Circling her studio like a restless cat, Abigail cleaned and organized, too keyed up to work after the tense meeting at Royal Memorial. She’d tried drawing to decompress when she returned to her home-based art studio, but she couldn’t concentrate. She’d ended up scrapping the little sketch she’d started once she realized her charcoal was bringing Dr. Chambers’s likeness to life on the paper.
Now, she straightened her chisels in the storage block of wood, arranging them the way she liked—short-handled tools in front, longer blades in the back. The exercise wasn’t strictly necessary, but she felt like she ordered her mind when she organized her world. And she needed that right now. Normally, sketching or painting helped her to wind down and readied her thoughts for the bigger work of her studio—wood carving. But today her inner muse was still sighing over the meeting with the surly surgeon, and she could not afford to ruin the beautiful piece of elm she was working on by accidentally carving the doctor’s shoulders into it.
Not that the women of Royal, Texas, wouldn’t line up to admire those spectacular muscles. Maybe it could be Abigail’s breakthrough piece. But since her normal milieu tended toward fantasy creatures and more abstract pieces, she wasn’t sure a set of broad male shoulders belonged in her catalog. They definitely didn’t belong in her romantic musings when she was four months away from giving birth and eager to make peace with her sister’s death. Somehow, she had to find a way to honor Alannah’s life and move forward. She’d hoped maybe the Royal Memorial project would help her with that, but if Dr. Chambers had his way, she was already out of the running.
She turned up the folk music she’d been favoring for her creative time lately, hoping to quiet the demons while she got her studio in order, but the buzz of her doorbell cut right through the drums.
Setting aside a small carving knife, Abigail rose from her workbench and edged around wood blocks and logs in various stages of drying around the sunny backroom that she used for making her art. She’d knocked down a wall and moved the kitchen in her house to accommodate the needs of her work. When she tugged open the side door that had the buzzer, she fully expected to see a delivery of some sort. A new awl, maybe, or the used palm sander she’d bought on eBay.
Instead of a cardboard package, though, she found the man who’d preoccupied her thoughts all afternoon.
“Dr. Chambers.” She felt the hum of awareness immediately. It didn’t matter that he wore a ridiculously expensive watch and drove the low-slung, European-made sports car sitting in the driveway behind him, even though she’d told herself she was done with rich playboys, like the father of her child.
The vivid green of the hot doc’s eyes watched her with interest. And, she guessed, radiated less animosity than he’d demonstrated back at the hospital. He’d left behind the scrubs she’d seen him in earlier. Now, he wore dark dress pants and a fitted blue button-down shirt open at the collar, a nod to the heat of a Texas July, perhaps.
The close-trimmed facial hair hid some of his face, and she guessed he would be even more overtly attractive when clean-shaven. Maybe that’s why he wore the beard. Sometimes that level of compelling good looks could be a distraction from the substance beneath. Abigail would bet the women he worked with noticed him either way.
“It’s Vaughn.” He thrust out a hand, the silver Breitling watch glinting in the late-afternoon sun. “And I hope we didn’t get off on the wrong foot earlier.”
The words caught her off guard, even as she took his hand briefly. The contact hummed up her arm and tickled its way along her shoulder.
“Abigail,” she said automatically, even though he clearly knew who she was. She hesitated, feeling awkward as she pulled her hand back. “And I’m surprised to see you. Unless—”
A surge of hopefulness made her tense. He wouldn’t have come all the way out to her studio to deliver bad news, would he?
“You won the job.” He relayed the information with a curt nod, as if he was reading the results of a CAT scan to a patient. The words were so spare and utilitarian, but the impact was tremendous. “I thought I’d deliver the news personally—”
Abigail didn’t hear the rest of what he said, a wave of relief rolling over her so fast she nearly stumbled backward from it. She clasped her hands together and squeezed the good news tight as a giddy yelp of laughter leaped out.
“Thank you!” She did a little dance in place, sandals slapping out a joyous rhythm. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
She would keep her house and the studio she loved. The commission was enough to smooth the way for her baby’s first year without having to worry about money every month. And, perhaps best of all, she would have a beautiful piece to dedicate to her sister’s memory. The tree sculpture would be for Alannah. A tree of life and hope.
On her doorstep, Vaughn stared at her feet, tracking the happy hop like he’d never seen anything like it before. “I thought it was the least I could do given my demeanor earlier—”
She waved away the concern. None of it mattered now.
“Would you like to come in?” She saw the folder beneath his arm. Guessed there might be a check inside that paperwork. How surprising that the ornery surgeon had ended up being the bearer of the best news she’d had in a long, long time.
The briefest of hesitations.
Maybe the rich doc wasn’t used to spending his time in an artsy bungalow downtown. With her folk music still blaring inside and her watercolors taped in all the windows, her work space was definitely on the eclectic side. Or maybe he just didn’t like art period. Today, she was too relieved to care.
“Sure.” Another clipped nod as his expensive leather loafers climbed the wooden steps. “Thank you.”
Abigail backed into her studio and turned down the volume on her music, eyeing him as he moved deeper into her space. She’d never had a man here in the two years since she’d relocated to Royal from Austin. He had a way of filling up the room, even though her studio was airy and open. Vaughn’s presence, while quiet, loomed large.
He took it all in, his gaze missing nothing as he followed her to the drawing table, where sketches lined the walls around it. She gestured to one of the chairs there, an armless seat she’d made herself of reclaimed wood.
“Have a seat. Can I get you some water? Sweet tea?” she asked as she headed into the kitchenette in the back corner of the studio. She would have gladly cracked open champagne if she wasn’t five months pregnant. Not that she kept champagne on hand. But this new commission changed everything for her.
And even though she hadn’t appreciated the doctor’s contentious approach at the time, he was here, offering her the job that would keep her afloat—financially, creatively and maybe emotionally, too—at the most critical juncture of her life. She couldn’t help but feel a softening in her attitude toward him.
“No. Thank you.” He sat forward in the seat, all business. Withdrawing the folder from under his arm, he laid it on the table. “I brought the contract for you to sign, along with the initial payment.”
He slid the papers out of the folder, carefully positioning them between her morning watercolor of a nuthatch on a tree branch, and an afternoon charcoal sketch of...him?
Oh. No. Horrified she hadn’t tossed the paper in the basket, she rushed back toward the table, hoping to move it before he noticed.
Had he already noticed?
“I. Um. That is—” She was by his side in a split second. Standing too close to him. Hovering over him. Sounding completely inarticulate.
“It’s all very straightforward.” He glanced up at her. Frowned. “Is anything wrong?”
She couldn’t tell from his expression if he’d noticed the half-drawn image of himself. Leaning forward, she slid her scattered papers