by Linda Verji
If he went and asked his father about the picture, then she was screwed. But for now that was all she had. Fortunately, Lee seemed to swallow her excuse. His lips lifted once more in a smile as he nodded. “Makes sense.”
His wide smile threw her for a second. That hadn’t changed about him. Though he didn’t have much to smile about when they were younger, the few times he did, his smile had lit up the room. Just as it was doing today.
She cleared her throat then affected a business-like tone. “How can I help you today? Were you looking for something?”
“Actually, my dad sent me for the sculpture he bought here.”
“Ah!” She nodded. “Give me a minute. I think Pete already wrapped it up.”
She whirled around and made a beeline for the backroom where they stored more artwork. She found Mason’s sculpture perfectly wrapped up and ready to go. She hauled it into her arms then walked out of the backroom. Surprise shot through her when she found Lee standing right by the door. He was so close she almost walked into him. So close, his masculine scent immediately suffused her sense.
Tall, sexy and smells good? Well, damn!
Arms outstretched, he came closer. “Let me help you with that.”
“I can car-” But she never got to finish her sentence because he reached for the sculpture.
His fingertips brushed against hers as he grabbed the heavy piece, and an immediate shot of electricity raced through her. Her eyes shot upwards to his. But he was so busy looking at the sculpture that he didn’t even see her shock. Once she released the package, he hauled it over to the checkout counter and set it a few inches from the register.
“Your dad already paid for it.” A.J stepped behind the counter, more to put some distance between them than because she actually had anything to do there. “So you can just take it along with you.”
“Later.” Lee leaned one arm against the counter as his dancing eyes settled on her. “So you know I’m Lee Marwick. I only know you as A.J. Is the A.J short for something?”
“Yes,” she said simply but didn’t elaborate.
“Short for….”
“I go by A.J.”
“Amelia Jackson?”
“Just call me A.J.”
“Angelina Juliette?” This time his lips crooked in a slight smile.
“Nope.” She shook her head, resisting the urge to respond to his smile with one of her own. “Just A.J.”
“Okay, A.J.” The way he dragged out her name and the way he smiled as he did had her heart bumping oddly in her chest. “When are you buying me a drink?”
She blinked. “Sorry?”
“You spilled my drink the other night while you were running over my table.” His intent gaze on her, he explained, “You should make it up to me. Have a drink with me.”
It took a while for A.J to get what he was doing. When she did, her jaw dropped. “Are you hitting on me?”
“You’re quick on the uptake.” His smile widened as he repeated. “Have a drink with me.”
She considered it. It would be nice to get to know this new Lee. Then she decided that it was better for him that they remain strangers. She shook her head. “No.”
“Why?”
“Just no.”
“You’re not the explaining sort are you?”
“Nope.” She suggested, “I’ll pay for the drink if you want.”
“Sorry, you’re not getting off that easy.” His smile only deepened. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
The abrupt change in subject left her reeling in confusion. When she got her bearings back, she lifted her eyebrows in an attempt to pretend that she didn’t know what he was talking about. “Like how?”
But Lee wasn’t fooled. Grinning, he said, “You know how.”
She paused then said, “From T.V.”
“Yeah! Right!” His laughing eyes said he didn’t believe her. In another abrupt change of topic, he asked, “Why were those men chasing you?”
“I hardly think that’s your business,” she countered, but it wasn’t enough to dissuade Lee.
“Come on, tell me.”
Somehow, she knew he’d keep pressing if she didn’t give him some kind of answer, so she retorted, “We were playing hide and seek.”
“What?” He laughed, the loud happy sound ringing in the room. “You were what?”
“Playing hide and seek.” Her best poker-face on, she added, “You don’t believe me? Go ask them.”
“I might. I just might,” he threatened even as his grin remained in place.
She shrugged. “Okay. Knock yourself out.”
Casper would toss him out on his ass, but that was the price he paid for nosing around her business.
Lee watched her for a brief moment then piped up, “Come work for me.”
She blinked. “What?”
My God! Who changed topics this fast? Talking to Lee was like riding a dizzying roller coaster. One never knew what twists were coming up on the next corner.
“Come work for me,” he repeated. This time his expression was more serious. He dipped a hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and drew out a card. “I work in TV, and I think you’d make an excellent stunt-woman. I’ve never seen anyone move as smoothly as you.”
A.J had been complimented many times for her fighting skills, but those compliments had never left her feeling as pleasantly warm as Lee’s did. She quickly tapped down on that warmth. Without even looking at his card, she shook her head. “Not interested.”
“It comes with a great paycheck,” he coaxed.
“No!”
Lee smiled and shook his head. “No, is your favorite word, isn’t it?”
This time it was A.J who changed the topic. “Isn’t your father waiting for his sculpture?”
“Subtle!” Lee laughed at her obvious attempt to kick him out of her store. “Come work for me. I bet we’d make a great team.”
“Nope.”
“Then have lunch with me.”
“What?” She blinked. There he went with those fast conversation turns again. She shook her head. “No.”
“Can I have your number then?”
He wasn’t the quitting-type, was he? Well, she knew how to deal with his type. “Okay.”
“Really.” His jaw dropped as if he couldn’t quite believe that one of his shots in the dark had hit a mark.
“You can have my number!” Her expression blank, she picked a pen and jotted a number on a writing pad. She tore off the sheet of paper from the writing pad and held it out to him. “There you go.”
With a grin, he took the paper. Once he read it, she expected his grin to disappear. It didn’t. If anything it only got wider. He read, “1-800-IN YOUR DREAMS.” He laughed. “Smooth.”
This time she couldn’t help her smile. “I try.”
“But you forgot something.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I know where you work.”
This dude! A smile playing on her lips, she pointed to a sign next to the door. Lee turned to see the sign. A.J read it for him, “Management reserves the right of admittance.”
Lee turned slowly to face her. His eyes met hers and locked. “Fortunately for me, management already likes me.”
A.J’s jaw dropped. “Wh-what?”
“I’ll see you later, A.J.” With a smile, he sauntered to the door and out of her job, leaving her still awed by his gall.
A moment later, she broke into laughter.
Who would’ve thought it? Her little Lee had turned into a charmer.
* * *
LEE GRINNED AS he made his way back to his father’s store. After losing A.J last week, he’d thought that that was the end. That he’d missed out on a chance to get to know an extraordinary and sexy woman. Who would’ve thought that she’d end up owning the store right across from his father’s?
A.J, A.J, A.J. Even her name was sexy.
“What are you grinning so hard about?” Mason asked when Lee walked back into the store.
Lee set the sculpture on the counter then met his father’s eyes. “Father-”
“Father?” Mason’s eyebrows shot up. “Is that what we’re going with today?”
Lee didn’t answer the question. His tone grave, he said, “Father, the search is over.”
His father’s eyes danced with amusement. “What search?”
“The search for your future daughter-in-law.” Lee smiled slowly. “I just found the mother of your grandchildren.”
Mason stared at his son like he’d lost his mind. Then he burst into chuckles. “I thought I threw away your bongo years ago.”
“Bongo?” Lawrence frowned. A second later, he laughed. “Oh, you mean bong?”
“Yeah.” His father grinned. “You sound like you’re still on that stuff.”
“No need to worry, Papa Bear. I’m as straight as a ruler these days.” Lee drew out a deep breath then explained, “I’m talking about the lady across the street. I’m going to marry her.”
Mason’s eyes grew so wide it almost seemed as if they were about to pop out of his head. “You mean A.J?”
“Certainly not Susan,” Lee countered cheekily. “She’s already taken.”
Lee was only half-joking about marrying A.J. The truth was that even though they’d only met twice now he was extremely attracted to her. No surprise there! What man wouldn’t find a woman like her fascinating? But there was also something strange about her.
For some reason, Lee felt connected to her. Even as he’d been teasing her in her store, he’d had the lingering feeling that he knew her, which was impossible since there was no way he could’ve forgotten a woman like her. Still, it was almost like they’d met somewhere, maybe in a past life. It was a feeling Lee had never felt with any other woman and he was intent of exploring it further.
“Tsk tsk tsk!” Mason shook his head disapprovingly. “You really know how to pick ‘em, don’t you?”
Lee narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“You’re a sharp pencil, aren’t you?” his father teased. “You’ve never noticed all those good Christian women who pop in here so they can catch a glimpse of you. But the moment an ex-con moves in across the street, your eyes are suddenly wide open.”
Lee blinked. Then blinked again. Maybe he hadn’t heard right. “Ex-con?”
“Yeah! You heard right. Ex-con.” His father explained, “You know how Robert always does a background check on anyone who’s new in the neighborhood?”
“Yeah, I know.” Lee nodded. Frankly, he thought it was an invasion of privacy and had said so several times. But his father and Robert stubbornly insisted that it was a precautionary measure to make sure they knew who they were living with, or in this case selling, next to.
“Well,” Mason continued, “Robert found out that A.J was released from prison just a couple of weeks ago.”
“Really?” For about a second, Lee battled with the need to maintain her privacy and his curiosity. His curiosity won. “What was she in for?”
“Hit and run.”
“Whaaat?” Lee’s eyes almost bugged out of their sockets.
Mason leaned forward and lowered his voice as if sharing a state secret. “The thing is, she got sent to prison for hitting a guy with a car, but everyone knows she didn’t do it.”
“She didn’t hit the guy.” Lee frowned. “Then why was she sent in?”
“Because she was with the person who actually drove the car that night.”
That didn’t make sense at all. Lee asked, “Then why didn’t they arrest that person?”
“Because that person was wearing a mask.”
“Mask?” Well, this was getting interesting.
Mason’s eyes sparkled as he elaborated, “The cops suspect that A.J, the driver and one other masked person who was seated in the back of the car were on their way from breaking into Richard Claymore’s estate-”
“Richard Claymore?” Lee frowned as he tried to remember where he’d heard that name. A second later, he remembered, “The billionaire?”
“Actually, he’s now just a millionaire but yes. That Claymore.” Mason nodded. “Anyway, an expensive painting was stolen from his vacation home the same night, and his home isn’t far from the scene of the hit and run. So there’s a high probability that A.J and her masked friends were the culprits. Unfortunately, the cops couldn’t find any real proof that they were actually the thieves. To add insult to injury, A.J denied the theft and refused to out the other people in the car with her.”
“I assume she was also wearing a mask like her friends,” Lee said. When his father nodded, he asked, “So how did they find her and not her accomplices?”
“She brought herself in.” Mason paused. “Well, that’s the short version.”
“And the long version is…”
“The long story is that after hitting the guy, the driver of the car she was in sped away.” Mason frowned. “But A.J came back on her own to check on the injured man. He was already on the brink of death, but she called nine-one-one and did what she could to keep him alive while she waited for the paramedics to get there. She even removed her mask so she could perform CPR on the guy. That’s how they caught her.”
“Because she took off the mask to help out the guy?” Lee wasn’t sure whether to be proud of A.J or scared. Maybe both?
“Anyway, despite all that, she took the rap,” Mason finished. “The prosecution wanted a longer sentence, but the judge took into account that she wasn’t the actual driver and unlike her companions had come back to help the man despite the risk of being caught.”
“Wow!” Lee pulled in a deep breath. “That’s one hell of a story.”
Hell, her story was good enough to make a blockbuster.
“If that isn’t a good enough story to make you reconsider this whole ‘mother of my grandchildren’ nonsense, then I don’t know what is.” Mason’s expression turned grave as he added, “You need to keep away from that woman. She’s dangerous.”
Lee offered him a non-committal. “Hmm!”
Learning that A.J was an ex-con should’ve been enough to quell some of Lee’s interest in her. And usually it would. His usual type of woman was a little bad, but not this bad. But for some reason his interest in A.J grew by the second. Why had she taken the rap for a crime she didn’t commit? What had driven her to become a thief? Where had she learned how to fight? And why were those guys chasing her?
His father studied him with narrowed eyes. “I just made you more interested in her, didn’t I?”
“Father, Father, Father.” Grinning, Lee circled the counter to sling his arm over his father’s shoulder. “You know your son too well.”
“Yeah, I do.” Mason gave Lee a disapproving look. “And he’s stupid.”
“Why, thank you.” Grinning, Lee started towards the workshop.
“It wasn’t a compliment, you idiot,” his father shouted at his back.
Lee only laughed.
CHAPTER 5
Three days later, at precisely eleven-seventeen, Lee was back in Warehouse 17. It was hard to deny the little jump A.J’s heart made when she saw him, but she kept her expression inscrutable. However, before she could ask him what he was doing in her store, he flashed her a charming smile.
“I liked the sculpture that you sold my father so much that I’ve decided to get something for my apartment,” he said.
Fighting an instinctive smile, A.J arched one eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really.” As if to legitimize his words, he wandered towards one of the shelves to inspect a couple of porcelain figurines. “What do you recommend?”
She didn’t believe for a minute that he was here just to ‘get something for his apartment’, but what were her options? With a sigh, she circled the counter to edge closer to him. “Do you have something you want? Maybe a painting? A sculpture?”
It was only once she was standing next to him that she realized exactly how tall he was. Though she was wearing sneakers,
it was clear that even if she were wearing heels, he’d still tower a couple of inches above her. She liked that in a man.
“Hmm.” Lee’s expression was inscrutable as he tapped one finger on his chin. “I don’t have anything specific in mind-”
Of course he didn’t. A.J barely kept from rolling her eyes.
“Why don’t you show me around?” He smiled. “Maybe I’ll see something I like.”
“What about this?” Ridiculously aware of how close he was to her, she pointed to a brass statue of a griffin fighting a python. “It was done by an artist called Riccardo Cardinale in the eighteen sixties.”
“This was made in the eighteen sixties?” Lee bent to peer at the statue. “It looks so new.”
“The owner took good care of it.”
“Interesting.” He inspected the piece carefully for a second before straightening to his full height. “It’s a nice but a little too brassy for me.”
“Brassy?” She narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
“You know.” He shrugged. “Brassy. As in made of brass.”
He’d made up that word, hadn’t he? It took everything in A.J not to call him out. Instead, she asked, “Was there a specific material that you wanted the piece to be made of?”
“Not really.” His eyes glimmered as they met hers, sending an odd shiver coursing down her spine. He added, “But I’ll know when I see it.”
“Okay, so brass pieces are out.” She moved on to the section where the paintings were. “What do you think of that painting? It’s one of the lesser known pieces by Guatemalan artist, Juana del Valle.”
Lee made a face. “Doesn’t look like she was any good.”
“What?” She glared at him. Was he talking about her Juana?
“What is that?” Unaware or likely ignoring her glare, Lee tilted his head to better inspect the painting. “Is that a windmill, a kite, her mother… what?”
“It’s an abstract painting,” A.J explained, “so you define what it is for yourself. It might be a windmill to you, but a kite to someone else. What matters is how it makes you feel.”