Love Unlocked

by Libby Waterford

  She’d learned when trying to pick a difficult lock that if you didn’t fight it, you could find the flow and lean into it, finding yourself suddenly facing an open door. She had to lean into these circumstances to make it to the other side. If she played this right, she could be out of Deacon’s debt and keep everyone safe, to boot.

  Resolved, she dressed in jeans and boots and retraced the route to Hudson’s house before she could talk herself out of it.

  His truck in the driveway was the only sign of that the old Craftsman was inhabited. Eve, in work mode, strode to the house, her decision made, her speech prepared.

  It took him a couple of minutes to answer her sharp knock. When he saw her, he grunted and left the heavy wooden door open, presumably in an invitation for her to enter. He stalked through the house, and she followed, getting the impression of a tidy, if dark, interior. He looked like he hadn’t gotten much sleep, and he was wearing an unlikely combination of a Giants sweatshirt covered in white paint stains, cutoff khaki shorts that were unraveling from all ends, and moccasins. Eve took the opportunity to check out his powerful legs. His attire didn’t bother her, but his gloomy look did.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. “Why don’t I make you a cup of coffee?”

  “I don’t want a cup of coffee,” he said.

  She smoothed her smile out into a neutral expression. She’d never seen him so grouchy, and she found it entirely too endearing.

  “Well, I do,” she said. “I’m here to say some things, so you might as well be hospitable.”

  He sighed, and took a left turn from wherever in the house he’d been going.

  They emerged into a small, old-fashioned kitchen, and he rummaged through a cabinet until he came up with a dusty box of instant.

  “This is all I have. Or there’s some tea.”

  She masked her horror. “Tea, please.”

  He turned the kettle on, and the simple motions seemed to relax him. “I don’t keep coffee in the house. If I did, I’d be wired all day long. Usually, I go to Maude’s, or the gas station.”

  Eve shuddered, then grinned. “Now I understand why you’ve been dropping by. You wanted some real coffee.”

  He looked at her sharply, and seemed to realize she was joking. “Well, you do make a mean espresso.”

  “Why don’t we skip the tea and go into town? I’ll buy you lunch. I need to talk to you.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Eleven.”

  “I’ve got to be at the nursing home at one.”

  “All right.” She tried to imagine Hudson looming over the nursing home residents. Was there anywhere in town he didn’t volunteer?

  He stood there, looking at her. Why wasn’t he getting ready to go?

  “Do you want to change your clothes?” she said encouragingly. The forgotten teakettle clicked off, seeming to bring him back to the present.

  “I’ve been working, or trying to. It’s not going very well.”

  “Oh!” she said, surprised. “I’d heard….”

  “That I’m a has-been?”

  She widened her eyes at the note of bitter resignation in his voice. As if he would believe the worst anyone had to say about him.

  “I’d heard that you weren’t painting,” she said neutrally. “But it’s not the word in the industry. I heard it around town. To the art world, you’re biding your time between exhibitions.”

  He made a sound of disgust. “Yeah. I’m biding my time, all right.”

  Confusion made her shake her head. Where was the arrogant artist who’d wanted her to sit for him? Where was the man who’d charged into her house and demanded her secrets and her body? She frowned. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

  Hudson glanced down at himself. “You’re right. Why don’t I change? We can talk over some of Maude’s BLATs.”

  “BLATs?”

  “Bacon, lettuce, avocado, tomato. Make yourself at home,” he said, and he disappeared back the way they came.

  She sighed. He couldn’t be managed. She didn’t know if she liked that or hated it. A little of both. At least, she had a unique opportunity to learn something about the man. Noticing things and seeing patterns had always given her an edge in the art world, so she turned her attention to her surroundings, absorbing the little details that told her more about who Hudson was than any line of direct questioning would.

  The space was cleaner than she expected, for one thing. Maybe he didn’t use the kitchen that often. She peeked into the fridge. It held little more than a jar of pickles and some expired milk. Not a cook.

  There was a laundry room off the back of the kitchen, and through the window in the back door, she could see the shaggy lawn, turning brown, that ended at a wooden fence that matched the house. Beyond the fence was a grove of trees. His home felt as remote as hers, though it was situated much closer to the center of town.

  Eve made her way from the kitchen back to the living room. There were more personal touches here, a large oil painting of the ocean over the tidy fireplace, a cluster of framed photographs on a side table. She peered at the faces, recognizing Will and his family, little Jordan, Caitlyn, and Gracie opening gifts on Christmas morning. There was an older couple in front of a church, clearly Hudson’s parents. The pretty woman had Hudson’s dark features while the graying man on her arm accounted for Hudson’s height and strong build. The photo that made her laugh was unmistakably Hudson, his face smooth and unlined, oversized glasses framing his brown eyes. He couldn’t have been older than eighteen, and he was staring at a piece of art in a museum. She could see the canvas, but not its blurred subject. Hudson was in focus and his face shone with fierce wonder, even love, as he regarded it.

  “My sister Stephanie took that photo.”

  His voice came from over her shoulder, making her start a little.

  “It’s wonderful, so evocative.” She turned to him. He had dressed in jeans, sneakers and an untucked flannel shirt.

  “She was a good photographer. Maybe could have been a great one.” He stood next to her and touched the photo with a finger, as if handling it any further would cause him pain. “It used to remind me what I love about art, why I try to capture emotion on the canvas.”

  Eve held her breath. Was he sharing something about himself? She trod carefully. “Used to? What does it remind you of now?”

  He shrugged. “Failing.”

  So they were back to one-word answers. She tried to lighten up the conversation. “I didn’t know you wore glasses.”

  “I don’t. I was going through a pretentious phase.”

  She laughed again. “You? Pretentious?”

  “Be glad you didn’t know me fifteen years ago.”

  “Well, you were cute, anyhow.”

  He rolled his eyes. Eve glanced at the last photo on the table, a candid portrait of a lovely young woman with hair the color of Hudson’s and Will’s.

  “That must be your sister.”

  “She died about a year after that photo was taken.”

  Eve reacted to the pain that still resonated in his voice more than anything else. She went to him, pressed herself to his side. “I’m sorry. She was so young.”

  Hudson shifted, first into her, then away. Uncertain, she backed up a step.

  “Yeah.” His voice was gruff.

  The moment became too intimate and she had no idea what to say. There was a long beat of silence, then he saved her by saying, “Do you want to see the rest of the house?”

  A peculiar question, until she realized that he meant if she wanted to see his studio.

  “Please,” she simply said.

  Hudson never had people in his home, much less in his studio, but Eve wasn’t any acquaintance. Maybe if he let someone in, it wouldn’t seem like the place where his artistic impulses went to die anymore. She’d already shared so much about herself with him, and it didn’t come easily for her, either.

  Showing her his studio was the only way he could think of to repa
y some of her trust in him, and to thank her for the many small kindnesses she continued to show him, from her amazing coffee to her unadorned sympathy.

  Stephanie would have liked her. She would have said Eve was out of his league, but she would have liked her, and that thought eased some of the tightness in his chest.

  He led her to the back of the house, where an old sunroom had once been. He’d expanded and turned it into another wing of the house, one built of steel and glass. The light flooded in through the enormous skylights and through the back wall, made entirely of glass. The industrial materials should have been jarring, juxtaposed with the heavy wood of the house and the backdrop of trees and mountains beyond, but instead, it felt like being out of doors, only with air conditioning and a killer sound system.

  Eve was silent as she did a slow turn around the room. A drafting table sat in the middle of the large open space, pieces of paper covering it, an assortment of paint bottles, tubes, and jars on a long counter on the wall that the room shared with the house. The place was tidy. One of the two side walls was covered, floor to eleven foot ceiling, with photographs. The other held shelves of materials.

  He was dying to know what she was thinking. He shuffled his feet, took his hands out of his pockets, and put them back in. He stood still when Eve stopped her survey of the room and looked him in the eyes.

  “It’s a remarkable space.”

  He could hear the hesitation in her voice. “But?”

  “It’s very clean,” she said carefully.

  “Yeah, well, it hasn’t gotten much use.” Was that all he was going to say? If he wasn’t going to tell her everything, what had he brought her here for? He breathed deep.

  She wandered over to the wall of photos. He spoke to her back.

  “I’m an abstract painter.” He ran a hand through his hair. “At least, I was.”

  “What do you mean?” She was bent over a photo, speaking absently. “You’re famous for your landscape-inspired abstracts.”

  “When Stephanie got sick, I was in New York. I was working really hard on getting ready for a show, and I was playing hard, too. Stephanie didn’t tell anyone how sick she really was. I knew she’d been in to the doctor’s for tests, but I couldn’t believe that my little sister could really have cancer. I guess I was in denial. I was kind of caught up in my little universe; I didn’t understand how serious her condition was. Then my mom called to say that Stephanie had taken a turn for the worse. She was dead before I could even get on a plane.”

  Eve was looking at him alertly now, but he averted his gaze so he didn’t have to see the pity on her face. “I came out for the funeral, but I was all set to go back to New York, back to my studio, back to work on the show I had contracted for the following summer.”

  “I remember that show,” she murmured.

  “I couldn’t do it. I sent what I had, and they had to be satisfied with that. I couldn’t paint. All I could think about was how badly I’d failed my little sister. She lived right in town, did you know? She was a nurse. The most giving woman I ever knew.”

  He started pacing around the studio. “I bought this house, built this studio thinking I’d come back someday, settle down, raise my kids alongside Will’s and Stephanie’s. But Stephanie wasn’t going to have any kids. I couldn’t seem to make up for that by picking up a paintbrush.”

  “So you started volunteering at the hospital. And the nursing home. And the community garden.”

  He stopped in front of his easel, on which a small cloth-covered canvas rested. He forced himself to meet her gaze, but he didn’t see any judgment in her eyes. “Yeah. I haven’t painted since. Well, not until last week.”

  “Last week?” She didn’t understand the significance until Hudson lifted the cloth off the canvas to show her. Her face stared back at her, unfinished but unmistakable. He’d painted her with a smile and shining eyes. And not her standard-issue Cheshire cat smile, but a real one, as if he’d captured the moment right after she’d opened a colorfully wrapped gift to find a puppy inside. She looked happy.

  Eve didn’t know what to say. The art critic inside her was fascinated by seeing Hudson Cleary’s technique applied to a portrait. The same bold strokes and defined lines were there, but it was pleasantly surprising to see them create representational art.

  As a woman looking at the work of a man she respected, admired, desired, she was overwhelmed, seeing herself reflected in his eyes, in the work of his hands.

  The tears that welled up embarrassed her. She managed a calming breath.

  “What do you think?”

  She forced out a laugh. “A loaded question if I ever heard one.”

  He smiled. “Fair enough.”

  “Quite simply, it’s beautiful. Surprising, yes. But beautiful. Why haven’t you ever painted portraits before?”

  “It’s as if I never thought of it. My hands started doing their thing and my brain was only involved tangentially. For two years, my brain was in charge and my hands were frozen. They’re thawing out, and this is the result.”

  “Well, on a professional level, it’s good, Hudson, it’s really good.”

  “Thanks.”

  Did she detect a hint of relief in his voice? It didn’t surprise her that he’d be a little insecure after being creatively stopped up for two whole years.

  “On a personal level, it’s breathtaking. You made me look….”

  “Happy?”

  “Yes, but…soft is the word I was thinking of.”

  “You always try to be hard,” he said. “Soft looks good on you.”

  “Oh.” He’d stymied her the way he had the first time they met. And the second time they met. He kept coming up with ways to take her breath away and make her want him more with each second.

  Why did things have to be so complicated? She wanted, desperately, to show him how soft she could be for him, for him alone.

  Since things were complicated, she did the only thing she could. “Let’s go get some BLATs.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Maude’s was one of those diners that had steadfastly refused to be updated at any point in the last thirty years. The neon sign in the window was missing the u, the red vinyl booths were cracked, and the floor had been mopped so many times it was amazing the checkerboard linoleum pattern hadn’t been worn clean off.

  After they’d ordered and had their coffees topped up, Eve watched Hudson doctor his with three sugars and a splash of cream. She must have looked incredulous, because he shrugged. “This is how I like Maude’s coffee.”

  He’d taken her espresso straight, and the night they’d shared coffee in his brother’s kitchen, he only used the cream. She never knew anyone to be so changeable when it came to caffeine delivery systems. Then again, after she tasted the diner’s bitter brew, maybe she could understand.

  He smiled but made no comment when she reached for the sugar packets. They were properly caffeinated, so they could get down to business. Before she could launch into her carefully prepared speech, Hudson leaned back in the booth.

  “So how are we going to steal ourselves a Mondrian?”

  “Not so loud!”

  “I don’t think there are any FBI agents in Chelsea.”

  “You can’t be too careful.”

  “Sure. Sure. Tell me the deal.”

  He was awfully composed for a civilian. He probably imagined Cary Grant-style glamour.

  “I will, if you’ll let me,” she ground out. When he continued to be silent, she took a calming breath and went on. “First, I appreciate your offer to help. I’m a little out of my element here, both being back in the States without my usual network, and being forced into this job. Since it wouldn’t be wise to simply walk away, I have to lean into it, and that means I have to use what assets I have, and unfortunately, you’re one. So, if you’re still up for it, I’d like to have your help. In other words, what are you doing Friday night?”

  “Helping you steal a painting.” He grinned like a schoo
l kid contemplating a snow day.

  “I have a few conditions.”

  “Of course you do,” he said.

  “Number one, you have to do everything I say between now and Friday without asking questions. I’m not going to ask you to do anything illegal—or at least, anything you can’t plausibly deny your involvement with. However, I might have to ask you to do something you won’t like, such as stay put when I need to go somewhere. I need to trust that you’ll follow my directions. Otherwise, I can’t keep you safe.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Eve sighed. She’d have to accept that. “Fine. The second thing is, we can’t have sex.”

  “Ever?”

  Hudson looked so crestfallen that she hastened in with an awkward reassurance. “No…I mean, until this job is finished. Not that we…um, let’s take that off the table right now.” He quirked an eyebrow and she rushed on. “If we have sex, I have a feeling my brain will turn to mush and I won’t be able to concentrate on the important stuff, like getting a deranged thief off my back, okay?” She felt her cheeks grow hot and she took a sip of Maude’s awful coffee. Hudson chuckled, but she thought more in solidarity than in fun.

  “I can live with those terms,” he said, “and I have one of my own.”

  She lifted an eyebrow.

  “I’ll help you get into that party, I’ll follow your instructions, I’ll even keep my hands off of you.” Eve was pleased at how disgruntled he sounded over the last item. “When it’s all over, you’ll model for me. One session, a few hours at most. And you have to do what I tell you. It’s only fair.”

  She sucked in a breath. She’d been afraid he’d bring that up again. She wanted to do it, if she was really honest with herself. But saying yes was like saying they had a future together after this debacle was resolved, and that was even scarier than the prospect of Deacon’s threats.