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but...”
    “I’ll expect you Saturday. Early morning. All
right?” He nodded and walked away before she agreed.
    Grace fled. She collected her coat and left,
sucking in the cold air and noticing her trembling hands while she
opened the car door. She rested her head on the top of the steering
wheel while her stomach twisted and her mind reeled. She’d come
here without a plan, spurred by some uncharacteristic, warped
curiosity. And damned if she hadn’t made a fool of herself in spite
of efforts to blend in. Not with some art connoisseur—no—but with
Noel Hawthorn himself.
    Grace drove home and went straight to a hot
shower. She scrubbed and then wrapped her hair in a towel. With her
robe tied loosely around her, she sat on her bed in the dark and
wondered if she should go see a shrink. She admitted her intent had
been to watch Noel, to spy, to see the woman who’d hired her
brother, true. However, real truth be known, it was Hawthorn she
cared most to see in the flesh. The voice, the image, the man who
seemed to be popping up in her life, by voice, by name...
    His work. It was beyond her vocabulary to
describe, and she’d been obtuse enough to say just the opposite to
his face. Beautiful hardly scratched the surface. She was mortified
that one word, which he probably heard from every art ignorant
person, was the only one she’d hit on and used in her strained
state.
    She crawled under the covers and lay there,
seeing his face, his bedroom eyes. Why would he possibly want to
paint someone like her? Even dressed up, wearing makeup, she knew
her face and form didn’t compare to those paintings, in spite of
what he said. Nor could any mental nuance or whatever, create
something with brown hair and brown eyes and winter skin...Hell.
Skin...The man couldn’t have seen much except her neck and...
    Grace groaned and rolled to her stomach. She
should just forget it; just put him and the night out of her mind.
It was a big city, and they wouldn’t run into each other,
considering his crowd and hers. They were strangers, would remain
so unless she sought him out. She could mark the whole thing down
as some weird episode in her life, and get back to planning the
rest of her time off.
    Yeah, she should leave the city. This would
be the perfect time to take off and find a beach somewhere. She
should just pack up and erase the whole thing from her mind.

     
     

Chapter Six

    Grace made it three whole days. She read
brochures and decided a weekend on the Caribbean would build a
memory that could last a long time. Not to mention that it was
exotic, daring, and something out of the ordinary for her.
    But Thursday she sat in her car outside
Noel’s loft, a warehouse type of building that looked industrial
from the outside. The models that came by were attractive and
dressed in hip clothing. She found it hard to believe the man was
faithful to his girlfriend and not sleeping with them because he’d
lied about the good-looking part, they were very attractive.
    That evening she sat in the back lot of the
art gallery, cold because she couldn’t run the heater and still
calling herself crazy. She absently watched the paintings,
apparently sold ones, being brought out in crates and put into a
green security truck. Grace missed seeing Noel leave, because after
observing the armed security guard lock up, she was puzzled when
Elisa and Bryce walked around the back lot.
    Having parked out of the arc of the lights,
Grace had a good view of them when Bryce unlocked the door and they
went in. Chewing her lip, looking around, Grace grabbed up one of
the small cameras and exited her car.
    She’d worn her trench coat and black clothing
with her hair tucked under a black felt cap. She looked around as
she walked to the door, amazed they left it cracked open and that
the two had gone in after the guard left.
    Grace eased the door wide enough to slip
through. It was dark. A pool of light several feet away illuminated
the couple’s location