Artfully Yours (5 page)

He continued to stare at her.

Starting to get jittery from his intensity, Elle moved back an inch. He moved with her. “I need this ice cream. Seriously need it. Not want. Need.”

He tilted his head again. Like a question.

“Not because I got dumped or anything. I didn’t. And that would require chocolate ice cream. Banana doesn’t cut it.”

He raised his brows.

“Chocolate ice cream is a cliché for a reason. But this is banana, so. Not a dumping thing at all. I’m fine. I’m single. That’s irrelevant. Um. This ice cream could bring peace. Okay, not world peace or anything, or I wouldn’t waste my time talking to you about it. I’d do what it takes. You know. If the peace of the entire world depended on me getting this ice cream, I wouldn’t be polite about it. I’d just shove you in the refrigerator.” She nodded at the floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted cabinet beside the freezer. A yellow plastic triangle saying
Caution! Wet Surface!
was propped up alongside a mop stuck in a bucket.

He glanced at it, startled.

“Be a tight fit, but I’d squeeze you in. And then I’d thread the mop through the door handles. To, uh, stop you coming after me.”

He leaned closer. Butt at this point against the freezer, Elle stretched her upper body back. “I won’t, though. I’m not going to put you in the refrigerator. Promise.” She tugged at the ice cream. “Let go of the tub. Sisterly peace is at stake. I’ll admit it’s not as big as the world, but right now it’s about all I’ve got going on. Give it up!”

Tug. Ack. Now she was pulling him toward her. Another good yank, and he’d be plastered against her front.

“Let go of it! Jeez.” The tub slipped a bit. It was melting. “Crap, how hot
are
you?” She gasped and looked up at him. “No! Not hot like that. I don’t mean you’re attractive hot or anything, hell no.”

He scowled.

Elle laughed, hearing it come out a touch too high, too out of control. “Not calling you ugly. Hah, no, you’re a whole lot of…I mean a whooooole lot of…guy…right there.” She let go of the tub to gesture at him, waving a hand over his torso. She didn’t see him move but he must have done so, because she realized she’d been angled back in steady increments until her elbows were on top of the freezer, keeping her upper body barely this side of upright, and he was almost on top of her and, damn it, he had the ice cream.

She looked at the tub, at his intent face. “You know what?” She pushed herself up. “Keep it. Ice cream’s yours. I’m going to go find cake. Cake will probably get the job done.” Not even close.

She expected him to move back—
Why? Why did I expect that?
—and when he didn’t, she laid both hands on his chest and gave a shove. “You are crazy hot,” she said when his heat struck her chilled palms. “Still talking temperature!” This was ridiculous. She squirmed sideways and wriggled free of the scorching press of his body. “You have the ice cream. I hope it makes you fat.” With all that muscle and bulk, he’d burn the calories in an hour. Bastard.

His large hand clenched on the tub. For a moment she thought he was going to pop the lid clean off. “It’s for gargoyle,” he said, held her gaze for one more intense moment, then stormed off.

Elle watched him go.

Did he just say it was for his gargoyle?

He turned at the end of the aisle and was gone.

Elle looked back into the freezer, which was making a high, whining sound at this point. She realized she—they—hadn’t closed the top. Ugh. Nothing else for it. She snatched up two tubs of vanilla, grabbed the largest bag of M&M’s she could find, added a can of squirty cream, and carted it all to the checkout.

“You okay?” said the store clerk when she unloaded her armful. “You’re a bit flushed.”

“I’m fine.” Elle swiped a piece of hair from her eyes. Shoot. Her forehead was damp. She was sweating. “Who was that guy?”

“What guy?”

“The one who was here before me? Bought the Chunky Monkey?”

“Right. Him. Don’t know the dude’s name but he’s local. Comes in every now and then.”

“Let me guess. Buys ice cream?”

“Yup.”

“Huh.”

The clerk rang up her purchases. Elle handed over a note and accepted the change. She jingled it in her hand for a moment, then stuffed it in her pocket. “I think…I think he said he needed the ice cream for his gargoyle. That’s weird, right?”

The guy blinked at her. “I dunno.”

“I mean…gargoyles aren’t real.”

“Oh, no. They’re real. Stone creatures typical of the Gothic architecture you find in medieval Europe.” He propped both elbows on the countertop. “Want to hear an interesting fact? They’re only real gargoyles if they act as a waterspout, you know, for drainage and stuff to protect the bricks. Otherwise, not a gargoyle. Just a weird-ass monster on the roof of a building. People make that mistake all the time.”

“Sure. I know that. I meant they’re not real as in they don’t need feeding. You don’t need to buy them ice cream, now, do you?”

“No. If they ate anything, you’d think it was, like, bugs and stuff. Right? Like, spiders. Beetles. I figure they’d only be able to eat what crawls right in their mouths.”

“Yeah.” Elle got a look at the guy’s pupils. Shit. He was high. She was having a serious conversation about gargoyles with a pothead teenager. He had an excuse. What the hell was hers? “I’m going to go.”

“See you.”

Elle shouldered her way out into the rain and ran for her car.

Alex got into his truck, tossed the ice cream on the seat beside him, and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. His knuckles stood out white even in the dim light of the cab.

Elizabeth Finley.

Elle Finley.

Elle.

He turned his head to stare through the rain-speckled windshield, across the dark forecourt, through another layer of glass, and there she was, standing at the checkout talking to the clerk. Two sheets of glass and twenty feet between them. Couple of minutes ago, there’d been less. Jeans and sweaters and shirts. If she hadn’t broken away, at this point, there wouldn’t even be that.

It was a good thing she’d moved, because he really didn’t want to be arrested for making love to his long-lost muse in a gas station. And for sure they’d have wrecked the freezer.

He watched her dash out of the store, run to a dark blue Prius, and jump in. Then she was gone. He took a deep, harsh breath that sounded like a pant, and managed to release the wheel.

His gaze dropped to the ice cream and he blinked. Why the hell hadn’t he let her have the damn stuff? Could have said,
Hey, Elle. Back in town? How’s it going? You good? What, you want the ice cream? Sure. Or we could share it. No, we don’t need spoons.

Yeah. That’d be smooth.

Let’s make it dessert. Come to my place. We’ll have dinner, ice cream, and soul-shattering sex. Sound good? Oh, yeah. Me, too.

See? That was better than fighting with her over the last tub of Chunky Monkey just because, as long as they were both holding it, he could get close to her.

He shuddered, hard and fast.

He hadn’t been that close to her since…since last time.

And unlike last time, he was the one to leave. Unlike last time, he didn’t have to stand there and watch her run. And no one was laughing.

No. This time, he’d taken the last tub of ice cream, claimed it was for Gargoyle when all his dog got was a lick of the spoon at the end, and she’d called him a jerk to his face. It was a good bet she’d called him a jerk before, but she hadn’t done it to his face, as they’d never spoken. Not before, not after.

Alex shoved the key in the ignition, fired it up, and headed home.

It wasn’t until he pulled in that he realized. While he might have been slammed with instant recognition and a bone-fizzing lust that still burned a river of fire from the base of his spine clear to the top of his head, Elle had no idea who he was.

This might hurt the feelings of another man, Alex thought as he let himself in. He distractedly set the ice cream on the center island in the kitchen, Gargoyle leaping around beside him, squeaking his bear. Lucky for Alex, his ego was both gigantic and titanium-clad, or so he’d been told. More than once. It very well could be. He never noticed it himself, being occupied with his all-consuming urge to create, an urge he now felt rising, his mind filling to a fiery, almost painful degree, filling with images he could taste like the heart’s blood of the sun, that he could hear like the hiss and roar of a thousand scorching degrees, that he could feel take shape under his hands, under the strain of his shoulders and the draw of his arms and push of his thighs and—

Alex let out a breath it felt like he’d been holding for years, and he moved with a single purpose. He walked through the house and out, through the rain which sizzled off his overheated skin, into the barn. Outside, the storm intensified and the rain lashed down so thick it turned the night white. He’d left the back door open, he’d left the truck’s headlights on to cut through the trees surrounding his property, and he didn’t give a damn.

His heart was on fire.

His work was on fire.

Alex picked up his tools. He created.

CHAPTER FIVE

By the time Elle got home, Katie was in bed and Jenny was sitting at the kitchen table, her cast propped up on a chair, reading one of her library books. A romance novel.

“Still addicted?” Elle nodded at the book with a smiling couple on the front, the pair of them wrapped in colorful hats and scarves and holding hands as they walked through unspoiled snow.

Jenny shrugged. “You know me. Big fantasy reader.”

Elle did a double take at the book cover—had she missed the elf ears or the dragons?—then caught Jenny’s eye roll. Ah. Sarcasm. Time to deploy the ice cream. She dug a hand into the carrier bag and plonked the extra-large tub down on the table.

Jenny read the label,
vanilla
, and narrowed her eyes.

Quickly, Elle added the M&M’s.

Then the squirty cream.

Jenny inspected the pile in front of her. “What, no sparklers?”

Elle grinned. “I’ll get the bowls.”

Jenny struggled to her feet, stuffed a crutch under her arm, and hobbled to the cupboard. “I’ll do it. You hang up your coat. You’re getting water all over the floor.”

“It’s raining like the End of Days out there.” Elle hung her coat on the rack of pegs by the back door and sat at the table. She wanted to help Jenny with the bowls and spoons but she knew better, and waited patiently while her sister hobbled her way to the cupboard and back, the cutlery drawer and back, and then lowered herself to the chair.

Elle served up the ice cream while Jenny ripped into the M&M’s, shook out a handful, and knocked them back. “That’s the stuff.” She sighed. She took her bowl from Elle, shook out another handful, and scattered it over her ice cream, passing Elle the bag. Elle finished squirting cream into her bowl, passed it to Jenny, and took the M&M’s. Jenny loaded up with the cream, and for a few blissful minutes there was silence as they worked their way through the food.

Eventually Jenny dropped her spoon into the empty bowl with a clatter. She leaned away from the table, rubbed her hands over her eyes, and said, “I’m sorry. I know I must come off as the biggest bitch in the world, dragging you back here and then giving you attitude for it, but
I told you so’s
and
you should haves
drive me crazy.”

“I get that, honey. But you missed the whole point. You wouldn’t have had to beg or humble yourself or any of that bullshit. I wish you’d told me because I’ve been thinking about coming home for a while. It would have helped me decide.”

Jenny waved this away. “You’re lying.”

“Not lying.”

“Yeah, you are. You’re trying to make me feel better. Don’t believe you, and there’s nothing you can say that would make me.”

“All right. Why would I have applied for a nurse’s job at the doctor’s clinic if I wasn’t thinking about moving back?”

“The clinic in town?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I’ve got a financial cushion—”
financial pincushion
, “—but I’m going to need a job sooner or later.” Considering the state of the collective Finley finances, sooner. Definitely sooner.

“You’ve already got a job in Seattle! You’ve got a great job! Shit. Elle. Tell me you didn’t quit your job.”

“I quit it, but—”

“Seriously? Are you insane?”

“Are you? Stop shrieking at me for a second and let me explain!”

Jenny pointed at her with her spoon. “I’m not shrieking.”

“I’m sorry, did you say something? I can’t hear you. My ears are still ringing from all the shrieking.”

“Tell me you didn’t quit your great job with great benefits so you could come back here for a few weeks to take care of your loser sister and her amazing kid.”