Love Unlocked (2 page)

“Are you headed back to town? Would you mind if I followed you to the hotel you mentioned?”

“Not at all.” She was practical, he had to give her that. He hoped he hadn’t made her too uncomfortable. “And I’ll ask my brother to call you.”

“I appreciate that.”

He pulled himself away from her humming energy and climbed into the truck. He drove carefully down the hill, watching her gray compact in the rearview mirror. A part of him felt oddly cut off when she turned into the hotel’s parking lot and he lost sight of her. He traced the outline of her face on the steering wheel, hoping to keep the lines in his muscle memory until he could get home to his studio. He’d start in charcoal.

Amazing what you could do with a wallet full of cash and some liberal smiling. Eve had braced herself to spend as much as a week at the Chelsea Inn, but three days later found herself checking out. She was on her way to her house on the hill to meet a moving truck full of appliances and her brand new, California King-size bed.

She was also meeting Will Cleary, locksmith and security expert, or so his website claimed. She’d checked both Cleary men out on her phone’s tiny browser while trying to take a bubble bath in the too-small hotel tub. There wasn’t much on Will, but Triple A Locksmith had positive online reviews, and she didn’t see a reason not to use him for the work she needed done.

Hudson Cleary had a far wider Internet presence, with articles written about him in major newspapers and art magazines, as well as a professional website showcasing his work. His paintings were owned by a dozen major museums, but he hadn’t had a show in over two years. Nothing on his website seemed recent.

Hudson had come onto the scene as a precocious college dropout, having been taken under the wing of one of the West Coast’s biggest gallery owners, who’d given him his own show at the tender age of twenty-two. His extraordinary work had propelled him from wunderkind to top-of-the-heap contemporary artist, a position he’d held for a decade before all but disappearing two years ago.

What was he up to here in tiny Chelsea? Even with her research skills, she found little information online about his personal life; he almost qualified for the “reclusive genius” label. She could have queried her contacts at some of the galleries he’d shown at, but that would have been crossing the line from idle curiosity to stalker behavior. The most she could figure was that since his last show, prices for his paintings had reached a point where even with her generous collecting hand, she’d have to think twice about investing in one of his pieces. And since she no longer acquired works of art unless she paid for them, she’d simply have to get by without a Hudson Cleary abstract.

Her thoughts turned to the crate of paintings slowly wending its way from Europe. She hoped they’d arrive soon, as she worried over them the way a mother might fret over a child gone to sleep away camp. When it arrived, the artwork she’d painstakingly collected over the last decade would make this new place she’d chosen feel like home.

As she let herself into her house, her sigh turned into a yawn. Outfitting a house from scratch was exhausting, and there was still so much to be done. Her next priority was replacing her tin can rental car with something more substantial. A utilitarian sedan would strike the right note for her new surroundings. A shame she’d had to leave her sporty Aston Martin behind when she left Paris, but the cash from that sale and her savings had so far been enough to finance her California reinvention.

Her tiredness was forgotten when she found that the fridge delivered yesterday was humming and already ice cold. Pathetic how enjoyable the simple act of unloading a few bags of groceries into it was. She shoved the crisper drawer closed—she may have overdone it on the greens—as a knock came at the door. Will Cleary.

Unless they were identical twins, Hudson stood on her front step, not Will. “This is a surprise.”

“Hi. Will got held up. He asked me to do a walkthrough with you, take some notes so he can get started on parts orders.”

“A few of the things I want are kind of complicated.” She afforded herself the luxury of taking in his well-built frame from his broad shoulders straining a gray and blue flannel shirt, his finely muscled forearms, to promisingly large boot-clad feet. A pencil was lodged behind his right ear. He had a notebook in his left hand, and a bulge in his pocket, probably a cell phone. She could find some of his other bulges if she went looking, which she definitely did not plan to do. “Are you up for it?”

“Try me.”

His posture was as casual as the day she’d first met him, but she noticed the masculine energy that seemed to thrum and match the pulse of the blood pumping hot through her body. To ground herself, she tried to focus on the work at hand.

“Okay, let’s start right here. I need a new deadbolt and lock for the front door. Something really strong and smooth, nothing cheap. I absolutely hate wrestling with a sticky key to get in my own front door.”

Hudson tugged the pencil from behind his ear and started scribbling. Eve had to drag her gaze from his nimble fingers to the list she’d entered in her smartphone.

“I’d also like a keypad entry system wired to all the doors and windows. If so much as a bird flies into a window mistakenly, I want the system to go off.”

“So something sensitive.” He didn’t take his eyes off his notebook.

Eve was chagrined that he didn’t seem to feel the electric current running between them. She should have been relieved.

“Yes, something along the lines of a Lorex. At my last gallery, we had a system custom designed, but I don’t have time for that.”

“You worked at a gallery?”

He glanced up from his notes, ignoring, as usual, whatever she’d said that didn’t appear to interest him. If it would get this done faster, she would tell him what he wanted to know.

“Yes, most recently I was assistant curator at Bonard’s in Paris. Before that, at their sister galleries in London and Vienna.”

Hudson’s eyebrows rose. “What do you expect to do out here? Chelsea has one gallery. Mostly seagulls and sunsets.”

Was it a mistake to have told him? She’d forgotten for a moment that he had connections to the world she had left behind. Perhaps it was a good thing he was focused more on her resume than on her knowledge of security systems.

“I’m reinventing myself.” She shrugged. He wasn’t the only one who could be terse.

He quirked his mouth at her answer and turned his attention back to his notes. “So you want a system that will alert the cops. I have to warn you, in a rural area like this, you aren’t going to get a real fast response time.”

“Are there any local security companies? One with patrol cars or anything like that?”

Hudson’s mouth flattened into a thin line. “Not that I know of. My brother might be willing to subcontract the work out...if you really think it’s necessary. B&Es are pretty rare in these parts.”

If her home was broken into, it wouldn’t be an amateur looking for electronics and jewelry. It would be a professional, and this system would be the first line of defense. She had a few other tricks up her sleeve.

“I’m cautious,” she said crisply. “Moving on.”

They covered the downstairs at a brisk pace, but if she was trying to overwhelm him, he’d show her he could keep up. She had made progress in the last few days. Simple but costly looking furniture had appeared in the living room, while stainless steel appliances filled out the kitchen, and items like a simple glass bowl brimming with fruit and placed on the kitchen’s long marble counter added a homey touch.

She rattled off some more specifications, then led him upstairs so he could count the windows and take some measurements. His pencil rarely stopped moving on the page. When they arrived at the landing to go down again, she stopped.

“Are you writing a novel?” she asked in that faintly accented voice of hers.

He wanted to grin but held back. He stilled his writing hand and flipped the notebook around so she could see his careful notations of everything she’d said, plus a remarkably accurate drawing of her face, done in bold lines with rough shading for depth.

“You just drew that?” she asked.

“Yeah.” He didn’t tell her he’d sketched her from memory half a dozen times over the last few days, but that he’d needed to see her again to capture the precise line of her chin.

Surprise, irritation, and appreciation clashed for dominance on her face.

“It’s lovely,” she said.

“So are you.”

Her mouth opened and closed a few times, then she frowned as if dismayed by her lack of a witty response, which made him like her even more. His heart sped up and he heard nothing but the rhythm of his blood, saw nothing but the blush stealing over her porcelain cheekbones.

They stood side by side at the top of the stairs, as if descending would end a moment neither wanted to break. Now was the time to act. He touched her arm, keeping her on the landing with him. She stared up at him, a foot shorter and dainty in some kind of flouncy flat shoes.

“Would you....”

Eve leaned her head to the side, waiting for him to finish, her lips slightly parted. Why was this so difficult? His hands started to sweat, something they hadn’t done since his date with Lorraine Strong at the homecoming dance senior year. What he was about to ask was an enormous step forward into unforeseen territory. He had to take this risk. That’s what artists did, and he was still an artist, despite not having created art in two years.

“Would you be willing to do a sitting for me? An hour or two, here or at my studio, whatever you’re comfortable with?” He spoke quickly, the faster to have the question asked and out there.

As much as he wanted to explore this flash of inspiration she’d managed to spark in him, a part of him wanted her to say no. Then he could ask her on a proper date. He didn’t have much experience working with live models, since he had been an abstract painter inspired by landscapes, but he’d heard enough horror stories from his artist friends to know you never, ever slept with your models, at least while you were painting them. It got too complicated, blurring the lines of professionalism that serious painters kept well established. He had the sense that if he showed interest in Eve Caplin, the woman, she’d never consent to sit for him. He might never get the courage to try to paint again if he let this tender bud of progress wither and die. As interested as he might be in her personally, he had to sate his interest in her as an artist first.

“You want to paint me?” She paused, and Hudson sensed something shift as her smile hardened into something merely polite, and her words took on a superficial tone. “How flattering. I’m afraid, however, that I am drowning in work to get moved in here, and I can’t spare the time.”

Her words made him oddly angry. He knew what he was asking was an imposition, but he needed her. He’d seen a softer side to her, but here she was, giving him the polished version of herself that he didn’t buy.

If she wanted to play it cool, he could play it frosty. “Of course, I understand. Think nothing of it.” His voice dripped with icicles.

She practically floated down the stairs, back straight as an arrow, her long, graceful fingers trailing lightly over the stair rail. Hudson thrust the pencil behind his ear and slammed his notebook closed, following her with loudly clomping footsteps. The doorbell rang as her cellphone went off. Eve answered both while thanking him coolly for his time.

“Don’t worry, I won’t bother you again,” he said, and gladly left her to the cable guy.

Eve bolted upright in bed. Early morning gray light filtered through a break in her new charcoal-toned blackout curtains. She preferred a pitch-black room to sleep in, but that sliver of light wasn’t what had woken her up. She’d been running in her dream, chased by a faceless demon, never able to approach a haven of light that flickered on the edge of her consciousness. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t run fast enough. He was going to catch up with her before she reached the safety of the light.

She forced herself to take several deep breaths. She was awake; the dream was over. She ignored the shivers that were slowly subsiding and got up quickly. A hot shower and a cup of coffee would clear away the remnants of the dream, and the cloud of sadness that followed. Eve paused to pull the covers up. Her petite frame barely made a dent in the oversized bed, a visual reminder of her solitary existence.

For years, she’d lived in cities, among crowds, with flat mates and housemates. For a time, she’d even lived in a hotel, constantly surrounded by other guests and the staff. It had seemed safer to live anonymously amongst people who could distract you from things you’d rather not think about.

When that life had become more hazardous than she’d bargained for, it hadn’t taken much to let go. She said goodbye to beautiful European locales, her demanding work at the gallery, her lucrative extracurricular activities, and retreated to this house on a hill. By removing herself from the scene in which she’d occupied an important but precarious niche, she’d avoided the immediate risks. It would have been smart to shed her name, as well. But she hadn’t had time to set up a new identity for herself. Officially, Eve Caplin had nothing to hide. She’d spent a small fortune creating her on paper and ten years inhabiting her as a model citizen. Unofficially, Eve Caplin had plenty of secrets. Perhaps, in time, she’d be ready to put Eve, and those secrets, behind her for good.

She stepped into the shower, steaming water washing away some of the fear. She was safer alone, in this remote corner of the world where she might be able to begin again. She’d chosen bucolic and peaceful Chelsea instead of chic Carmel or rustic Los Olivos for another reason, as well, but that was too painful to contemplate.

After wrapping herself in the comforting softness of her extra-plush bathrobe, she checked her phone for messages. The date practically popped out of the glass screen. No wonder she was feeling blue this morning, on her mother’s birthday. Twenty-three years since Isabelle Walker had succumbed to ovarian cancer. In sleepy Chelsea, Eve felt closer to her memory than she had in ages.