New Year’s Kisses (8 page)

Her eyes rounded as her gaze darted to meet his. Talli shook her head. “No. You’re n-not Santa.”

Okay, that was good. So why did the look on her face make the rock sink deeper? They reached the front of the room and there was no more time to press for details.

“I thought you could set up over here behind the tree.” The woman put the bags and boxes down. “That way the little ones won’t get into any of your equipment and you’re close to it for when we do the Santa pictures. You can use my office and the storeroom to get changed.”

“Thanks, Em.” Talli moved passed him. “Speaking of Santa, did he arrive yet?”

“Yeah,” Em grumbled. “I cannot believe that man is going to hold me to my promise.”

Talli laughed. “C’mon, one date with Wade won’t kill you.”

“No, but it might kill him.” Em smiled. “I’m sure I’ll survive. You know where everything is, but yell if you need something.”

“I think I’ve got everything, but thanks. We’ll get set up.”

Dean placed his load of boxes on the floor behind the tree. A closer look at the branches showed the decorations were handmade and he smiled at the misshapen, brightly colored snowmen, reindeer, and Santas. On the very top was an oversized star made of tinfoil. Smiling, he turned to point them out to Talli, only she didn’t give him a chance.

“Here.” She shoved a plastic bag at him. “That’s a storeroom. You can get changed in there and I’ll use Em’s office.”

He took the bag, but before he could look inside Talli moved behind him and placed both hands on his back. She gave him a hard shove and he had to step forward or fall on his face. Pushing until she’d maneuvered him into the small room, Dean found himself shut in before he could spin around and protest. Resigned to the inevitable, he open the bag and pulled out the item on top. Dean sucked in a breath.

“No.” She hadn’t.

Dropping the red and green bundle on the floor, he reached into the bag for the next piece.

“Hell no.” She couldn’t have.

Dean tipped the bag up and stared as a pile of red, green, and white velvet and fur at his feet. What the hell was Talli thinking? There was no way he was putting that thing on. Especially seeing how there didn’t appear to be enough material to cover his extra large body. He used his foot to spread the costume out and almost choked when he got a good look at the pants, or more accurately –
tights
.

“Talli!”

Zoe bit the tip of her paintbrush, grimaced and reached hastily for her bottle of water. Ugh, much as she needed to break the habit of biting the tip of the paintbrush while thinking, perhaps coating it in gag-inducing Vegemite was a bit extreme.

“You can’t be a true Aussie. Every Aussie kid loves their Vegemite sandwiches.”

The laughter in Nick Gordon’s deep voice sent a shiver down Zoe’s spine. Not that she was about to show him how he affected her. No way. No how. She’d seen how he treated the women who responded to his sex god looks. He had it down pat, one long gaze down and up the length of their body, then one blond eyebrow lifted in derision and he turned away. Zoe valued their friendship too highly to risk him turning away.

Carefully, she replaced the bottle of water at the base of her easel. “I thought you were buying clay.”

Nick was a potter. It was his studio she shared in the heart of the port city of Fremantle. The marina where he kept his yacht was only metres away. Tourists ambled past daily and her vivid paintings of the Australian landscape lured them in just as much as Nick’s pots with their incredibly sensuous shapes and stunning glazes. It was a perfect set up, but one she knew Nick hadn’t wanted to share with her. When his previous studio partner, John Li, headed for Europe, she’d forced Nick to overlook the fact she was female—and therefore, in his experience, susceptible—by a nifty bit of emotional blackmail.

And she wasn’t ashamed, nope, not one little bit.

“I’ve got the clay. Claude came through with terracotta from a different supplier. It’ll work for the chunkier pieces I’m planning for summer.”

“Huh.” She turned back to her painting. Like Nick, she was already planning for summer although it was only early spring. She’d chosen beaches for her theme this year: the blues of the sea and sky, the warm browns of driftwood, white sand and the grey-tinged green of dune grasses. She never painted people into her pictures, although a swimsuit or towel would add a focal point of bright colour. The dilemma of ‘to people or not to people’ was the reason she’d been chewing her paint brush. On the whole, she thought she’d stick with pure, unsullied landscapes, leaving it empty for people to colonise with their own dreams.

“Do you want a cuppa?” Nick headed for the kettle and mugs tucked in a corner of the room.

For all that it exuded an untidy, casual welcome, every inch of the studio was planned with care. The two front rooms displayed Nick’s pots and her paintings, plus coffee and tea facilities for customers, art reference books and the reception desk—a century old, solid jarrah office desk that wore its scars comfortably. She and Nick had separate work spaces in these public rooms—hers defined by her easel and corkboard, and his by a potter’s wheel and blue tarpaulin laid out to catch the messiness of his craft. When they worked out here, they were like performance artists. People enjoyed the sensation of looking ‘behind the scenes’.

Not that customers ever got to see the real back rooms. Nick had the use of most of them for his clay, pots and kiln, but she had her own snug room with canvases and paints, sketch books and photos. She had photos everywhere. She’d sorted through them and pinned her favourite beach snaps to the public corkboard. She took photos wherever she travelled in Australia—and she loved to travel through Australia’s varied landscapes, from tropical beaches to desert and the snowfields that everyone forgot were part of Australia, too. Although she never painted a picture directly from a photo, she liked the reminders of colours and shapes. The photos sparked her memories of how the various landscapes felt. How they smelled, their immensity, the
feelings
that she wanted to evoke via her paintings.

Nick handed her a mug of tea and took his own with him to the sofa. Its battered leather was stained with paint smears and clay dust. It suited Nick as he lounged there in his faded jeans and a grey corded cotton shirt. He’d rolled up his sleeves.

He usually did, but she was as distracted as always by the sight of his powerful forearms. They spoke of his mastery of clay, the pursuit of his craft and the sheer strength that was Nick.

She didn’t even care that there were traces of clay under his nails that even the nailbrush he used couldn’t eradicate. Today’s clay was orange, the terracotta he’d mentioned.

“Earth to Zoe.”

She took a hasty sip of tea. Normally, she was more discreet in how she watched him. A girl couldn’t wear her heart in her eyes.

He set his mug on the floor and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I’ve been thinking…”

“Ooh, dangerous.”

He flashed his wicked grin. “The cruise ships will start calling in, soon.”

She nodded. Fremantle was one of the cruise lines main Australian stops, but it was a summer thing. Winter was the town’s quiet time. “Tourists. I can’t wait.” Tourists meant people with money to buy mementos.

“You say that now. Wait till they all come shuffling in, hoping for an air conditioned retreat from the heat.”

“If they buy my paintings, they’re welcome to all the cool air they desire.”

“Fair enough. But my point was that we ought to take advantage of this breathing space before the panting hordes arrive.”

She glanced back at her painting. “I am.” She was painting steadily, aware how lucky she was at twenty-four to have a studio and be working at her art full time.

“I was thinking more of taking a break than working flat out.”

Now he had her full attention. Nick cultivated a relaxed air, but she knew how intensely he worked. Collectors sought out his pots and he already had three in the National Gallery. He might be the only son of one of Australia’s wealthiest businessmen, but Nick was no dilettante.

Her heart squeezed as she suddenly guessed why he’d want a break. She held her mug tightly and turned back to the easel. She didn’t want him to see her face when he told her he had a new girlfriend and would be spending time with her. Just listening to his slow drawl hurt.

“I have a weekender down south, near Walpole. Tall trees and sea. I thought you might be interested in coming with me.”

She whirled around. Tea spilled over the rim of her mug. Absently, she shifted her mug to her other hand and licked up the drops.

Nick’s gaze followed her action.

She blushed at her gaucherie and whipped her free hand behind her back. “You have a house in Walpole?”

“Nearby. You can see the sea from the front veranda. I thought you might want to take photos.” He glanced at the corkboard. “Of the beach.”

She didn’t mention that there were beaches in Fremantle and all along the coast or that she had hundreds of photos already. “I…um…”

“Obviously, you don’t have to. But there’s plenty of room. I’ll be driving down Thursday to avoid the weekend traffic.”

“What will you do, there? I mean, do you have a potting studio?”

“No. For me it’ll be a complete break. I’ll surf a bit, maybe fish.”

She wrinkled her nose.

“It’s okay, I wouldn’t make you clean them.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“No problem.” He finished his tea and stood. “Anyway, think about it. The offer’s open. We all need a break sometimes, even if we love what we’re doing.”

She nodded as her heart beat fast and heavy. She wondered he couldn’t notice it pounding beneath her cotton shirt. Nick had invited her to his house. It was a sign of trust that she treasured, but without the distraction of work and customers, would she give away her feelings? Could she risk stealing this time with him?

She watched him walk out of the room and realised she wouldn’t be able to concentrate on her painting now. She cleaned her brushes and forced a smile as one of the three art students, who helped out as casual sales employees, entered.

“Sorry,” Marly called as the wind caught the front door behind her and slammed it shut. It might be early spring, but the weather was still blustery. The Indian Ocean could brew up a powerful storm.

Two customers entered on Marly’s heels.

Zoe welcomed them easily—years waitressing in her uncle’s restaurant had honed her customer skills—before leaving them to Marly and retreating to her back- room. She needed breathing space.

Instinctively seeking comfort, she lifted the top three sketchbooks from her desk and picked up the fourth. It fell open at a sketch of a hand and arm. Nick’s hand and arm. This book was her guilty pleasure. Here she indulged her artist’s soul’s craving to record the beauty of his body and how she ached for it.

She’d done life classes at art school. Other pages showed Nick as she imagined him, stripped even of the body suit he wore for surfing.

If she spent a week with Nick, would he let her sketch him for real? It would seem a natural enough request from one bored artist to another?

Her tummy clenched at the thought of having permission to study Nick as long as she wanted. She ached to draw him as he lay stretched out in front of a fire or lazing in a hammock with an invitation in his eyes.

It was all too easy to imagine taking his hand and falling on top of him in the hammock, loving and touching till the hammock tipped them both softly to the ground.

She shivered and dropped the sketchbook onto her desk. It was dangerous how real her dreams seemed sometimes.

Common sense dictated that she refuse Nick’s invitation. To share a weekend house with him would be the most torturous illusion of intimacy. She would smell him fresh from the shower, laugh with him in front of the television, cook and eat with him.

“I can’t.” She abandoned the sketchbook and moved clumsily to the far corner of the room. Her hands closed around the edges of the most damning evidence of her preoccupation with Nick.

She lifted the painting out of the stack of discarded canvases that waited for resurfacing.

Unlike the delicate detail of her landscapes, this square canvas was filled with bold slabs of colour, all centring into the male figure that stood in a doorway, arms raised to grip the frame. It was Nick’s characteristic pose, straightening his spine after hours spent bent over his pots. Yet somehow, in her painting, his braced posture showed so much more. He occupied the edge, claimed and owned it, but wouldn’t venture into the room.

It was how Nick lived his life, not risking being trapped into a relationship.

She sighed and replaced the painting in its hiding place—not that anyone here would be rude enough to rummage through her private room.

“Hey, Zoe, about Walpole…”

She spun around and lunged for her desk so fast that Nick rocked back on his heels in the doorway.

“Whoa.” He braced his hands on the doorframe. “Secret project?”

Her heart galloped as she slapped the sketchbook shut, hiding her drawings of naked Nick. “Uh, you could say that.”

If he’d seen her sketches, he’d have retreated like a man burned and she’d have died of embarrassment. She’d have had to give up the studio, his friendship, maybe move country.

She hugged the book to her chest. “Walpole, you said?” Too bright, too cheerful. She sounded like an inane game show host. No wonder Nick was giving her a narrow eyed look. On him, suspicion was sexy. Worse luck.

Nervous, she flicked her tongue to her top lip.

Nick swayed forward in the doorway. “About going away together…”

“You’re listening to Port Stephens FM, coming to you from Piper Bay, where it’s a balmy twenty-seven degrees and looking great for the weekend…”

Toni Lau eased her foot off the accelerator as she reached the crest of the last hill before the long descent into her home town. The radio announcer was right about it looking great. The air was warm, the waters of the bay shimmering. A large white vessel edged out of the marina, laden with tourists on a dolphin-watching cruise. On this early summer day the blue water paradise looked picture perfect, but the sigh escaping her lips was heavy rather than carefree.