Fade to Black (2 page)

She held out her hand to him. “Welcome to
Lily’s Creative Space, I’m Lily. Feel free to look around.”

He took her hand and didn’t let it go right
away. “Hello, Lily. I’m Devlin. Based on the name, I can assume this is your
gallery?”

She attempted to push her hair behind her
ear and he noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring on her finger. While he really
wasn’t in the market for a new relationship, especially after the last one, he
couldn’t deny he enjoyed the view.
Now to see if she had the
personality to match her looks.

“Yes, it is.” She tilted her head to the
side. “Is there something specific you’re looking for?”

Dev shook his head. “No, I was walking by
and noticed your window displays, the contrast between the two drew me in.” He
knew it was the right thing to say when a smile warmed her face.

“Thank you! I’d just finished it and was
hoping my vision worked. I’ll leave you to wander. Let me know if you need
anything.” She turned and walked back to the counter.

Looks
good coming and going
, he thought. He walked around, impressed
by the art. After looking at a few pieces, he realized it was all of her work.
Extremely curious, he started looking closer at each piece. Paintings,
sculptures, glasswork, and metal work, they all were created from her hands and
mind. He stared at her in another room, wanting to know more about her.

~^~

Carefully checking an invoice for materials
delivered earlier in the day, Lily was doing everything she could not to pick
up the phone and call her best friend Dory. Devlin Cross was in her gallery.
The
Devlin Cross.
He was ten years older than her, and she remembered seeing him on television
shows growing up. She did admit she had a crush on him while he was on the show
where he played a doctor in a hospital, but who didn’t? Even Dory had to admit
he was handsome with his strong chin, brown eyes, and classic
features,
and she preferred women over men. It seemed there was
something about him as he aged that reminded her more and more of Cary Grant.
She grew up watching Cary Grant’s movies and always thought he was dreamy.

He’s
just a man. Chill out and don’t be a dork.
She about jumped
out of her skin when he came up and cleared his throat. Being a redhead, she
was cursed with blushing easily, and it seemed the more self-conscious she was
of it, the redder she became. She knew she was pretty red when she turned
around to see him standing there. “Can I help you?”

He nodded his head toward the back room. “I
was wondering if you could tell me a bit more about a piece I saw back there.”

“I’d be happy to.” She waited for him to
move ahead of her, but when he didn’t, she looked at him in confusion. He
simply gestured for her to go first.

“Ladies first,” he said softly.

Lily wasn’t sure what it was about him
saying it softly that made it so sexy, but it was. She tried not to think about
the fact she’d been crawling around her window displays and was sure she had
some dust on her butt. Her fingers itched to dust it off, just to make sure.
She didn’t because she didn’t want to be wiping the dust off her ass in front
of a big movie star. She cleared her throat, “Which one?”

He moved over to the far wall and pointed
to a piece, which had combined clay, metal, and glass in a fluid display of the
ocean. She had done a few pieces in the series. This one was the largest,
standing almost three feet high, the different materials weaving in and out of
each other to create a woman, a water goddess; the clay and metal making
shadows on the glass and changing the color of it. These were, she felt, her
best work. In fact, she only had one of the three out; another one was in the
back storage room, while the third sat upstairs in her living room. She
couldn’t give them up, and kept them separated in the hopes they all wouldn’t all
be knocked over at once.

“Ahhh… I see you found
Sionna
. She’s a fine one. I named her after the
Irish goddess, which the river Shannon was named after.”

His dimples
flashed as he grinned at her. “And you take your Irish history seriously.”

She raised an
eyebrow at him and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Kind of comes with the
territory. There are three: Sionna, Aibell, and Danu, all Irish goddesses who
have something to do with rivers, lakes, and/or water.”

“Can I see the
other two? I don’t remember seeing them around here.” He looked around.

“No, they aren’t
out. I can show you Aibell, follow me.” She was thinking about getting Devlin
in her storeroom and knowing what Dory would say. Trying not to laugh at the
thought, she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going and tripped over
the uneven floor. He reached out quickly and grabbed her by the elbow to keep
her steady. Standing so close to him she was once again reminded of the height
difference and how handsome he looked up close.

“Umm… thanks.
Sorry, I can trip over nothing. It’s a hazard.” He didn’t let go of her, he stood
there looking at her.

“You need to be
more careful, we wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

She blinked at
him slowly a couple of times before shaking her head to clear it, and then moved
carefully away from him. “Here she is, Aibell.”

“Amazing.
You did this?” He turned to her and waited for her
nod before turning back. “She’s a bit smaller, right?
Beautiful.
Why isn’t she out with the other one?”

Lily smiled a
little. “I’m not sure. I’ve got them all split up. I never have more than one
out at a time. I’m kind of afraid if they were all out together, someone might
fall into them, like me, and break them all. Danu is in my home.”

“I have to see
her.”

“You can see
her, but she’s not for sale.” She squinted at him.

“Everything is
for sale.”

“With that
attitude, you’ll never see her. There are some things that will never be for
sale.” She folded her arms across her chest.

With a slight
bow, he said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. They are so beautiful. They should be
displayed together, for everyone to see.”

“Thank you, but
I mostly do this for me. I don’t expect much. I know what I like, and that’s
what I do.” She looked down and fiddled with a piece of old clay, which was
left on one of her work tables.

He walked over
to her and tipped her chin up so she was looking at him. “And what you do is
make something beautiful for people to enjoy. Don’t knock that. May I please
see the last one?”

Lost in the
warmth of his brown eyes, she was about to give in when the buzzer rang in the
room letting her know someone had come in the front door. Glancing away from
him, she looked at the clock and knew it would be Leo. “I’m sorry, I can’t
right now.”

He backed away.
“No worries, maybe if you don’t mind I can come back tomorrow and have a look
at it?” He looked at his watch. “I really should be getting back myself.”

Her heart sank a
bit thinking he was just saying that and he wouldn’t be back tomorrow. He was a
famous movie star, and she was
a nobody
. Exciting
things like this never happened to her. “Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Chapter
Two

Devlin
looked at the clock for the tenth time in the past fifteen minutes. There was
one delay after another today. They were going over revisions to the script
since they had the time, and someone had the brilliant idea to add scenes to
the movie. He did end up putting in a plug for Lily’s gallery since they were
looking for something like that in the movie, but all he wanted to do was hop
in his car and take a drive. He knew where he would drive to, and who he wanted
to see. She kept popping up in his mind when he least expected it. Her wild
beauty was so at odds with the peaceful aura of the beautiful art she created.
He really wanted Sionna and
Aibell,
and to get a look at Danu. The way she combined the different
medias
was amazing.

When his phone
vibrated, he looked down to see who the text was from. He frowned when he saw
it was from Hayden. He had tried being nice after they broke up, but she wasn’t
leaving him alone. Typically they had to make appearances together to show
everyone there was no hard feelings and they were still friends, but they’d done
it all. It was time for her to move on. If she didn’t get over him soon he was
going to have to do something drastic. He wasn’t sure what, but all the phone
calls and showing up where he was all the time was getting to be too much.
Lucky for him, they typically didn’t run in the same circles, which cut down on
how many times they ‘ran into each other.’ He prided himself on remaining
friends with all of his exes, but this one might have to be the exception.

H:
Darling, I
miss you. I’m on the east coast and hoped I could talk to you.

And there she
was again. It seemed as if she was following him around. He couldn’t shake her.

D:
Sorry,
tied up on the movie, can’t break away.

Dev decided to
turn his phone off after receiving her text. There was no one who was going to
need to get ahold of him and he didn’t want to read her response. He was
annoyed enough right now without her adding to it.

Once the suits
said they could all leave for the day, he was up and out of the room before
anyone could stop him. Grinning from ear to ear when he got to his car, he
jumped over the door and into the driver’s seat like he used to do in high
school. With a roar of the engine, he pointed the car in the direction of
Arundel, Maine, only an hour and a half away.

~^~

Lily spent most of the day looking at the
front door, waiting for Devlin to come through it. She’d sit and stare at it,
then get angry at herself for getting her hopes up. Besides, as she kept
telling herself, she didn’t need a man in her life nor she didn’t
want
a man in her life. If she had to put
her finger on it, she would have to say it had more to do with the fact she’d
had a crush on him for years now. To see him in the flesh right in front of
her, well, any woman would be thrown for a loop.

After giving herself a good talking to
about maybe actually getting some work done, she tried to push him out of her
mind. Slapping a hunk of clay on her table, she started working it, forming it
into the image, which was in her head. Before she knew it an alarm was sounding,
letting her know it was almost closing time. With her mind going around with
what she had to get done that night, she absently washed her hands and walked
to the front of the gallery to lock the door. She was looking down as she dug
her keys out of her jeans pocket and gave a little scream when she saw him
standing on the other side of the glass.

She backed up a couple of steps when he
opened the door and came in, placing a hand over her racing heart. “Wow. Okay.
Come on in.”

“Sorry to startle you. I hope your heart is
okay.”

“No worries. I have a strong heart. I was
just closing.” Her mind raced at the thought of him here, now, at closing time.
What should I do? Show him the other
pieces? Kick him out? Invite him to dinner?

“I see. I would have been here sooner but
we were in meetings all day and they finally allowed me to escape.”

“So you escaped here? I’m sure there are
thousands of other places you’d love to be.” She turned from him and walked
over to the cash register to close it out for the day.

He followed her and leaned against the
counter while smiling at her. “Well now, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d
like to be.”

Lily dropped the coins she had been
counting. While she was bent down, she muttered to herself, “Could you be any
more of a klutz? Geez, don’t have to worry about him confusing you with some
other graceful Hollywood starlet.”

“Need some help down there?” Devlin peeked
over the edge of the counter. “I’d love to give you a hand.”

Looking up at him, she was momentarily
stunned at the fact Devlin Cross was in her gallery and flirting with her. All
of her insecurities came rushing to the surface and she made the decision to go
with it and not expect anything. For all she knew this could be the last time
she saw him. She should enjoy the small amount of time they have together. She
was going to have to remember everything to tell Dory. “No, I’m fine, almost
done.”

She tried to stand up as gracefully as
possible and barely missed ramming her shoulder against the edge of the drawer.
Once she closed out the register, she turned her attention back to him. “What
brought you here today?”

“I wanted to see you.”

Lily looked at him, calling his bluff.

Devlin shrugged. “Well, that is part of it.
The other part is I was hoping to see the last sculpture. I’m intrigued.”

With the hungry look in his eyes and the
smirk on his lips, she couldn’t tell if he was talking about her art or her.
Walking to the front door to lock it, she looked at the clock and saw she had a
little bit of time before Leo
came
home. She was sure
Devlin wasn’t going to stay long. “Come on, follow me.”