Black Aura (4 page)

For a moment he said nothing, then he shrugged. “I don’t know, if you wanted to, both of you, you would be.”

An education major. She would bet he’d never
get
her. She stared at the coffee in the mug and swirled it with a swizzle stick. No one would
ever
get her. And Thad was too analytical, too into this world and proper this and proper way of that to think out of the box.

They were not right for each other, but he was fun and a nice guy. For her, dates had always seemed more like hanging with a friend, and seemed to be missing…something.

“I like your brother, he’ll always be a great friend and trust me, he feels the same for me.”

A hand at the base of her neck squeezed lightly. “I do?”

She jumped and pulled into herself, leaned to the side so that his hand fell from her neck. She hadn’t even felt him come upon her.

God, what was wrong with her?

Her hands shook as she brought the mug to her lips.

“You okay?” Thad asked, sitting down on the stool beside her.

She didn’t miss the look he shared with his brother. The
what’s-going-on
look.

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” she muttered, anger rising within her. What the hell was she supposed to tell them?
No, I’m not okay, I see things, you know, daggers, red fog, evil. You? How’s your evening going?
Oh and by the way, your aura is a bit off.
Shaking her head, she threw the thoughts away and glared at Thad.

“What are you doing here?”

One blond brow rose. “My parents own the joint.”

Idiot.

She glanced at Mark, but he held her stare with a narrow gaze and then went to fill an order.

Alyssa set her mug down. “I’m fine. I just want—” No, want was the wrong word. “I
need
to be alone.” To figure things out. How the hell was she supposed to deal with all this when she’d fought it all her life?

“Well, you don’t look fine, you’re pale as the cream and your eyes are sunken dark orbs.”

A smile surprised her. “And on the moonlit waters dreamed…” she muttered.

“What?”

Thad, like Mark, was handsome with the golden Adonis good looks, the straight features, almost aristocratic, but a bit too edged to be that smooth. A couple days’ worth of stubble dusted his jaw line. The family’s bright blue eyes had not skipped him and now they looked confused.

“Dark orbs, pale as cream?” She wagged a finger at him. “You’re teaching poetry again aren’t you?”

“I—well—that’s not the point.” He turned so that he faced her fully. “You are very complicated, Alyssa Gray.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Thaddeus Howard.”

For one long minute he studied her. “I don’t know that there isn’t much you don’t know. You’ve got great eyes, but you know that too.”

She grinned, “Knowing it and hearing it again are two different things. Women love compliments, don’t you know?” She snapped her fingers. “You forgot, didn’t you. Please don’t give the next girl the sunken-eyed-dark-orbs. It’s bad. No wonder you’re not married yet.”

He huffed and sat back. “I beg your pardon. I’ve no intention of getting married, thank you very much. If and when I do, I assure you, I’ll know what I’m doing.”

Mark walked up and laughed. “Uh-huh. Remember to compliment the woman’s eyes so she’ll be so distracted she’ll accept. Otherwise Mom might never get her wedding.”

Thad reached across the bar and playfully shoved his brother back a few steps. “I’m working here.”

“Is that what you were doing? And here I thought you were talking.” Mark looked at Alyssa. “You’re work now. Isn’t that nice? Work has such lovely eyes.”

She laughed.

Her laugh warmed him. Alyssa’s smiling face, her eyes currently free of phantoms, unfurled the fist that had squeezed his heart when he’d seen her standing out on the sidewalk, ashen-faced and wide-eyed.

Alyssa. She called to him, had since the first time he’d seen her over a year ago limping carefully into her father’s gallery. She’d been a silent ghost who had hidden in the gallery for months before venturing out.

Slowly, like a chrysalis, she was morphing into a strong woman. He could feel that around her, this…charisma.

He grinned back at her and rolled his eyes at Thad. Thad, what a stupid idiot. The guy could have had her, but maybe she hadn’t wanted him. God knew Thad had plenty of girls at the college, and he’d have more when he transferred to the University of New Mexico at Santa Fe or New Mexico State in Las Cruses. Mark had the feeling that Miss Gray wasn’t the long distance type. But as she just pointed out, she wasn’t really Thad’s type either.

He tilted his head and watched as she punched Thad in the arm.

She was a butterfly. The shy girl still lurked, still darted back into hiding from time to time, but mostly, here she sat. Brash, up front and strangely vulnerable.

And she rarely looked at him twice.

Hell, tonight he’d called her to tell her about her dad and Lake in hopes of just talking to her. Surprised the hell out of him when she’d said she would use him as an excuse to get out of the house. They’d talk about college.

College.

“You could always come with me, Alyssa,” Thad said, jerking Mark out of his musings.

“What? With you? To college, where?”

“Wherever,” Thad answered, giving her the famous Howard smile, sure to get a woman to go along with whatever they wanted.

Mark sure as hell didn’t want her going along with Thad and his plans.

Alyssa only laughed. “Uh-huh. I’d probably kill you in a few weeks.” She waved her hand towards the outside. “Besides, I like it here.”

“In Taos?” Thad’s bafflement was clear. His well-known hatred of the mountain town was a mystery to them all.

“Big bro here wants big city,” Mark said, wiping glasses and mugs dry before he set them on the bar. “Big city, big lights.”

“Big crime,” she finished and shuddered, then took a drink of her coffee. “Thanks, but no thanks. Big cities are not for me. Been there, done that. I don’t want any more of it. Taos maybe…maybe…” Her eyes stared past Mark to focus on the wall behind him.

In the gray-blue depths he saw again dark shadows before she blinked.

“Maybe what? A high-dollar cowboy town? Please, it’s a tourist trap,” Thad muttered and stood, walking behind the bar.

Mark could see the signs of aggravation in his brother’s tense lips and narrowed eyes. He knew the normal tirade was coming. Nothing here, nowhere to go, unless you wanted to be in real estate or be a shop owner or…

Alyssa tilted her head. The dim lights glinted softly in her short dark hair, which didn’t seem so spiky now, but lay in soft curls, probably because she kept running a hand through it—like she did now.

He loved her hands. The way the long fingers drummed, the way he could see the tendons and bones, the movement of knuckles. He had a thing for hands—not sure what—but he noticed hands and eyes on people and in art. Both were exceptional in Alyssa’s case.

She waved a hand in his direction. “He’ll never get it, will he?”

Mark grinned and shook his head.

Thad opened his mouth and she held her hand palm out. “Nope. I don’t want to hear all the great city accolades. I don’t care about living in the big city, and be serious, Thad, you’re so not a one-woman man.”

“And you’re a one-man woman?”

She thought about it. Her pursed lips—damned fine lips, too—curved into a smile. The bottom was plumper than the top so that she almost always appeared to be pouting. “I could be.”

“If the right guy came along?” Thad served himself a cup of coffee. The bar had dwindled down to the nighttime regulars scattered at three different tables.

Mark didn’t miss her glance at him. “Something like that.” Then she shrugged, one shouldered, and grinned. “But I seriously doubt there’s a man alive who would put up with me and all my…eccentricities.”

“You might be surprised,” both he and his brother said at the same moment.

Chapter Four

Lake stared at the art around the studio. “So this is where the madness begins?” She turned to him. The night-shadowed windows framed her. “Or rather where it is created, I suppose.”

“What?” Max set the food containers on the scarred, paint-splattered table top.

His overhead lights caught the different shades of blonde and red in her hair as she tilted her head. “Well, who knows where the madness began.”

He frowned. “What madness?”

Madness? Was she talking about Alyssa? An old defense licked his ire.

Her hands fluttered and waved at the half-finished canvases he would probably never display because most of them still lacked something. “The creative madness. Art in all its various forms.” She shrugged and trailed a long nail down the frameless canvas of a moonlit landscape.

He sighed and closed his eyes. Damn his ex-wife. One should never speak ill of the dead, but the fact was she had done a number not only on him, but worse, also on his daughter. Madness. He could all but hear that woman’s voice yelling about the madness in his family and how she wouldn’t allow it to affect Alyssa, how she’d do
anything
in her power to keep Alyssa normal.

Max shook off the thoughts and opened the containers. Spicy steam wafted in the air. He grabbed a couple of plastic utensils out of one of the drawers.

From the corner of his eye, he noticed Lake strolling along, stopping at this or that painting or photograph, items by locals he had yet to display. This was the catch-all art storage room, where he usually ate when working instead of in his own kitchen.

He had nothing to drink. Well, there was wine, but to be honest, he didn’t care for wine with spicy Mexican food. It was one of the only times he really wanted a beer, and if he was lucky, he’d still have a few in the fridge.

She, however, looked like she was a wine woman.

And this was why he didn’t date, especially hot-as-hell Viking goddesses with long red hair and wicked dark green eyes.

“Bad shape here, bud,” he muttered to himself.

“Did you say something?” she asked him.

“Oh.” Max scratched his goatee and smiled. “I was just wondering what I had for us to drink. Wine, if you want some.”

“What are you having?” Her gaze was direct and unwavering, reminding him of his daughter for some unknown reason.

“Uh—beer. I think there are a couple of Dos Equis in the fridge. Um, in the kitchen.”

She smiled, her full lips tugging his attention to her mouth and away from what he’d like to drink, or at least from the beer.

“That’s fine.”

He blinked. “What?”

Her brows rose.

“Oh, right. Right. Beer. Be right back.” He closed the studio door, then leaned back against the hallway’s wall. “Idiot. Way to go, ace.” He thunked his head on the wall.

At this rate he’d never get her in bed. Not that that was the only reason he was with her. She was interesting, very interesting, in fact. The image of her with his daughter flashed in his mind, the way she’d taken it all in stride. Didn’t even so much as blink. In fact, with her line of work, she wholeheartedly believed in auras and visions and “just knowing”, as his daughter would say. Then again, with her new age shop, or whatever she had, maybe it was all just part of business. He’d like to not think so. Auras…

Get it together.

Beer. She’d think he was a lost case if he didn’t actually get the beer in there before the food got cold.

“Bad, bad shape,” he said yet again as he made his way to the door at the end of the hallway, which led to the apartment. He grabbed four beers and hurried back to the studio.

“So,” she said as he popped the tops off two bottles and set them on the table. “You do your own stuff, but you exhibit very little of it downstairs, at least that I’ve seen. You show your own photographs, but most of the sculptures and paintings or jewelry are by someone else.” She waved a hand towards canvases stacked against the wall. “Yet here are more canvases than I care to count and you’ve painted them all.”

“Not all of them.” He slid a glance to the far corner where Alyssa liked to work sometimes.

She followed his gaze. “No, probably not all.”

They sat down. “Do you ever display your own paintings?”

He grinned. “Not good enough.”

She laughed, a full throaty sound that reminded him of silk in moonlight. He shifted in his chair.

“Not good enough? Please. Art, no matter the form, is totally subjective. In several years people wonder why they purchased most things adorning their walls and shelves they claim was or is art. And then they go out and buy more that calls to them at that time.”

“And things have to call to you?”

She picked up her fork and scooped up Southwest rice. “Of course. If something didn’t call to you, then why do it? Or in art’s case, purchase it? It wouldn’t be right.”

He picked up his own fork and started to eat. “So you believe in callings, fate…” He stopped, then shrugged. “Auras.”

“I thought we’d already been over this.”

“Humor me, please, and don’t take offense at a question.”

Those wicked green eyes narrowed just at the corners. “That would depend on the question, wouldn’t it?”

“And who’s asking it, or maybe why.”

“True.”

Her eyes closed on a bite of
chile relleno
. “This is really, really good. I love these. They should be savored, explored and thoroughly enjoyed.”

My thoughts exactly.
She was gorgeous, there was simply no other word for it. Outer beauty, yes, she had that, but there was an inner fire, an inner life that…called to him. He grinned and forked another bite into his mouth.

“The question?” she probed.

“Your beliefs, your shop, is it all…” He would offend her, but hell, he was a guy, just like any other. “Is it all…?”

“Is it all…?” She leaned up on her elbows, that lovely cleavage pressing against the dress.

He jerked his gaze away from her breasts and to her face. “Is it real?”

A furrow creased the skin between her brows. “Is it real? As in?”

He sighed and laid his fork aside. “As in, is it just part of the job, nine to five? Or is it
who
you really are?”

Those eyes continued to stare at him, the pupils dilating softly for several long moments before she blinked, drew a deep breath and said, “And you ask why?”

He grinned. “Well, some people create…personas, if you will, for their businesses. While at home, they have another face, and with those they see at the club, maybe another facet. Yet none make the whole. Ya know? Everyone has facets. I get that. I like…” He curled his fingers into the air. “I like raw, real, no matter the setting.”

She merely stared at him.

“I’m not great at explanations. The thing is, I like you. I’ve watched you over at the coffee shop watching me, and tried to figure out how to ask you out.”

“While I wondered if I could work up the nerve to ask you out,” she said, her voice slow and easy.

He grinned. “Really?”

She smiled back.

“The point is that I’ve noticed you, not sure what or why at first, but I did. I haven’t in a long while. Noticed a woman, that is. But something about you has intrigued me since the moment I first saw you ordering a cup of coffee at the café.”

Her throaty laugh danced out again and her hand covered his on the table.

“Same goes. There was a time I was too…” Those plump lips pursed. “Easy with my affections and then I became very guarded, and still am guarded. You’re the first man I’ve noticed in a while.”

Okay, so they were on the same footing there, good. “Good. But with your talk of auras and knowing and stuff, I need to know you believe it, really,
really
believe it, or if it’s just promotion for business.”

She licked her lips. “Why?”

“My daughter,” he said simply. “Alyssa is very…”

“Fragile,” she finished for him.

Max stared at her a moment and thought maybe, just maybe this woman understood. He picked up his fork, then set it down and took a drink, the taste of his beer bright and sharp on his tongue.

“Yes, yes she is. So please understand that I’m not trying to offend you or anything but if you don’t really believe in all that stuff, please don’t bring it up around Alyssa. If talking about auras and fate and ‘something calling to you’ is just—”

“Shoptalk?” she asked before taking another bite.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah, shoptalk.”

“Just a face, or rather a mask to put on when it suits me?” She smiled. “A, what did you call it? Promotion. A promotional angle to drum up business?”

Her tone had quieted, he heard the edge to it, but damn it this was too important to set aside. “Yes. For lack of a better analogy. Masks is a great one, actually.”

She laid her fork back down and laced her fingers beneath her chin. “Max. I don’t lie. Or at least I try never to lie. Lying about my weight or dress size is a given.”

He grinned.

“If you knew me at all, you would know that under normal circumstances, that question would not only offend me—” Her eyes flashed as she continued, “But
really
piss me off.”

“I—”

“However, I understand where you’re coming from—parental concern. So, to answer your question, no, it’s not just shoptalk or a mask I put on for promotion’s sake to drum up business. What I do, I believe in. If that bothers you, fine. I don’t really care.” She stared at him a moment more before she took a long drink of her beer.

He sighed. “Look. It doesn’t bother me. It’s just…” He raked a hand through his hair. “She’s been through enough and I don’t think for a moment you’d intentionally hurt my daughter, but—”

“How?”

He blinked. “How what?”

“How do you know that? That I wouldn’t intentionally hurt her?”

He frowned and shrugged. “You just wouldn’t.”

Lake leaned forward. “Yes, you’re right. No, I would never intentionally hurt her because I get the distinct feeling that girl has been through more than enough. But what I want to know is how do
you
just know this?”

“I don’t know, I just do, okay?”

“And you asked me if I wore masks,” she muttered before resuming her meal.

They both ate in silence for a while. His anxiety, which had plagued him all day, turned in a new direction. He’d just ruined his chance with seeing more of this fascinating woman and…

“So, you still want me to model for you?”

He paused, the bite of spinach enchilada halfway to his mouth. “Um, do you still want to?”

She grinned. “I asked you first.”

His gaze ran over her, over that perfectly Renaissance face, not exactly breathtaking, not subtle, but something in between, something classic and intriguing all the same. Maybe it was the eyes, that dark green, or the fact her lips had him thinking things he was way better off not even contemplating. Or maybe it was the whole thing put together. A cross between some Irish pagan deity and a wild Viking lover.

“Yes.”

That single syllable, dark and promising, slid over her like a long-awaited caress.

What the hell?

Lake scooped up more rice for the lack anything better to do and shoved it into her mouth.

The man could make her hot and cold and hot again, and her nerves were strung tighter than they’d been in a long damn time.

Though she’d really, really missed this feeling, she’d be damned if the first man who jump-started her libido could sack her that easily.

So she’d take a bit of time to reflect and question and assess.

And then jump his bones.

Very, very sad, with a capital
S
.

She’d have to figure out what the hell she wanted.

Him.

“You game?” he asked, in that same dark tone of voice.

She swallowed and almost choked. “For?” she wheezed out, grabbing her beer.

He smiled, a one-sided grin that lifted to a full-fledged smile before a laugh rumbled out.

“You know what I think?” He leaned up onto the tabletop, his hands stacked on top of each other.

“You’re gonna tell me, right? Because I hate to be kept in suspense.”

His eyes narrowed fractionally. “Oh, but some suspense is good.”

She nodded. “True. Some suspense is.”

“The kind that leads to greater things.” He wiggled his brows.

“Sex.” There, she said it.

He sat back. “Now you’ve ruined it. We were doing so good dancing around the issue.”

She merely looked at him. “We were? I thought it was more a stumbling two-step.”

He frowned. “Nope. We were doing a damn fine tango.”

“A fine tango?” Lake couldn’t contain the chuckle. “Honey, you’ll know a damn fine tango after the fact.”

For a moment, he said nothing, then the corners of his eyes creased ever so slightly. “Hmmm.”

She waited, but he didn’t expound. “Okay, I give, what does hmmm mean?”

“Just thinking.”

“Given. Of?”

“Of you. Of me. Of us. Together. Naked.” His eyes never wavered from hers. “In here, with the paints. Or without. Down the hall in my bed.”

“Or, since you have a daughter, maybe across the street in my bed?”

He finally blinked, and downed a drink of beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “True. Your bed across the street.”

Neither said anything for a bit.

“But—” he started.

“Not tonight,” she finished.

“No, not tonight.” He stood, walked to her and ran a finger over her shoulder, up her neck to trace her jaw. “Most definitely not tonight.”

“Because,” she whispered, “that would ruin—”

Max leaned down and she caught the scent of him yet again. “—the suspense.” His breath was warm and taunting like Satan’s temptation.

She sighed. Then almost jumped out of her skin as his lips nuzzled her neck.

“Relax,” he said softly.

“So-sorry,” she mumbled, as he kissed the side of her neck.

“For what?” One hand lifted her hair from her neck before he placed a kiss just there at her nape. Goose bumps shivered down her spine.

What had he asked? Oh yeah. “Been awhile. I’m a bit—”

“Jumpy?”