Trusting Again (2 page)

“I guess you must find Seattle a bit of a change from Miami,” Amanda was saying when Cynthia tuned back into the conversation.

“You have no idea. Just about everything’s different, from the weather to people’s idea of fun to the politics. I’ve gotten to like it now. Except for the beaches. Even after two years, I still miss Florida beaches.”

The wine arrived; he tasted and approved it. The conversation went on, mostly around Cynthia not with her. She’d made some progress toward normalcy — she’d stopped obsessing about his clothes. Now, she was intent on making sure no part of her body touched any part of his. When he handed her a glass of wine, she took it without coming in contact with his hand. She kept her knees clenched tightly together and primly set to the side of her chair so there was no chance they would brush his. She avoided eye contact.

But the one thing she couldn’t get away from was the smell of his aftershave or cologne or, who knows, maybe pheromones, wafting across the table. He smelled like some exotic spice she couldn’t name. She had never, in her entire life, smelled anything that good. It was irresistible. Like every other part of him was, from the crown of his head to the just-got-out-of-bed dark stubble on his cheeks and jaw that would feel wonderfully scratchy on her skin. From the body under that custom-made suit she’d stopped thinking about until now, when she started thinking about it again, to his voice that was like a good piece of music, deep and resonant, layered with meaning. And his eyes, oh God, his eyes …

“Cyn, is something wrong? You’re so quiet.” Amanda sounded concerned.

Before she could answer, Cynthia caught the expression on Marius’s face. Damn. He knew exactly why she was quiet, why she was sitting like some well-behaved schoolgirl. It seemed those brown eyes could see into her heart and soul.

“I was thinking about a new piece I’m working on. Sorry.”

He raised an eyebrow and buried his half-smile in his glass of wine.

“Is this for my gallery or are you going to waste it on that place in Seattle where you still have your work?” Liz asked.

“It’s a commission that came from Max’s gallery, that place where the owner has been as good to me in Seattle as you’ve been to me in Portland. And didn’t I just bring you my Victorian neckpieces no one else has seen?”

“I guess I’ll take that as some sort of atonement for giving him your Cleopatra collars first. Not that anyone in Seattle would ever appreciate anything like that.”

A Cleopatra collar was exactly what Marius had commissioned from her, but demonstrating he was as smart as he was sexy, he only winked at her and stayed out of the discussion.

The conversation moved on to subjects less likely to make her discomfited. In response to his questions, Amanda explained to Marius some of the fine points of kiln-formed glass art. In return, he answered hers about coffee buying. In her usual outrageously flirty manner, Liz encouraged him to come to her gallery before he returned to Seattle. Cynthia said little unless prompted by her friends and even then made only brief comments, still tongue-tied by sitting across from him.

An hour later, Marius glanced at an expensive-looking watch, re-buttoned the top button of his shirt, tightened his tie and apologized for having to leave for a business dinner. Before he left, he shook the hand of each of the three women, seeming to linger with Cynthia longer than with the other two. At least it felt like he lingered, taking her smaller hand between both of his, holding it in what felt more like the clasp of a lover’s hand than a good-bye handshake. She noticed, as she had when they first met, that in spite of the beautiful clothes, he had calluses on his hands that could only come from some kind of physical work. It added an aspect to him that fascinated her even more.

She hoped he hadn’t noticed how her hand trembled when he held it.

• • •

Marius couldn’t believe his luck. He’d been trying to find a way to get back to the Erickson Gallery for weeks so he could do what he should have done when he’d picked up the gift for a family friend — ask the beautiful artist who’d made the piece to have dinner with him. But he’d been traveling on business for most of the past month, ending up in Portland, where he’d been bored and counting the days until he could get back to Seattle.

Until he decided to kill time before his dinner meeting with a glass of wine. And there she was.

In only two brief encounters, Cynthia Blaine had managed to intrigue him. Curvy where most of the women he’d met lately had been long and lean, her face was clean of make-up, her eyes clear of calculation about what his net worth might be. He had his pick of arm candy, but going to dinner with women who were conventionally beautiful, fashionably dressed, and often more ambitious than he was — which was saying quite a lot — had worn thin. Not that he was looking for a long-term commitment. But someone real seemed like a nice change. And Cynthia Blaine was that — real and talented and beautiful.

When he’d first met her, he’d thought she was equally attracted. But he had wondered if she’d written him off because he was obviously buying a piece of expensive jewelry for a woman even though he kept emphasizing it was for a
friend
, hoping she’d get the inference
.
Today he thought the message must have gotten through. The way she’d flushed when he smiled at her, held her body back from touching him, looked away so he wouldn’t know she’d been staring at him all seemed to say she felt the same attraction.

What he hadn’t been able to do was cut her out of her herd of friends without being too obvious or obnoxious. So, he scribbled a note on the back of a business card and left it with the server when he had the bill for the women’s drinks charged to his room. She assured him she’d get it to the woman in the purple dress with the long braid.

• • •

Marius was barely out the door before Liz turned on her friend.

“Cynthia, what the hell is wrong with you? Why didn’t you tell us about him?”

“Why would I tell you about him? He was just another customer,” she replied. “Can I have the last bit of that cheese?” She reached for the plate. Liz pushed it out of her reach.

“Don’t change the subject. How could you not think we’d be interested in one of the most handsome men ever put on this earth?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” She tried for the cheese plate again. And failed, thanks to Liz’s determination. “I just sold him a neckpiece for his girlfriend.”

“The girlfriend part, I grant you, is a shame. But, my God, girl, just run down the list of the other virtues: killer good-looking, charming, polite, interested in what we have to say, willing to ignore phone calls while he talked to us, the good taste and money to commission work from you and buy that suit. What’s not worth talking about on that list?”

“I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

Liz snorted. “Right. You were stunned into silence just sitting across from him.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“Don’t bother, petal. No one will believe you. It was too obvious. Not that I blame you. You could drown in those eyes. And his smile gave me some idea of what it’ll feel like when I get old enough to have hot flashes.” She fanned herself to make her point more obvious.

“Did you notice his hands?” Amanda asked. “I love the way he talks with them. They’re so big and graceful. I bet he could palm a basketball with them.”

Cynthia’s hand was still trembling from the handshake. Oh, yeah, she’d noticed his hands all right.

“A basketball? Honey, he could palm anything I have with them,” Liz said. As the other two women burst into giggles, she added, “Please don’t repeat that in front of Collins. He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor when I make comments like that.”

A half hour later, Liz went to pay the bill and learned that Marius had taken care of it, adding one more item to her list of reasons Marius Hernandez was God’s gift to the world. The three women parted at the parking garage across the street from the concert venue, Liz headed for Southwest Portland where the man she lived with waited; Amanda to Northeast Portland, her husband and her new baby, and Cynthia for the freeway back to Seattle.

• • •

The dinner hostess at the Heathman always rearranged the desk to suit the way she liked things before she started her shift. Tonight, while she was moving things around, she found a business card with a note written on the back. No one seemed to know who it was for or why it was there. She pitched it into the recycling.

Cynthia happily pointed her car north on I-5 even though she knew she probably faced heavy traffic going home. For once, she was looking forward to dealing with it, hopeful that concentrating on the traffic would take her mind off the subject of Marius Hernandez.

It didn’t happen. Once again, the mental tape of the day he’d come into the Erickson Gallery switched on in her head. And she was there all over again.

• • •

She was wire-wrapping a bead when the bell on the door rang, indicating someone had come into the gallery. Looking up, she was so distracted by the gorgeous man walking toward her that she poked herself with the silver wire she was using, drawing blood. That’s how she greeted him, sucking on her finger to make it stop bleeding.

He removed the sunglasses she couldn’t imagine he needed in March in Seattle, took command of her gaze with his espresso brown eyes, smiled and said, “I’m looking for Cynthia Blaine. That wouldn’t be you, by any chance, would it?”

The smile alone made her knees wobble. Add the brown eyes and handsome face and she wasn’t sure she could trust herself to speak. So she just nodded.

“I’m Marius Hernandez.” He put out his hand to her.

She took it after wiping her hand off on a wet rag to get rid of the blood and saliva and trying to alter what she was afraid was the expression of some teen-aged groupie who’d run into Justin Bieber. His big hand enveloped hers, making her wish the handshake could last for hours, maybe days.

“I’m looking for a specific piece of your work. For a gift.”

Please, God. Make it a gift for his mother, his niece, a sister. Anyone but a wife.

“I have a friend who’s about to celebrate a significant birthday,” he continued, “and I want to give her the necklace she admired when she was in here recently.”

Damn it, a her. Nice going, God. Technically you gave me what I asked for — he isn’t buying it for his wife. Remind me to be more specific next time when I ask you for something.

“Tell me what the piece looks like,” she said.

“A big necklace. It looked like a collar, she said. Four or five inches wide. Fastens in the back. Silver wire with crystals and rubies woven into it. My friend said it looked like something a princess would wear.”

“Ah, my favorite Cleopatra collar. It just sold a couple days ago.”

“Can you make another just like it?”

“Actually, I don’t make duplicates. But I have one I’m working on with clear glass and pearly glass beads that’s similar. Might that work?”

“Glass? I thought — she thought — my
friend
thought — they were gems.”

“Nope, all glass. Here, let me show you the piece I’m talking about.”

He loved the piece and didn’t argue about the price. After leaving his business card with his email and office phone number so she could call him when it was ready, he left.

She stood staring at the card for a few minutes. The sale was great, but knowing where to contact him wasn’t going to do her much good personally. Not when he was spending serious money on a girlfriend’s birthday present. With a sigh, she went back to her wire wrapping. That old saw was right. All the good ones are taken.

• • •

Her mental tape of their first meeting lasted just long enough for her to miss the exit for Centralia, where she always stopped for coffee. Reluctantly, she faced reality: Marius was going to be with her every mile of the way. In the inevitable gridlock at the damned Tacoma Dome curves, he was actually helpful. She spent the time crawling through traffic trying to identify what made him smell so good. It made being stuck there almost tolerable.

Eventually, she got to the Ballard neighborhood where she lived, but she didn’t lose him there, either. After she turned off the ignition and pulled her duffle bag from the trunk, Imaginary Marius walked with her into her apartment and watched her unpack and set up the coffee maker for the next morning. Then he followed her to her bedroom, a sexy smile on his face while he watched her undress. He even managed to crawl into her head while she slept, spending the night in her dreams where he also crawled into her bed.

• • •

She was more successful blocking him from her thoughts over the next month. Most of the time. Except when she was drinking coffee. Or a glass of Malbec with her dinner. It wasn’t the one he’d bought — she couldn’t afford that one. But she found the names of a couple more reasonably priced vintages online and hunted them down. He was right. She liked it.

Fortunately, when she was in her studio he was mostly absent. So she made sure she was in her studio every hour she could be. It was easy enough to do. The half dozen galleries up and down the I-5 corridor and on the coast where her work was placed had, for the past eighteen months, been bringing her both a steady flow of sales from pieces she consigned there and from commissioned work. Her income was close to stable for the first time in her career as an artist.

Ever since budget cuts had eliminated her job as a middle-school art teacher, she’d supported herself with as many as three part-time jobs at once and her art. Gradually, as she became more successful at the latter, she’d been able to quit her job at the restaurant, giving her more studio time with only three or four shifts at the Erickson Gallery and an occasional weekend day at the bookstore to supplement her income. It was a modest living, but she didn’t have particularly expensive habits.

Her growing success had one consequence she hadn’t expected. A write-up in the newspaper about her Cleopatra collars had brought her to the attention of several non-profits in Seattle looking for a donation for their fundraising auctions. Most of them she turned down for lack of work to give them. But a couple months ago, a friend who staffed the committee for Pacific Northwest Ballet’s annual auction happened to call when she’d had a collar returned from a gallery on the coast. She agreed to donate it. In exchange, she was comped a ticket for the cocktail party and auction.