love him.”
Chapter 10
The gallery opened back up and things fell back into the same well-ordered fashion she’d so carefully crafted with years of hard work and dedication. In a few weeks, it was like nothing changed, really. The new Schneider was as much of a dick as his relative, she still couldn’t give Braunberger a show, and she was in the midst of planning another big gallery event. Everything was just as it had been before.
Everything except her. She’d changed. She felt like a marionette, going through the motions according to the well-organized strings she herself created.
One day, things changed a bit, though.
It started with the little girl. She couldn’t have been more than ten, but she came barreling into the gallery without an adult companion. “Here, you’re the pretty lady, right?”
“Uh,” Jude said. “What?”
“Never mind. You’re her. I recognize your face. Here’s a color of the desert.” The girl had a blue daisy fisted in her hand and shoved it at Jude in a demanding way. Jude accepted the flower and the girl ran out as fast as she’d come in.
About an hour later, an old woman came in. “Here,” she said. She passed a purple bottle cap to Jude—one of the old ones off the glass pop bottles. “This color of the desert is for you.”
The old woman also left without further comment.
Most of the people who showed up or found her that day were around her age or younger—twenties to mid-thirties—but they showed up of all ages and each handed her a colorful object. Reds, blues, greens, vibrant oranges… all the colors of the desert. By lunch, Jude stopped thinking it was a fluke and realized Al was telling her something and, based on her many visitors, he’d likely posted it to the internet. So, closeted in her office, she pulled open his channel. Usually, she saved his weekly videos for once she got home—or at least she had in the month since they’d parted ways—so that she could remember his voice, see him smiling…
Cry a little because, damn it, she missed him.
But today she’d make an exception. Popping in earbuds, she clicked play on the video.
“Hello, internet friends! I know, usually I post something to make you laugh or make me laugh, but this isn’t the usual video. Instead, I want to tell you a story.” He looked tired, she noticed. But still so handsome it made her chest tight to look at him.
Instead of his face, the screen changed to the picture he’d must’ve taken in the desert of the sunrise painting the world in a thousand brilliant colors. Although he clearly had an eye for photography—the image was beautiful, worthy to be considered art unto itself—he hadn’t managed to capture the utter stillness and chill or the true vibrancy of the original colors.
Or maybe her memories of him made her memory of the moment more flamboyant.
Over the image, his voice still resounded. “I met a woman who was a complete stranger, and, although we only had a little time together, she impacted my life in a way that no other has. Like this image, my life before her was pretty good. Beautiful and all, in its own way, but horribly lonely. Yes, that is the truth, internet friends… I made you all laugh because I needed to laugh myself. I needed to laugh and pretend it was all okay when I was empty and alone like this landscape. But do you know what happened?”
Tears pricked her eyes as the image faded away to a black screen. She knew what happened to her. She probably fell in love for the first time in her life. She hadn’t asked for it or expected it, but her empty heart since they’d parted told her she missed him.
Words appeared on the black backdrop, written in a simple white font. “I think I fell in love.”
Jude gasped, pressing her fist to her mouth. He fell in love? Was he talking about her? He couldn’t be…
His face reappeared, looking even more tired. He scrubbed a hand across his face. “I didn’t plan it. When the time came to say something or let her go, I let her go. This is her.” He held up the picture he took at his parents’ home, one of the ones from when they’d gone horseback riding. Her hair was blowing around her face in a messy way, but her smile was warm and open.
She looked much as she’d felt at the time—carefree and probably more than a little in love.
“So, now I’m full of regrets.” He sat the picture down on whatever was in front of him—perhaps a desk, but it was off screen. “And I want to ask you, my internet friends, to help out a guy who is a fool. If you live in the SoCal area and can, could you stop by The Cove Art Gallery and give her one of the colors of the desert? It can be anything—nothing expensive, mind you—just gum wrappers and other stuff that isn’t beautiful or special unto itself, maybe… but is beautiful if you look at it with an artistic eye. Bring her colors… and soften my landing, because I’m headed to see her. I’m going to bring her all the colors myself, but your help is much appreciated. Until next week… Jimme Money, signing out.”
The video ended and she sat there, hands shaking, not sure what to think. A gentle knock at her door warned of a visitor, so she collected her expression and wiped away the tears pooling in her eyes.
One of the men from security was there, and he held out a bag of more random, small, colorful things. She took them without a word and then she really did cry once she’d closed him out of her private space.
She spent the rest of the day sure he’d show up—bringing whatever his idea was of colors, of course—but she only collected more bits of nothing. Hefting a whole brown paper grocery bag, she lugged it home and dumped it all on her dining room table. Some pieces clattered and fell to the floor, but most of it sat in a small mountain.
They were all scraps, the flotsam of life, but he was right. All thrown together, they did make quite a colorful mess. Not as brilliant as the desert or as special as their time together, but proof that nothing really could end up adding up to become something beautiful. Kind of like their time together, it was a jumble of colors and experiences which blended together to make something special.
When her doorbell chimed, she rushed to the entrance, heart racing and palms damp. She should’ve thought through what to say to him. She didn’t know what to say or how to act at all.
But she opened the door and seeing him in person took her breath away. It was like their time apart made him even more special and ruggedly handsome.
“Hey,” he said. “Did you get my message?”
She nodded, still at a loss for words.
“That’s good. Here.”
She didn’t know what she’d expected. Maybe flowers. Maybe jewelry—he was rich, after all. Instead of anything typical, he handed her a rock.
A memory of him bending to pick something up before he’d gotten in the car to travel to his parent’s house flicked through her mind. He’d gotten this rock when they were together—when they newly met and had no idea what would come of their brief association.
The rock had a hole in it and she shoved her finger through the hole to spin it on her finger. “It’s a rock,” she managed to get out past the lump in her throat.
He shrugged, his hands stuffed in his pockets in a boyish way. “I read once that if you find a rock with a natural hole in it, you can see something magical through the hole. I got it—”
“In the desert,” she finished for him.
“Yeah.” Again, the shrug. “Look, I needed to tell you something.”
Bouncing up to tiptoes, she slanted her fingers over his lips before he could speak. “No you don’t.”
“I’m pretty sure I do,” he disagreed. But his lips curled under her fingertips. His smile made her whole heart tremble in her chest, or at least feel as if it did.
She lifted the rock and closed one eye so she could peer at him through the hole. He looked the same as always—deliciously handsome, somewhat sad, a bit tired, and altogether wonderful. “You don’t. I can see it. You gave me the magical rock.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but she kissed him once. Just a quick peck, before she added, “You gave me laughter when I didn’t know I needed it. You were the hero I didn’t think I wanted and, when we were apart, it broke my heart a little. You already gave me so much…”
“Not nearly as much as I plan to.” He kissed her, lips slanting across hers in a claiming. When he came up for air, she hardly could remember what they were talking about, but his words made tears prick in her eyes. “I plan to give you all of me. Will you date me, crazy woman?”
&n
bsp; “Ask me afterward,” she answered. Pulling him fully inside the apartment, she locked the door.
“Afterward?” he asked.
Grinning, she pulled his shirt free from his jeans. “Yeah, afterward. We have forever for words. I’ve missed you.”
They never even made it to the bedroom. She stripped and had her way with her hero right there in the doorway of her apartment, sprawled on the floor like horny teenagers.
And Jude wouldn’t have had it any other way.
About the Author
USA Today Bestselling Author Virginia Nelson is the hybrid author of more than forty novels and novellas, both indie and with eight different publishers. She’s also the editor of more than 60 novels. Virginia Nelson has been a bestseller on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo and ARe. Her debut novel, Odd Stuff, won Best Books of 2010 from HEA Reviews.
Aside from that, she’s the mother of three wonderful biological children and copious numbers of adopted kiddos and critters. Virginia is also a painter and a student at Kent State University. Sometimes called the rainbow unicorn of romance, she’s also far from perfect and knows it.
You can find out more about her—including where to follow her on social media—on her website.
Books for sale. Snark for free.
virg-nelson.com
Also by Virginia Nelson
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Runaway Groom
While You Were Writing
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By Jennie Marts
Editor: Arran McNicol
How to Unbreak a Heart
Solitary cowboy, Trip Turner finally has a chance to correct the mistakes he made when he let the woman he loved walk out of his life twelve years ago. But now that Bre Wilson is back, will he be able to unbreak her heart?