Love Unlocked

by Libby Waterford

  He considered asking Will if he needed help completing her security system installation, since Eve had asked his brother to rush the work. But Will was close to done, plus the ruse was too hokey to work. He didn’t want to see her again as an employee, anyway. He wanted to see her as a man.

  He had her phone number from the day he’d let her into her house. He fished his cell phone out of the pocket of his running shorts. It would be a simple matter to press the buttons, let it ring, ask her to meet him for a drink.

  He thought of her snooty little accent, her elite gallery experience, the way she’d icily dismissed his request, and he let the phone drop back into his pocket. Maybe he’d run another half a mile.

  ***

  Hudson’s request to paint her had been rattling around in Eve’s head for days, distracting her at the oddest moments. She’d been taken aback by the request, and her answer had been stilted; she was afraid she’d come off as horribly snobby and uptight.

  She’d wanted to say yes. The thought of posing for Hudson, clothed or not, was extremely erotic. What would it feel like to submit to his eyes, to his hands, as they searched out her secrets and put them on paper? He was more than talented; he was brilliant. She’d known it the first time she’d seen one of his paintings, before she ever knew his name or the sinfully handsome face behind it.

  Saying yes would have meant prolonged contact with a man who couldn’t be counted on to disappear before he got too close. Men usually did what she wanted them to, eventually, but with Hudson, one couldn’t know.

  Even though she’d come to Chelsea to start again, to make different choices and return some semblance of normality to her existence, there were still enough messy threads from her old life tangling up with the present that it made her think twice before adding one huge complication to the mix.

  And yet, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  What she needed was a new project. She’d finished appointing the interior of the house with furniture, appliances, and gadgets. The upstairs had been entirely repainted, and the security system was well in place. Her paintings had not yet arrived, so her walls were still bare. She opened the French doors and looked over her backyard, neglected brown grass that melted into a copse of native trees, over which she could see a generous band of twinkling silver ocean. Time to turn to the exterior.

  With one hand, she pulled out her cell phone, scrolling down to the name of the contractor she’d met at the Home Depot in Pismo Beach. With the other, she started sketching the outlines of a deck. Nothing like endless home improvement projects to keep the mind and body off the subject of men.

  After making the appointment with the contractor, Eve lost track of time, perfecting her vision for the deck. The sound of her doorbell caused her to jerk her head up. She slid the plans into a neat stack and smoothed her hair. Always be prepared.

  The person on her doorstep was decidedly not Hudson. She was a woman of average height, slim build, but with hips and a fair amount of bosom. She wore her blond hair cropped close to her head, which made her look younger, but Eve guessed she was about thirty. She wore Levis and cowboy boots and a plain white tank top. Her arms were bronzed from sun exposure, and she had freckles on her nose. Her mouth was a generous slash and she smiled, holding up a jar of something the color of liquid amber.

  “Hi, neighbor, I’m Rue. I live back down the road at Honeydale Farm, and this is some for you. Honey, that is.”

  Eve couldn’t help the grin that split her face. “Would you like to come in for some coffee?”

  Rue moved nonstop, setting the honey on the kitchen bar, inspecting the top of the line espresso machine that Eve had recently mastered. “Fancy,” was her assessment, but she readily agreed to a cappuccino.

  “I didn’t know there was a farm nearby,” Eve commented as she readied her tiny porcelain cups for the rich brew. She had a set of eight, but so far had used but one, washing it in the sink since she didn’t have enough dishes to run the dishwasher. Reinventing oneself had been lonely so far. She hoped she didn’t sound desperate for company, but it didn’t matter. Rue continued to inspect the kitchen, chatting freely as she did so.

  “It’s not much of a farm, yet. I raise bees for honey and for renting to other farms, and we have some chickens, vegetables, a pig. I sell the honey at the farmers market in town, and we also sell to some fancy foodie places from Carmel to Santa Barbara.”

  “You’re a beekeeper,” Eve said in wonder.

  “That’s right.”

  “Wherever did you learn?”

  “You know the usual tale. I graduated college with absolutely no direction, so I hoofed around Europe for a while. I ended up doing some woofing in England at a honeybee farm. Turns out I had a way with bees, and I stayed for a year. The owner really took me under his wing, so to speak.”

  Eve laughed. “Woofing?”

  “WWOOFing. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. You work for room and board, learn a little about farming. After I left there, I ended up at a farm in NorCal before I met my partner, Jess. That’s short for Jessica, not Jesse, if you were wondering, and she found this place selling in a short sale, so we scraped together the down payment. She’s a vet tech.”

  Eve was startled when the flow of words stopped.

  Rue was taking a sip of the cappuccino and moaning. “Damn, that’s good. I haven’t had espresso that fine since Paris.”

  “Thanks.”

  “So, what’s your story?”

  Eve was both unsettled and refreshed by the directness of the question. “I’m new to the area.”

  “No kidding. You look like a French model and you talk like you’ve watched one too many episodes of Downton Abbey.”

  “Um, thanks?” Did everyone think she was that exotic, and was that a bad thing? “Well, I did spend a number of years in Europe. I helped run art galleries in London, Paris, and Vienna. But I grew up in San Francisco.”

  “So you decided to move to backwoods Central California?”

  “It’s not turning out to be as backwoods as I imagined,” she said, thinking of Hudson.

  “I blame Coppola. One movie director thinking he’s a winemaker and now you’ve got scads of Hollywood types buying up wineries right and left. The ones that can’t afford Sonoma buy here.”

  Eve laughed again. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so light. “You’ve got more than the Hollywood types. Did you know you have a world-famous artist living right here in Chelsea? Hudson Cleary.”

  “Sure, I know Hudson,” Rue said. “We both volunteer at the community garden behind City Hall. Nice guy.”

  Eve couldn’t decide if she was more surprised by the way the two knew one another, or the characterization of Hudson as a nice guy. Nice was an entirely inadequate word.

  “How do you know him? I know there’s a story there; I have a sixth sense for gossip,” Rue asked.

  Eve wanted to share. It had been so long since she’d talked to a woman without having a hidden agenda. She described being locked out of her house on her first day in town, and Hudson being her locksmith’s brother.

  “Imagine my surprise to find out that the man unlocking my front door painted an abstract I sold for seven figures last year.”

  “Seven figures?” Rue whistled. “For that kind of money, I wonder why he stopped painting.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everyone in town knows he has that big Craftsman house on the edge of town, with a gorgeous studio that he built, but he never works in it. His cleaning lady told me it’s practically empty. It’s been that way for a couple of years,” Rue said, helping herself to one of the biscotti Eve had set out along with the cappuccinos.

  “That can’t be right. Maybe he works someplace else.” She couldn’t imagine someone as talented and successful as Hudson giving it all up to go work in a community garden, and he’d also asked her to sit for him. “He even asked me….” Was it too personal to share?

  “Asked y
ou what? Spill.”

  “He asked me to sit for him. The other day when he came back to take some measurements for his brother.”

  “You mean, like, model?” Rue laughed. “What a great line. Not that you couldn’t be a model. Jess is going to hate you when she meets you,” she said cheerfully. “But as far as I know, he’s retired. I’ve never seen him with paint on his hands or anything.”

  “Huh.” Eve needed some time to process that information. “So what does he do? He told me he fills in as a locksmith from time to time.”

  “He doesn’t have a regular job, as far as I know, but he volunteers pretty much anywhere that’ll take him in town. The garden is one of his projects.”

  “Really? That’s…perplexing.”

  Rue shrugged. “Maybe he likes giving back. He’s not sanctimonious about it or anything. I’ve had him over a few times for Sunday Supper, but he usually doesn’t talk much about himself. He’ll talk your ear off about these old people he’s friends with down at the convalescent home, though.”

  Eve was getting more confused by the second. “Talk your ear off?”

  “Well, in relative terms. He’s not exactly a chatty guy.”

  “No. Well, I guess we all have unexpected sides.”

  “And he doesn’t have a bad one.” At Eve’s stare, Rue grinned. “What? I’m not blind. He’s a very attractive male specimen, if you like that sort of thing.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Sounds like you’ve already made up your mind. You wouldn’t mind ‘sitting’ for him at all.” Innuendo laced her words.

  “No! Well, the thought had crossed my mind, to be honest. I thought he was genuine. He’s a brilliant artist.”

  “I’m imagining you’d show up to his studio and he’d be there, Burt Reynolds-style, buck naked on a bear skin rug.”

  “Please, give me a little more credit than that.”

  “I’m sure you’ve had your share of bad come-ons before. Beautiful American in a classy gallery?”

  “No, well, maybe. It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to take someone up on it.”

  “Well, as I said, he’s a nice guy, as far as I know. But everyone has secrets.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Eve said.

  “I’ve got to get back to work. Thanks for the caffeine and the sugar.”

  Eve showed her to the door. “Thanks for being neighborly. And for the honey.”

  “You should stop by for our Sunday Supper. Nice people, fresh food, lots of wine.”

  “I’d love to.”

  She waved as Rue walked back down the hill. Getting close to her neighbors could be a mistake. It felt wonderful, being accepted into a community, but it made her cautious. So many things could go so very wrong.

  Chapter Five

  Hudson woke with a headache that the bright white California sunlight had only worsened. He never over-indulged in alcohol, so he wasn’t hung over, and he didn’t suffer from allergies. He blamed the ache in his skull on his poor night of sleep, caused by an over-preoccupation with the brunette who lived at the top of Oak Grove Hill.

  He’d resisted her pull all week, the way he might resist stopping in at the doughnut shop when he was trying to curb his coffee and maple bar habit for a while. Just as he was always drawn back into the caffeine and sugar thrall, so would he turn up on Eve Caplin’s doorstep.

  He took two pain relievers and stomped around the house for a while. He thought about going to the studio, but the half-finished sketches on his worktable mocked him even from afar. He hadn’t been able to recapture the first burst of creative energy, and wished he’d never had it in the first place.

  He was desperate to relieve some of this pressure, and if the only way was by making a fool of himself with Eve yet again, then so be it.

  The drive to her house was disconcertingly short. He barely had time to rehearse what he was going to say. All he could think about was how much she intrigued him, and how much he either needed her in his bed or in his studio so he could unlock some of the tension that had been building since he met her.

  She was home. He drove onto the driveway, knowing she’d hear his tires on the gravel, giving himself no out.

  A contractor’s truck was parked to the side of the house, and a couple of men with tool belts around their hips walked from the vehicle to the rear of the house, carrying lumber and bags of cement.

  Hudson revised his approach. Trying to abide by the usual channels with Eve would result in one blocked move after another. Instead, he went around the back, to find a small crew blocking out what appeared to be a generously sized deck. The wind had picked up here on the top of the hill, and Eve’s long hair whipped around her face as she consulted with a small mountain of a man who was probably the foreman. She was talking and he was nodding. No doubt she was detailing exactly what she wanted, in no uncertain terms.

  When she saw him standing on the edge of the yard, her eyebrows jerked up, but there was a flicker of a smile before her mouth turned neutral. Enough to give him hope. He waited until she was done speaking with the foreman, then sauntered up, offering her a casual grin, letting her draw her own conclusions about his presence there.

  “Hello,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

  He wanted to answer with something more provocative, but first things first. “A cup of coffee would do, for now.”

  “All right,” she said, and led the way through the French doors.

  “You’re building a deck,” he observed. “Good for property value.”

  “And for looking at my view,” she said as she started the espresso machine. “Americano?”

  “Why don’t you give me a straight shot?”

  Her movements were economical as she went about tamping freshly ground beans into the filter. He was impressed that she had a full-fledged espresso machine, not a pre-done cup one.

  “Have you thought about putting up a fence at your property line? A woman as security conscious as you must hate anyone being able to walk around your entire house.”

  “J.J. is already working some numbers up for me. I’ll have to see how his crew does with the deck, but so far they seem dependable.”

  “You’re one step ahead of me.”

  Eve smiled but let the comment slide. “I met one of my neighbors the other day. A beekeeper named Rue. She says she knows you.”

  “That’s right. She and her girlfriend own that piece of land down the hill from you.” He eyed the jar of honey on the counter. “Their honey is pricey, but delicious.”

  “Would you like a taste?”

  He moved his gaze from the honey to her lips. “Sure.”

  She turned away quickly, busying herself pouring out his espresso and then rummaging in a drawer for a spoon that she then dipped in the jar. A golden thread of honey streamed from the spoon to the glass container. Eve broke it with a finger that she brought to her mouth.

  He was already hard when he took the spoonful of honey she offered him and licked the sticky sweetness. It tasted like sunshine and sage blossoms and he wanted to spread it over Eve’s lips and nibble away the afternoon.

  “Sweet,” he murmured.

  “Isn’t it? Rue was very kind to stop by. I didn’t know neighbors still did that,” she said, a girlish smile on her face. She seemed young and happy, like a Degas pastel come to life.

  “It must be hard to move to a new place without knowing anyone.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Though now I know Rue. And you, I suppose.” She said the last part grudgingly.

  “I’d like to know you better,” he said, venturing into the subject that stood like a brick wall between them.

  She stared at him, tucked her hair behind her ears.

  “If you start with that cold-as-ice thanks-for-your-interest bull, I won’t be responsible for my actions,” he said reasonably. He took a sip of espresso. The bitter chased away the sweet. He wanted that sweet back.

  She sighed. Her shoulders dropped
and her mouth softened. “I’d like to know you better, too.”

  That was all the invitation he needed. He rose off the bar stool and was at her side in two strides. He waited, smelling the brewed coffee mingled with her scent, fresh and subtle, and then when he couldn’t stand it anymore, he slid one hand up the back of her neck and cupped the nape, the gentle pressure of his fingers pushing her lips closer to his.

  Eve was transfixed.

  She couldn’t look anywhere but at those gorgeously molded lips. The fact that they parted for her made her feel like someone had flipped a switch that sent hot, pulsing currents of electricity through her belly, her legs, her breasts. Her heart beat fast and hard, and when lips met lips, it might have stopped and stumbled for a moment before resuming its clattering against her ribs. He was soft, the kiss light, as if he were afraid to deepen it. Eve was aware of nothing but the spark that was going to light a bonfire between them as surely as she breathed. It didn’t matter if the kiss was as chaste as a schoolgirl kissing the back of her own hand. They were headed someplace hot and heavy, and they both knew it.

  She was drowning in the overwhelming pleasure of being near him. She couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. There was only him. His arms held her close while his hands, those clever painter’s hands, touched and probed, teased her skin, her hair, wriggled their way under her clothes to touch places on her body that no one but she had touched in a very long time.

  The sensations came at her both too fast and not fast enough. She leaned into the embrace, kissing him back as though he alone carried the oxygen she needed to survive. She was terrified as she threw herself against him, more afraid to look back, to stop, to live life without this exquisite intensity.

  A noise came from some distant place. Hudson moved slightly away, and Eve recognized the sound of someone pointedly clearing his throat.

  “Wow,” she breathed, before coming fully back into the present.

  J.J., the foreman, stood in the doorway. “We’re going to start pouring the foundation now, Ms. Caplin. You asked me to let you know.”

  “Oh, right. Thanks.”