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supper.
    That was, D.C. reminded himself, the way he operated.
    But he didn’t break the date. Or the next one he found himself making with her. It baffled him that he enjoyed her company. It made absolutely no sense. She liked art to express something specific in tangible terms. She preferred her music subdued and her movies with subtitles.
    They ended up debating half the time, sitting over steaming cups of espresso or glasses of wine. Somehow they’d managed to have three fairly civilized dates. He wondered if she was as surprised as he that they’d enjoyed themselves.
    They were about to have a fourth. Four dates in two weeks, D.C. mused. It was … bizarre.
    He stepped back from the canvas, frowned at it. He often worked in watercolors for a change of pace. He hadn’t intended to do a portrait. The sketches he’d done of Layna had simply been an exercise. But they’d nagged at him until he’d given in and begun to commit the image to paper.
    Watercolors would suit her. Cool tones, soft lines. He hadn’t selected a sketch of her smiling. Again and again, he’d been drawn to his quick study of her looking straight ahead, mouth soft and serious, eyes aloof.
    Frosty sex, he thought now. It was the expression of a woman who challenged a man to chip through the ice to the heat. And if he did, what then? Would it be a flash or a simmer, a slow burn or an explosion?
    The wondering was maddening, D.C. decided. And erotic.
    Painting her this way was both intriguing and frustrating. He had to know. He’d never bring that face to life until he knew what went on behind it.
    When that realization struck him, his shoulders relaxed, his mouth curved up. Of course, that was it. That was why he kept going back. He wanted to paint her, and he couldn’t until he knew her.
    Pleased that the puzzle had been solved, he set his brush aside. He picked up his coffee, drinking deeply before he realized it had gone stone cold. With a grimace, he started downstairs to brew a fresh pot.
    When his buzzer sounded, he switched directions and found his mother on the doorstep.
    “I’ve caught you at work,” Shelby said instantly.
    “No, on a break.” He gave her a hard, one-armed hug. “And now you can make the coffee.”
    “Fair enough. I promised myself when you moved back I wouldn’t start popping in unannounced.” She smiled up at him as they walked back to the kitchen. “But Julia sent me new pictures of Travis, and your father’s not home. I had to share them with someone.”
    “Let’s see.”
    He shoved unopened mail, a few dirty dishes and a sketch pad into a pile on the table. Shelby dug a pack of snapshots out of her purse and handed them over as she turned to hunt up coffee beans.
    Her son, she thought, with an eye roll at the state of his kitchen, lived like the clichéd starving artist. But if it suited him, it was fine with her.
    “Damn. He’s great, isn’t he?”
    “He looks very much like you did at that age.”
    “Yeah?” Foolishly pleased, D.C. glanced up from his nephew’s grinning face.
    “Those MacGregor genes. Good blood,” she said in a fair imitation of Daniel. “Strong stock. And speaking of The MacGregor, have you heard from him lately?”
    “Mmm. Just a few days ago. He wanted to thank me for doing him a favor, then nag me to come up for a visit. Grandma’s pining again.”
    Shelby laughed as she ground fresh beans. “You’d think he’d come up with a new one. To hear him say it, you’d think Anna sat around moping all day.” Angling so that she could see D.C. as she measured out coffee, she cocked her head. “What favor did you do for him?”
    “Layna Drake,” D.C. answered absently, as he studied the snapshots. “Aunt Myra was badgering him about her—asked him to have me escort her to that deal the other night.”
    Shelby tucked her tongue in her cheek. “Oh really? And you bought that, did you? Foolish, foolish boy.”
    “Huh?” He blinked, then shrugged. “No, it’s not his