fascinated and intrigued him for weeks was a touch away.
Only a touch.
With her back to him and her head bowed, her close-cropped hair fell in ringlets against the nape of her neck. Like an ebony fringe, it brushed the collar of the fawn colored jacket. Jeb wondered how it would feel to brush away cloth and ringlet and twine his hand about that fragile column. How satisfying to touch her, to capture the warmth of her flesh in his palm, taming the throb of her pulse beneath his fingertips? The need to unravel and understand every facet of this woman was so powerful his arm had lifted, his hand outstretched before he realized what he’d done. For an interminable time his fingers hovered an inch from the curve of her throat.
Like a dash of cold water, reason intruded. To touch her as a stranger would frighten her, and she must not be afraid of him. Not now. Not yet.
Moving back, he listened without hearing. As she rambled on, the scent of jasmine drifted to him. As soft as her voice. As subtle. As lovely.
There was the throb of passion in her, a kindness and innate tenderness. In the half-light he could almost believe she was too guileless to be what he feared. Innocent enough to be the Judas goat he would make of her.
“Look!” she insisted. “Tell me what you think.”
Each miniature was accentuated by the lamplight spilling over them, but their glowing colors were only a blur at the edge of his vision. As she waited, silence fell like a heavy curtain.
Sounds of a street coming lazily to life began a distant, whispered chorus. A vendor passed, the wheels of his cart clattering in rhythm with the song of his wares. Soon the life of the street would spill into the gallery and this moment of first meeting would be lost. With an effort, he forced himself to look away from her to the work she offered for inspection. To begin what he must.
“I think you’re right.” His voice was as low, as husky as hers. “They’re very beautiful.”
An indrawn breath was cut short. A canvas fell to her desk as she spun to face him. Her hand at her throat and the widening of her eyes spoke her shock as eloquently as her gasp. “J—?” The incipient recognition was cut short and rejected in disbelief. With an adamant shake of her head, she struggled to recover her composure. “Gracious! You startled me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jeb said. “The sign by the door says the gallery is open.”
“It does. We are.” A flush rushed over her cheeks. “I’m sorry. We are open, but it’s rare that anyone comes in this early. Except by appointment, of course, and I was expecting my assistant. So, naturally, when I heard the bell I assumed...”
“That I was he, or should I say she?” Jeb finished for her. He smiled down at her. Beneath the fawn colored jacket, she wore a lavender frock. A tailored concoction, fitted like a glove. Her eyes were as gray as a stormy sea.
“She.”
“Pardon?” Jeb realized he hadn’t been listening.
“She. Annabelle Devereaux. I was expecting Annabelle,” Nicole explained distractedly, her face drawn in a puzzled frown.
“So, naturally, you assumed...”
“That you were...” Her voice drifted to a whisper as she lost the thread of her conversation. With another exasperated shake of her head, she began again. “Annabelle works for me and usually she comes in like clockwork, nine minutes late.”
She was babbling. Nicole Callison never babbled—it wasn’t allowed. Except, perhaps, she amended, when attractive blond men stood smiling down at her as if she were the most amusing creature on earth. Which was ridiculous. The island and Charleston were filled with attractive blond men. Yet there was something about him, something about his smile.
With a start, Nicole realized she was staring at him. At the smile that seemed oddly familiar.
“I’m sorry, ahh...” She looked away from his mouth and from his captivating gaze. In an uncommonly nervous gesture, her hand lifted to her throat again, to the pulse that fluttered at its base. “I’m sure you didn’t come to hear any of this.” With a visible effort, her gaze returned to his. “Perhaps there’s something I can help you with, something specific I can show you?”
“No.” As she had begun to rise he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. The contact was electric and startling and over almost as it began, yet the memory would linger. Drawing away, he smiled again. A tighter, less amused version than before. “I only came to browse. I’d prefer to wander about, see what you have to offer.” His look ranged over the gallery and returned, deliberately, to her. “Then I’ll know how you can help me.”
She heard an inflection in his voice she couldn’t interpret and saw a subtle difference in the way he looked at her. He was waiting for a reaction, a response to something she didn’t understand. Which was as absurd as the entire encounter had been from the beginning. He was simply a customer, albeit from the handsome cut of his clothing and the way he wore it, one of impeccable taste. But, only a customer, nevertheless.
“As you wish.” She struggled for the friendly professionalism that was her trademark. Using it as a shield, she brushed her fingers over a panel of digital switches at the side of her desk and the gallery was ablaze with light. A sweep of her hand gave him permission to wander where he would. “Please, look as long as you like. If you have a question, or see something that interests you, my associate should be in shortly and can assist you.”
With that, Nicole Callison spun her seat back to her desk, ending any conversation. When he moved away, she gathered up a ledger and to her dismay discovered the entries might be gibberish for all the sense they made.
Still, she tried. Finally, counting it wasted effort, she admitted defeat. Leaning back in her chair, she yielded to impulse and watched him.
As he moved among the displays or paused to study a painting, he appeared quite ordinary. Granted, with broad shoulders and a body that was lean and fit, he was attractive. But no more than others of his sort who had wandered through her gallery. The sea port and the resorts, on islands that dotted the coastline like sandy jewels, drew them like magnets. They came in multitudes, handsome and charismatic, sailors and athletes. Until, by virtue of their number, their uniqueness became ordinary.
Her initial unease, if her reaction could be called that, was simply that he’d caught her unaware. Towering over her as he had, the advantage had been his.
“Advantage,” she murmured, not unduly disturbed by her choice of words, or considering it unusual to think of a customer as having a controlling edge. Mollified by the rationalization, Nicole felt a bit foolish when she thought of the hard-bitten look of danger she’d imagined when she first saw him.
First opinions weren’t always right, were they? It had to be imagination. Right? If not, why hadn’t it occurred to her to be afraid? If he was truly dangerous in his quiet way, why wasn’t she afraid now?
Annoyed by the direction of her thoughts, she meant to resolve her nagging questions and dismiss him. Seeking whatever answers had eluded her, her covert stare ranged over him. From shaggy, sun-bleached hair that looked as if it wanted to curl but dared not, to the tips of his leather deck shoes, she inspected him as thoroughly as one would a stallion at auction.
Except she wasn’t buying. Not today, and not this one.
As if she’d spoken her disavowal, he looked up from a lithograph. A thoughtful smile teased the corners of his mouth, changing the planes and angles of his features, making them more than pleasant, and much, much more than attractive. And if it destroyed the myth that he was no different from so many others, it strengthened the conviction that any perception of danger in that look and that smile could only be the delusion of a mad woman.
Disconcerted that he’d caught her staring, she nodded curtly. As she resisted the temptation to sink farther into ignominy, a vague frisson of recall tugged at her memory, then flitted away.
Perhaps she was mad, after all, for there was still