Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) (5 page)

"Halesford," I corrected. Despite myself, I couldn't help but immediately take a shine to the young woman. I guessed that Lizzie was in her early twenties, probably barely out of college, but her personality just flowed out another foot from her body in all directions, like an aura. "It's good to meet you, Lizzie," I said, stepping forward to shake her hand (and at the same time, drop the scissors back down on the desk before Lizzie asked me why I was carrying them).

She pumped my hand eagerly, twice, and then sat back down in the chair. Looking over the counter at her, I found myself strangely reminded of a golden retriever, so eager to please. If I squinted, I could almost imagine a big furry tail thumping back and forth.

"Have you ever worked somewhere like this, Lizzie?" I asked.

She paused for a moment, and then shook her head. "I owned a lemonade stand, once?" she asked hopefully.

"What, as a kid?"

"No, in my sorority. Beta Tau Theta, go Cheetahs! We just smiled at all the nice fraternity boys, and they came rushing over to buy lemonade!" And she beamed at me, certain that she'd nailed another answer.

Where in the world did uncle Preston find this girl? "Well, this isn't quite the same," I warned her. "We're selling fine art, here, not cups of lemonade and glances at your cleavage."

"Oh! Am I showing too much?" And as I watched in amazement, Lizzie looked down at her own chest, grabbing her shirt and pulling it out so that she could take a look. What, was she checking to make sure her tits hadn't wandered off?

"No, no, that's not it," I hurried to reassure her, after closing my open jaw. "I just mean that we want to be professional, here. Most of the clients who come in aren't looking for the, er, Zeta Theta Pi experience."

"Beta Tau Theta," she corrected me absently. "Okay. I can be professional." She leaned in a little closer to me and lowered her voice, as if confiding a secret in me. "To be honest, this is my very first real job since college! I really want to do a good job, so just tell me if I'm going to screw anything up!"

"I'm sure you'll be fine," I reassured her. Inside my head, I wondered why I was even bothering to talk about professionalism. Lizzie wouldn't be likely to see more than a dozen customers in her whole time here, and most of the little old ladies probably didn't give a hoot about professionalism. Hell, flashing a bit more cleavage would probably help bring in a few more male senior citizens - if they didn't have a heart attack at the sight of a bouncing, beaming Lizzie.

"So, what do I need to do?"

I hurriedly dragged my focus back to the present. "Right! Well, as it turns out, managing the art gallery isn't too much trouble. Here, let me show you around, and then I'll walk you through filling out the forms for a sale, and how to handle different types of payment..."

Lizzie might come off as an air-headed blonde, but she listened with an almost unnerving level of focus as I talked her through the steps of managing the gallery. I got the sense that every iota of her concentration was on me, and it made me both stand a little taller and feel almost nervous about briefing her. Blink, girl!

I showed her the back door, the back storage room where we kept a few extra pieces from some of the artists so that she could restock if some of the pieces sold. I brought her back to the front desk and pointed out the curved mirrors so she could see what was happening in all four rooms of the gallery ("Oh wow, it's like I'm a spy in a movie! So cool!"), and walked her through how to use the little machine behind the counter to process credit cards. She nodded along, her eyes glued to me, occasionally biting at her bottom lip in apparent concentration.

"So, any questions?" I asked, as I wrapped up my explanation.

She paused for a second, biting at her cheek as she looked around, and then shook her head at me as her face returned to the wide smile that I'd come to recognize as her default expression.

"Nope! I think I can handle it!" she said, giving a little nod at the end of the sentence.

I wasn't sure how much actual confidence I had in Lizzie, but I ought to at least give her a chance. After all, it had taken me a couple of days to get used to running the gallery, and I ended up doing alright.

"Okay. Well then, I'll be off..." I paused for a moment, wondering if I ought to warn the young woman about what she was really in for with running the gallery in my absence. "Lizzie, don't be upset if there isn't a ton of foot traffic coming in."

"Why wouldn't there be people coming in?" she asked, looking blank. She glanced in both directions at all of the art. "I mean, look at all this cool stuff!"

I sighed, not bothering to try and explain how the city of Davis did not have a ton of people regularly heading out to spend their disposable income on art - especially not when Napa Valley, the heart of wine country, was less than an hour away along a major highway. "Just don't be too dismayed."

Lizzie just nodded, clearly not really believing my words, and I didn't see a point in sticking around to convince her further. I shouldered my purse and headed for the door.

"Hey, do you need these scissors that you left here?" Lizzie called after me. Fortunately, I was already halfway out the door, and she couldn't see the expression on my face before I left.

I didn't bother heading back to my truck. I really liked driving the robin's egg blue truck, a trusty little Toyota that was one of my fondest remaining memories of my previous, ill-fated marriage, but I knew that I didn't need the vehicle to get to Onyx's studio. It was just a few blocks away, and I could probably use the exercise.

Besides, my walk also took me right past the cutest little bakery, which sold amazing donuts that came filled with jelly, warm and fresh baked every day...

Ten minutes later, I arrived at Onyx's warehouse, swallowing the last bite of jelly-filled pastry. I hastily licked my fingers, trying to clean off the last little bits of strawberry jam that had leaked out as I took bites of the treat. I'd at least managed to keep my outfit clean, instead slurping up the drips of jam and swallowing them in a display of affection that probably would have looked disgusting to anyone who witnessed it. Once my fingers were mostly clean, I took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and then knocked on Onyx's door.

Onyx's warehouse was entirely unremarkable; it had taken me several visits before I figured out which of the half-dozen gray, nearly identical buildings in the area actually belonged to the artist. Like many other creative types, Onyx didn't exactly rush to advertise his home and studio location.

I tried knocking once, then twice, not hearing any response. This was the right building, wasn't it? Frowning, I tried turning the doorknob - and found it unlocked.

Feeling a bit like a lamb stepping into the lion's den, I opened the door and stepped into the warehouse's relatively dim interior.

After a moment of blinking, however, my eyes easily adjusted to the interior. The view of the warehouse's inside was helped by light streaming in from a row of windows set up high, right near the sloped roof. That light lanced down in shafts, painting rectangles of brightness across the wide, polished cement floor of the building.

Off to my right side, sheets of fabric formed walls that divided up the vast space of the interior into different sections. On the left side, the wall stood in the form of a massive wooden screen, slightly angled back and forth in panels to stand upright on its own. I was in the right building, at least - behind that wooden screen lay Onyx's personal quarters, while the hanging sheets of fabric helped to catch the dust from his sculpting work on the right side.

Once inside, I let the door close behind me. I opened my mouth to call out, to shout Onyx's name, but paused as my ears caught the clink of metal hitting stone. The sound came from off to my right, beyond the hanging fabric sheets.

I grinned to myself and moved towards that clinking sound, hoping to sneak up on Onyx and catch him unawares. As I moved in, I reminded myself of my goals for this visit.

Goal one: get the information about Dean Benjamin de St. James that I needed.

Goal two: don't get caught by Onyx's personal field of seduction, drawn into an activity that, amazing as it might feel, would not be a smart long-term move.

Two goals. I could handle this.

Chapter Six

*

I moved silently through the sheets on the inside of Onyx's warehouse, my ears pricked as I listened for that soft sound of metal hitting against stone. Get in, get the information I need, and then get out, I reminded myself. Easy enough goals.

The sheets that hung from cables strung across the right side of the warehouse were little more than thin cotton bedsheets; they helped keep some of the dust of Onyx's carving work from drifting throughout the entire building. I felt a bit like I was walking through drying sheets hung by some spectral washerwoman; a little part of me kept on waiting for a face to come popping out of one of the sheets like a poltergeist from a scary movie.

I stepped through a crack in the last barrier of sheets and saw a piece of art. As I watched, that piece of art slowly moved, positioning a hammer and chisel for the next blow.

Onyx stood before me in front of a block of black stone, his back turned to me. He stood a couple inches over six feet, and he wore no shirt over his broad back. I felt like I was looking at a model of a man, something created to show off how perfect a man's musculature could possibly become. Every single muscle on his back stood out in clear definition, and I bit my lip as I watched them shift and roll beneath his mocha colored skin. Little beads of sweat stood out from his clearly defined shoulder blade, one of them slowly making its way down along the small of his back towards the dark jeans that hung low on his hips as I watched.

Oh god. I felt my resolution to handle this quickly and professionally melting away, like ice under a flamethrower. He definitely looked good enough for me to take a bite.

I took another step forward, and Onyx's ears must have caught the soft sound of my shoe on the polished cement floor. He lowered the hammer and chisel from where he'd braced them against the half-finished sculpture and turned around towards me.

I gasped. I couldn't avoid it; as good as he looked from the back, it couldn't hold a candle to the sight of him from the front. It wasn't fair! I never saw him working out and he looked like a Greek god brought to life, while I did my best to keep myself from slipping too far off of my diet and still looked like mashed potatoes.

"Rebecca," Onyx greeted me, his voice a low purr like a jungle cat.

"Hi," I managed to reply, and then ran out of words.

I stood there, frozen, as he lowered the chisel and hammer in his hands, placing them on a small table off to one side. He moved in towards me, his steps smooth as a stalking jaguar. I felt frozen in his gaze, and understood why mice just stared up at the cat as it approached.

His arms slid out, wrapping gently around my waist as he pulled me in for a soft, feather-light kiss on the cheek. "It's good to see you. It's been a while."

Instead of replying, I just took in a lungful of his scent, dark and primal. I hadn't seen Onyx in a couple of weeks, not since I managed to sell a massive statue of his, making just enough in commission to pay the last of my debts to my ex-husband and put that failed marriage completely behind me. Since then, Onyx seemed to have made himself scarce, no longer randomly stopping by the art gallery to drive me crazy with built-up sexual tension. I tried calling him once, but he just told me that he had found a new rush of inspiration, working on another series of sculptures.

After a moment, he released me - although he still remained a little closer than two platonic friends might normally stand. "How's the gallery going?" he asked.

The words, however, weren't important. Instead, all of his communication was below the surface, in the tone of his voice - he was asking me about whether I was still single, if I was yet ready to give in to his seduction and let him blow my mind in a dozen different ways on the far side of that wooden screen.

"It's going well," I answered, fighting against all the instincts of my body and taking another step back, moving myself out of his arms. "Carter stops by a fair bit, keeps me company, since there aren't a lot of customers."

"Carter," Onyx repeated, and it didn't take much effort to hear the new note of distaste in his voice.

Move past it, I told myself. "But if we can get this new artist, Dean Benjamin de St. James, to sign on with the gallery, it will bring in a lot of publicity - and more sales, too," I hurried onward. "And that would be great for me. So..."

Onyx just waited, his eyes locked on me.

"So, can you help me out? Give me de St. James' address? Did you dig it out of your files?" I finished, hoping that he wouldn't demand some price from me in exchange for the information.

For a moment longer, he just kept on looking at me - but finally, he nodded.

"I did find it," he said, and moved towards the wooden screen that blocked off the living area. I waited, wondering if he'd bring it out to me.

"Coming?" he asked after a moment, and I jumped. I would finally get to see behind the screen!

I stepped around the wooden screen, and my eyes went wide as I looked around. "This is where you live?" I asked, incredulous.