Bohemia Chills

by Lucy Lakestone

“Sloane,” I said. “Sloane Abbey.”

  I waited, hoping he would tell me his, but he only smiled. Oh. I hadn’t seen him smile before. It was like watching the sun rise, but he held some of it behind the clouds, behind that reserve he so strongly projected.

  “Sloane,” he repeated. “Let me guess.” He scanned me again, more obviously this time, and I felt a flush of warmth go through me. “You don’t strike me as a painter. Musician? No — you’re a poet. Right?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “I haven’t written poetry since high school, to the relief of pretty much everyone,” I said. “Mostly, I’m a potter. A ceramic artist, if I’m trying to make it sound good.”

  “Hands in wet clay. Sexy,” he joked.

  “Not like that movie,” I said, though I liked the way he said sexy. “That’s always the first thing people think of. Ruining a pot I’m throwing would definitely be a turn-off.”

  “A crime against art,” he said, humor in his tone. “Let me see.” He gently grasped one of my hands, lightly stroking the palm, turning it over to see my short nails and the specks of clay I hadn’t quite worked out. I watched his face and let the feel of his hand work its way into my skin. “I see nothing here that wet clay would improve,” he said, finally lifting my hand to his lips and kissing it with sweet deliberation.

  A sigh escaped me, and again I felt foolish. Any righteous annoyance I might have had melted into a pool of lust.

  He released me and looked into my eyes, and I felt that pull again. “And how did you stumble into my private retreat? Or, should I ask, how could I be so lucky?”

  Running away from you, I thought.

  “I wanted to see the wine,” I said. “Well, not just that. I — needed to escape the party.”

  “I often need to escape the party.” A shadow crossed his face. “I suppose they’ve become a habit I can’t break.”

  “But you’re the host, aren’t you?”

  He smiled. “Yes, but that doesn’t mean the guests want me here.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “You’re kind,” he said drily. “Did you just move to Bohemia Beach?”

  “Yes. I start classes at the art school next week. I wanted to get a fresh start, really work on my art.”

  He looked thoughtful. “Running away from something?”

  “Running to something, I hope,” I said, relaxing into the conversation.

  There was a gleam in his eye. “I can’t wait to find out what.”

  “Me either.” I felt a new rush of heat. “I — I mean, I want to focus on my work. I’ve been out of college for two years, working two jobs. I just needed the time to really concentrate on art. To see where it takes me.”

  “And you chose this place,” he said. “I think we have something in common.”

  I laughed out loud. “Sorry,” I said, looking around, “but I don’t see how that’s possible.”

  He scooped up my hand again, took a step closer, and I was lost in those gray eyes.

  “Maybe I’ll surprise you,” he said softly, kissing my palm, somehow a much more intimate gesture than kissing the back of my hand. I swallowed hard as he let go and looked into my eyes.

  “I hope I see you again soon, Sloane Abbey,” he said. He turned toward the door. “Grab any bottle you like. If you want to talk to me about it, or about anything, come find me.” He paused in the doorway and looked back with just a hint of a smile, a smile that promised more. “Ask for Alex.”

  I awoke feeling like a failure. For one, I’d lost my grasp of a beautiful dream in which I was lying on a beach, feeling Alex's hands run lightly over my skin, brushing fine sand into the wind. I woke just as he pulled down the strap of my bikini, and the sweet idyll fled from me, elusive and taunting.

  Second, the real source of my sense of failure: I'd fled the party last night, fled the crowd, fled Alex, deflating my plan to jump into the social scene of this tightly closed art community.

  I'd had so few friends at home in Ohio. I was always working. I had a rarely seen roommate who practically lived with her boyfriend, and I had a family that ignored me.

  I'd been friendly with the others at the pottery co-op, but I was there by special arrangement, paying a half-fee in exchange for cleaning up the place every day. The others never treated me as one of them. There had been a couple of serious potters, several rich dilettantes and a smattering of hobbyists who never lasted more than three months. And me, throwing pots late into the night, monitoring the kilns until the wee hours, surviving on little sleep and less money.

  I’d remembered Bohemia Beach fondly from trips my family made here when I was a girl, visiting my aunt and uncle. I'd slaved and saved to come here. I knew I might have to return to the starving artist life soon enough, but for six months, I had enough to survive, even to enjoy this potential paradise.

  I was going to have fun, damn it. Learn a lot. And make wonderful, beautiful things.

  But last night, I’d come up against myself, my own worst enemy. And now I had to admit I was unlikely to transform from an introvert into an extrovert overnight.

  I groaned, turned over and surrendered to the brilliant light of an early autumn Florida morning. It poured in through a skylight in the high ceiling, on the other side of the room, softened by the shade of oaks above. And it sliced through the thin gaps in the Venetian blinds that covered the long, narrow windows at the front and back of my new space.

  The light cast bright white stripes across my late grandma's quilt, a nautical design with navy-blue compass roses arrayed across a creamy background. The quilt covered my thrift-shop double bed with its weathered dark-wood posts and made it comforting, familiar. Surrounding the bed were a big, slightly used comfy chair in navy blue, a couple of dressers and an antique wardrobe my aunt and uncle had given me, since there were no closets in this place.

  I wanted to make a screen to separate the sleeping and dressing space from the rest of the room. This studio was pleasant enough, but it was just one room and a bathroom that also housed a small up-and-down laundry unit. A screen would separate me from the shabby couch, the three bookcases, my clay play area and the minuscule kitchenette. Not to mention the handful of boxes I still hadn’t unpacked.

  The apartment occupied a former carriage house. It stood behind one of the old mansions in Bohemia, the city across the lagoon from Bohemia Beach.

  The geography here was pretty easy to learn. If you went west of town, you hit the swamp and, eventually, Mickey Mouse. If you went east, you hit the lagoon — what most locals called the river — and then sister town Bohemia Beach. If you went north, you’d be back where I came from in a day or two, the land of ice and snow and dismal expectations. And if you went south far enough, you hit Miami and the tropical escape of the Keys.

  I dearly hoped I could afford a trip to the Keys before I headed back north. If I headed back north, I corrected myself. Maybe I’d stay, even if I failed, though it was too soon to talk about giving up on my dream.

  Ah, the dream. And Alex. Why had I run? Why hadn't I grabbed a wine bottle and taken it to him and asked to see his library? What was I afraid of? There was no one here to judge me. I was free.

  But it's not like I needed any distractions. Not yet. It was Saturday. I had two days to get my space in order, and Monday I would throw myself into my classes and my work. Today — maybe today I would make that screen. Make this strange and exotic place a home.

  I rolled out of bed in my sky-blue sleep shirt and tested the feel of the wood floor under my feet. It was nicer than the cold, hard tile I'd seen in some of the places I'd looked at, but it still could use a warm-up. Maybe I could get a small rug, too. I wasn't even sure where to shop for such things yet, but I'd noticed some cute stores and thrift shops around the art school in downtown Bohemia. And Damien had said something about a street fair happening there today.

  I smiled. I could hear birds singing and the distant sound of a train. A shower and a yogurt and I'd be out the door. />
  On which there came a knock.

  “Shit,” I murmured. It might be Damien. I’d kind of ditched him last night, but he’d looked as if he wasn’t going to have any trouble getting a ride home. Regardless, I wasn’t answering the door in just my sleep shirt, which was loose and slipping off one shoulder or another. I found a pair of slightly worn jeans in the pile on the chair next to the bed and hastily pulled them on before padding across the floor in my bare feet. There was another knock just as I reached the door.

  “Patience is a virtue,” I said as I opened it.

  But it was not Damien. On the doorstep was Alex, all that morning sun lighting up his dark blond hair like spun gold.

  I immediately felt that magnetism again, that deep and irrational attraction I’d felt last night. He looked me over without the subtlety he’d used in his wine room, a smile playing around his mouth.

  “Sleeping in?” Alex asked. “After leaving the party so early?”

  It took me a few stunned seconds to realize a response was required. “It’s Saturday. Isn’t it a little early for you? A massive party like yours usually requires a decent period of recovery.”

  “It’s already 10 a.m., and I’m not that decent. Besides, I never get drunk at my own parties. I’m going to take you to brunch, and then I’m going to show you around,” Alex stated without any awareness that I might find his agenda objectionable.

  I was pleased, and then annoyed that I was pleased. “I already have plans.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re coming to the art fair with me.”

  “I —” Damn it. I couldn’t object to the plan I already had. “I’m not ready.”

  “I’ll wait. This is a charming place. The old Thomason mansion, right?” He nodded back over his shoulder at the main house, with its gingerbread and multiple porches and Victorian charm, the river sparkling across the road beyond it.

  “A couple of doctors live there now. They rented this to me.”

  “I know,” said Alex. “I’m on the museum board with Mrs. Doctor.”

  I chortled. “That’s Dr. Doctor to you.”

  “Of course. Forgive me. She was the third person in the chain of phone calls that led me to you this morning.”

  “Really. How industrious.”

  While Alex had the acumen of a stalker and the looks of a demigod, I decided, he also had a geeky manner that suggested that, at heart, he was sincere. And he looked kind of delicious in a pair of worn-in jeans and a simple black T-shirt that clung to him nicely.

  “Will you come?” he asked. At least this time, it was a question.

  “OK,” I said sternly. “But you’ll have to wait outside. I don’t have a parlor.”

  “So I see,” he said, scanning the space behind me. “You’ll find me colluding with the squirrels. Don’t rush.”

  He turned back toward the shady yard and the gravel drive, where his gleaming black Mustang convertible sat next to my slightly banged-up silver Honda Civic. I closed the door and proceeded to rush like hell.

  In thirteen minutes I’d showered, given my mop of hair a two-minute blowout, and put on my dark purple tights, a short purple and black tunic dress, teardrop purple glass earrings and black boots. A dab of dark red lipstick, and I was set. If I wasn’t a wilting wallflower, at least I was me: almost fashionable, funky me. I grabbed my black leather bag and headed out the door.

  Alex was leaning against his car, engrossed in a book. At least, I think it was a book, on an e-reader wrapped in a slim, black leather cover. He looked up as I approached and stared, his gray eyes widening. I smiled awkwardly, wondering if I was wearing too much purple. And then he smiled, tossed the reader into the front seat, walked up to me and kissed me softly on the cheek.

  I let out a tiny breath and snagged his gaze, feeling the warmth of his lips linger on my skin. From hand to palm to cheek — insignificant little kisses, breathtaking kisses. I couldn't remember the last time I’d felt a physical attraction this intense. And then I did remember. Never.

  “You look nice,” Alex said, a catch in his voice. I knew he felt it, too.

  “Thanks,” I said, trying to shake it off, walking around him toward his car. “So where’s brunch?”

  “Oh,” he said, his voice normal again. “In the trunk. We’re going to the river.”

  “We’re already at the river, practically.”

  “Not like this,” he said. “Get in.”

  GET THE BOOK

  Books by Lucy Lakestone

  The BOHEMIA BEACH Series

  Award-winning romance by Lucy Lakestone

  In a beautiful small city on Florida’s east coast, artists struggle to make their way. Where creative minds meet and restless hearts yearn, where emotion and ambition vie with lust and dark secrets, romance is impossible to resist. Welcome to the seductive tropical escape they call home – Bohemia Beach.

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