by Libby Rice
“You?” she asked, inappropriately ignoring her best friends to ask a question with an obvious answer. Scarlet might have been able to hush a planned visit, but not Brian. Brian would have slipped, maybe in an e-mail asking about reunion champagne or whether she knew any good hair removal professionals in Boulder for his monthly chest wax. Brian didn’t do subtle, and he preferred to remain ever ready for the next joke, the next drink, and most importantly, the next woman. No, Scarlet and Brian had abandoned Manhattan for a desolate stretch of land outside Neanderthal, Colorado on Cole’s watch.
Lissa would bet they hadn’t known they were coming until practically on the plane.
Cole threw out a curt chin jerk before flicking his eyes to her friends, silently admonishing Lissa for her bound-up greeting skills.
That was all she got. Yet the fraction of a second proved sufficient. Cole’s eyes were guarded, yet imploring. They reminded her of a movie teaser, giving her a little while hinting at a thousand words left unsaid, piquing her interest and amplifying the connection she always felt when he turned those blue pools her way. Like a Trekkie to the opening of Star Trek 37, she’d be in line to hear the rest. No amount of suspicion could overcome that blind, all-consuming urge.
Cole had wanted this for her, had made it happen. Why would come later.
For now, she examined Cole, thinking, Thank you, but saying, “Nice save.” Then she hurled herself into Scarlet’s arms.
******
The kitchen erupted into peals of laughter, followed by, “My God, where did you get this coat?” If that didn’t convince Cole he’d made the right choice, the tears did. When Lissa let go of her friend, moisture tracked unheeded down her cheeks.
Those tears reached out like pummeling fists to strike him in the chest. Through the unwelcome constriction, Cole recognized that Lissa looked insanely happy—no longer sad or angry or wounded. At least he’d given her relief.
Since you’re the bastard who made her need it.
The morning had gone as planned, with Brian and Scarlet appearing with a pile of designer luggage outside the baggage claim at their appointed time. They’d come to play cleanup.
To say things Cole had forgotten how to say.
“Look”—Brian clapped his hands in sluggish, heavy beats—“Lissa’s leaking.” Then he winked at Cole and spoke in a stage whisper. “That’s a good thing. Rare.”
Cole bit his cheeks, gulping down the “Fuck you” that rose in his throat. The last time he’d caused a woman’s tears hadn’t ended well.
“I missed you,” Lissa said quietly to Scarlet before looking at Brian. “You, too.”
The blunt acknowledgments underscored the extent of Cole’s damage. He’d lured this brave but secretly vulnerable woman from her home turf with a promise of respectability. Once here, far from the people and the life she could lean on, he’d held out, hinging his promise on his own subjective approval.
Which he’d withheld.
Yesterday, more than shadows had flitted across Lissa’s delicate features. Once she’d recognized the loss of her painting—another painting—her look had held a horrible, jaded familiarity. She’d showed him a glimpse of pain he didn’t want to see.
Did you mean for this to happen?
Hell, no. But neither had he offered praise and a plane ticket to the subcontinent. Instead, he’d lost the battle with how much he wanted her and orchestrated a botched seduction, one that had made it clear he could reach out and touch, but only to rub another ruined work of art in her face.
Clumsy. Cruel.
Cowardly.
Last night, after Lissa had mutely climbed the stairs to her room, Cole had staggered to his freezing truck. No amount of chill could chase away the warm, inviting scent with which she’d painted every inch of available space. Each surface held her imprint. The seat had supported her soft knees, her spread palms. The steering wheel had hammered him down to the exact height needed to make her scream. The rear window sported a smeared handprint. His. The makeshift crutch had kept him upright when her mouth had settled around him, offering pure, undiluted perfection.
Long after the sun had set, he’d picked up the phone. Scarlet had been one of Lissa’s personal references, provided soon after he’d made contact about the project. The woman might regret her generosity after receiving his midnight call, especially since Cole had asked her to gather reinforcements and embark on a cross-country journey in less than eight hours.
But Lissa’s friend had answered simply, her tone ripe with devotion. “I’ll borrow my fiancé’s plane.” Maybe somewhere along the line, Lissa had applied her brand of clear-eyed thinking, of sheer enthusiasm, to a tangle of Scarlet’s. Yes, Cole thought, Lissa liked the business of saving people. Look at how she’d tried to save him, at every turn adding color to gray and meaning to emptiness.
Without thinking, Cole reached for the glove box and pulled out a tattered, stained envelope. He didn’t know why he kept it there. Maybe because people didn’t search for secrets between the insurance card and vehicle registration. Maybe because careless placement implied innocuous meaning. More likely because this way, the letter would always travel with him.
There in the cold, refusing to shiver lest the night win, Cole reread Kate’s last words. He reread the note the world didn’t know she’d written.
If you’re reading this, I’ve gone and done what, right now, I’m too afraid to do. Otherwise I’ll have snatched this paper from your pillow long before you find it.
I know you believe me. Still, though I’d never be unfaithful, I don’t feel worthy of your trust. Perhaps your suspicion means you know something about me that I’m finally learning.
Never could my choice be your fault. Yet, without you, I don’t know how to make it.
Cole stared down at Kate’s final thoughts, wondering how he’d allowed a mistake to hurt someone he loved. She knew I believed her. Yet they hadn’t returned to normal.
Some mistakes, he’d learned, could be repaired with an apology. Others ripped hearts and shredded lives, leaving no path to backtrack.
“Hey, man”—a broad fist appeared in Cole’s face, fingers snapping—“don’t you have a little something to share? Maybe to unwrap?”
Cole surfaced from the night before, back to his kitchen and its expectant occupants. Lissa and Scarlet sat at the island in chairs they’d dragged apart to give Sasha room to sack out in between. Scarlet sent a flat box flying across the granite, and Lissa caught the flash of blue before it descended off the edge and into dog fodder.
Squinting, Cole made out the logo. MarieBelle New York.
“Edible art,” Lissa explained, still rigid when she spoke to Cole. After slowly untying a brown ribbon with those elegant artist’s hands, she lifted the lid to reveal rows of miniature paintings. “If all else fails, maybe I can paint chocolate.” Each candy picture differed from the next, many with bright colors and illogical patterns that really could pose as a Blanc abstract.
Scarlet made a grab. “There could be no greater calling.” When Lissa jerked the box out of reach, Scarlet pumped her fingers in an effort to snag the candy. “I get the two dudes worshiping the red shoe.”
Lissa placed one chocolate in Scarlet’s open palm. Sure enough, two men in pink tuxedos were on their knees, hands raised in praise for a car-sized, cherry-hued high heel. The image disappeared past Scarlet’s matching lips.
“Jesus,” Scarlet breathed, “cilantro chocolate made from the songs of sirens and kisses of angels. I want—”
Lissa screwed her face into tight lines as though the thought of cocoa and vegetables held little appeal, but she slapped her friend’s seeking hand. “Mine.”
Slinking away this time, Scarlet smirked. “It’s your ass.”
This time Lissa retaliated. “Like your legs, my ass stopped growing in the ninth grade.” She bit down on a picture that looked like a shattered mirror, pieced back together and painted with blotches of yellow and red. “Frangelico,” she ma
rveled. “How do they do that?”
Rolling his eyes, Brian thumped Cole’s chest, kinda friendly, kinda not. “See that? We brought gifts to the party.” It was hard to believe a guy in a starry shirt could be threatening, but Brian’s voice held the power of suggestion nonetheless.
Cole reached across the island. The center chocolate showed a blue-tinged man wrapped in a winter scarf. He held out a single red rose.
An offering. Cole picked up the sweet and lifted it toward Lissa, mute and hoping she took his meaning.
The chocolate disappeared into Brian’s fist before reaching its intended destination. “N-n-n-noooo,” Brian clucked. “When you told Scarlet you ‘didn’t excel’ at this, you lied. You suck at this. And all good men know that not all sucking is created equal.” He handed Lissa the confiscated chocolate with a murmured, “Here, darling,” and then growled in Cole’s face. “Try again, and this time, make it worth the favor I’m doing you because you can bet I’ll collect.”
A glossy manicure curled around the edge of Brian’s arm from behind, and Cole registered Scarlet’s soft admonishment. “Brian, let’s give them some space—”
“No,” Brian taunted, not turning to face the two people he obviously considered “his girls”—his to care for, his to laugh with, his to protect. Cole had had that once. He barely remembered the feeling, the security of knowing another’s well-being rested safe in his capable hands.
Except it hadn’t.
Brian inched forward, until he stood toe-to-toe with Cole. All the man’s bristle blasted forward even though he spoke to the women behind him, like Cole wasn’t worthy of the wasted breath. “You said he asked for help?” he asked loftily. “I’m rising to the occasion. That’s what this is, after all.”
“Lissa,” Cole began, wanting to free the violence coiling in his chest and destroy something—anything—that Brian found indispensable. Like his legs. Or his teeth.
Or the happy fucking stars on his shirt.
“Lissa,” Cole said again. This was the part where he opened up. In a blistering monologue, he’d admit that his head remained fucked, but that he’d never meant to demean her or make her feel like… less. He’d make her understand that pain, at least hers, had never been the plan. Wanting her was peeling the skin from his bones. Guilt from the wanting chewed on the leftovers.
Except he only said, “Get out.”
Lissa froze. “Get out?” She fidgeted with the chocolate box, her voice suddenly small. “Of the kitchen? The house?”
“You”—he pointed at Starburst and his sidekick, clinging to one last filament of control—“Both of you. Out.”
Scarlet slid off her seat, aiming a just-do-this look at Brian, and the two clamored through the swinging door. A thump sounded from the other side before a large cardboard box slid back into the kitchen, coming to a halt just beyond the door’s reach. Muffled words drifted in behind the box. “What?” Brian asked, though the intervening wall subdued the question. “Ethan would have punched him. Your fiancé would consider it my sworn duty to fill in for him, and that guy deserves to be punched.”
Ignoring the muted banter, Lissa stared at the box in bemused silence.
Cole’s cue.
Chapter 25
Cole went to his knees in front of the box and coaxed her softly. “Open it, Lissa.”
The low plea crept along her spine, leaving tingles in its wake. But Lissa had exceeded her order-taking quota, a limit she’d reset over and over in dealing with Cole.
“Why?”
He lifted his gaze to hers and swallowed. “I want you to.”
Boss-man wants. Lissa hadn’t been sleeping well, and she second-guessed every waking moment in the name of Cole’s wants. “I want you to give me”—she stopped herself from asking too much—“my work a chance.”
They both excelled at wanting. Getting, however, required some progress.
“Open the package, Lissa.”
Like before, Cole’s quiet command pinched her insides like a vise, a warm squeeze of a stroke that made her yearn to defy him and devour him all at once.
The latter option had disappeared the moment he’d plotted to destroy Turning, not with a brutal hand, but with a slow, careless tongue.
Turning had been painted exactly right, except rather than occupying a soaring precipice above good things, she and Cole were locked in the abyss below. A devastating fall separated one from the other.
Stuck gripping the counter, Lissa argued with herself about whether she could do as he asked even one more time. Scarlet and Brian waited in the next room. One word, and she could be on a plane, ensconced between them, flying back to a life that presented so few demands.
Except now she wanted demands and recognized the need for external constraints on her work. No longer did Lissa mindlessly create what she felt, results be damned. She painted with a plan. Brush didn’t hit canvas until she understood exactly how to make the viewer feel—or at least understand—what she felt. Cole had made her better.
Yet Cole’s brand of help came with addiction.
And her parents’ came with humiliation.
Cue the dramatic music—lose or lose her soul.
Closing her eyes, Lissa heard a faint pop and a laugh from beyond the door. Then came a slow whoosh… the window to the china sideboard. Two glasses clinked. This was no mimosa brunch. Brian and Scarlet were celebrating on the other side of that wall.
Probably because they knew she’d be going home with them. Cole had asked her friends to fetch.
Somber intent apparent in every line of his body, Cole moved to toe the box resting on the floor. “They know what’s inside,” he said, as if that explained all the happy in the next room.
A parting gift.
Lissa grabbed a knife from the butcher block at her elbow. The seals on the box had bubbled, like the tape had been opened and reapplied. With a shrug, she slit the top open in neat lines, then dug through a sea of Styrofoam peanuts before encountering a wooden rectangle. The familiar grain of lacquered ash popped against shadows cast by the cardboard walls.
A smile surfaced against her will. “A French easel.”
Folded to the size of a sketch box, Lissa easily lifted the gift by the shoulder strap and placed it on the floor. A few pulls and snaps opened the contraption into a full, three-legged easel with telescoping legs. A sleek equipment drawer disappeared beneath the canvas support.
Lissa sat back on her heels. Top-end portable equipment meant she’d be painting life off the beaten path, maybe even in a faraway land. “Why?”
Cole wound his arms across his chest, his bearing stoic with the faintest hint of uncertainty. “You’ll need it.”
A heavy knock sounded on the swinging door. Scarlet sounded a mite tipsy when she yodeled, “Yoooo-hoo? Need some liquid courage?” When Lissa and Cole stayed quiet, she added, “Liquid forgiveness, maybe? Liquid sexy times? Liquid—”
“Come on, Scar,” Brian interrupted. “Let’s go call your man. See how much money he made today.” Brian’s voice grew faint as the two of them wandered away. Brian knew Scarlet’s fiancé didn’t have much use for him, yet he always seemed to encourage Scarlet to be in constant contact with Ethan when the two of them got together. Lissa couldn’t decide whether Brian did it to keep Ethan reassured of Scarlet’s devotion—probably to make Brian look less threatening—or reminded that Scarlet often chose to while away the hours with her exceedingly good-looking man friend.
Knowing Brian, the outwardly considerate gesture was a carefully constructed torture device for his one-time rival turned ally, if not friend.
Genius.
Refocusing on the easel, Lissa realized Cole had come to stand directly next to her. He put a hand over hers and guided their grip to the brass pull protruding from the equipment drawer. “You need this because yours is broken—”
“Right. You broke it.” Like an ass.
Cole stilled. “The wind broke it.” Cole took several breaths, and when she
peeked up at him, she noted a clenched jaw and an unholy focus that speared the handle they both gripped too hard. “Know that I regret destroying your painting that day.”
Huh? “So that’s why you squashed the next one?” She could still see them standing chest-to-chest on a rocky mountainside, the earthy colors of her sunrise smeared across his shirt. Expect me to fuck back, he’d told her.
The statement had been less a play on words and more a factual threat.
He spoke against her ear, a gruff rumble that slid along her skin. “That next one was an accident.” Strong fingers tightened over hers, and he began to ease the drawer outward. “I sent your initial painting—the broken-hearted house on that first morning—to hell on purpose. I couldn’t help myself. With you, I rarely can. After that, I’ve never intentionally caused your work any harm. I’ve never intentionally caused you any harm.”
So much for intent.
Heat flickered and spread from where his lips touched her ear… down her neck, across her chest. The drawer hit a back stop, and she felt the loss of his touch when he let go of her hand and reached inside.
“And yesterday?” she asked. “What was that?”
He tugged a foldable palette free of the drawer, revealing a number of divided compartments beneath. Cole had obviously taken note of her equipment needs. Instead of a bag of supplies and an unwieldy easel, she’d be able to carry everything in one neat package. French easels weren’t new news, but she’d never considered carrying one. Most of her work happened in the studio, flowing more from an overactive imagination than any particular setting. Convenience hadn’t been key. Until now.
Cole turned her from the new toy and gently lifted her chin until she looked him in the eye. “A miscalculation. Once my hands were on you”—his caress trailed down her throat, stopping over her heart—“I couldn’t take them off. I should have. I saw the easel fall.”
“And so you—”
“Went to my knees on the truck floor like chains were dragging me down.”