Country Roads(18)

Now she twirled her hair up and stabbed a lacquered chopstick through it. Trying too hard. She yanked the chopstick out and let the red curls fall down over the shoulders of her silk top. She hooked long amber dangles in her earlobes and stood back from the mirror to take stock of the full effect.

Not that she had a lot of choices. She’d brought one outfit to wear to the gallery, and this was it. Slim moss-green pants tucked into slouchy russet suede boots. Her top was something she’d bought from a fellow artist: a series of coppery triangles stitched together so they fell from the shoulders to form sleeves and a bodice in an almost sculptural effect.

“The necklace!” she said, rummaging around in her bag to find the silver swoops strung with chunks of amber. Fastening it on, she struck a pose. Was it too artsy?

“You never worried about that before you met a certain pressed and tailored lawyer.”

She’d thought about Paul the entire time while she bathed and dressed. She’d come to one conclusion: if that kiss led to something more, she would let it. It would be a weekend fling. She’d never had one before, and it seemed like something you should do when you were declaring your independence.

Besides, wasn’t that the knight’s reward when he rescued the damsel? A little hanky-panky in the castle chamber?

A knock sounded, and she swiped on some shimmering lipstick before jogging into the sitting room to swing open the door.

“Gosh!” she said, taking in the length of Paul’s legs wrapped in faded denim and the sinews of his forearms exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of his white button-down shirt.

His smile flashed in the dim hallway. “Much better than hello. ‘Gosh’ right back at you.” His tone was light, but his eyes were intense. He stepped into the room. “Did you figure out the old plumbing?”

“Honestly, no. I took a bath instead of a shower. That tub is practically a swimming pool.”

His gaze turned to molten silver, and she somehow knew he was imagining her swimming naked. The idea of a fling became a little too real, making her grab her suede handbag and clutch it to her chest. “Shall we go?” she asked.

“My ’Vette awaits you.” He swept an arm out with a slight bow, reminding her of her earlier knightly metaphor.

As she passed him, she left more space than was necessary between them. He fell into step beside her, shortening his stride to match hers.

“Tell me about Claire and her husband,” she said to deflect any further fantasizing on either of their parts.

She listened with half an ear as he escorted her to his car and held the door for her. She got the basics: Claire had come back to her hometown of Sanctuary to help out her sister, fallen in love with the local vet, Tim Arbuckle, and stayed, buying in as a partner at the Gallery at Sanctuary. Paul told the story without editorial embellishment, but there was an undercurrent in his voice she couldn’t interpret.

“So you knew Claire from school?”

“Yup. We used to tool around together on my motorcycle. It was a weird combination. I was the class screwup, and she was one of the well-behaved, smart kids.”

“So she was your girlfriend?”

“No, I was too stupid for that.”

“What do you mean?”

He started the Corvette’s engine and pulled out of the parking lot. “Claire’s pretty special, and I at least had the sense to know that much, but I wasn’t interested in a real relationship back then.”

“Oh right. Teenage boys and their hormones. I have three stepbrothers, so I know what you mean.”

He took his eyes off the road to flick a glance at her. “I’ve been wondering about an artist who looks pure Irish, is named Castillo, and speaks Spanish with her uncle. What’s the family structure there?”

“Complicated. My birth name was Julia O’Malley, but my father left when I was two. Mom thinks he went back to Ireland after their divorce, but she was so pissed off she never bothered to find out for sure. Things worked out for the best, though, because she and my stepfather, Raul Castillo, fell in love and got married.” She felt the usual pang of missing her faraway parents. “Papi adopted me, and I took his last name. Carlos is my father’s older brother. When my parents moved to Spain ten years ago, I was eighteen and Carlos took over for Papi. He manages my career and a lot of other things for me. He’s a very successful accountant, so being my agent is kind of a labor of love. He’s a very honorable man and he treats me like his daughter,” she added to give her uncle his due.

“That explains a lot.”

“A lot of what?”

He steered the sports car through a hairpin curve, its engine growling in low gear as they climbed the narrow mountain road. “Why you’ve been so sheltered. Three protective stepbrothers. An uncle who’s standing in for your parents.”