Rockies Retreat: Destination: Desire, Book 5 (5 page)

He fanned the pages of his notebook. “Outlining. I have to get a solid draft of my script done by the end of summer.”

Her brow crinkled and she stopped drawing. Twisting on the blanket, she looked up at him. “If it’s based on your book, shouldn’t the outline be obvious?”

“I have to decide what to cut and what to keep, what needs to be tweaked to work on-screen, what directions the actors need to get a scene right.” Clicking open his pen, he arched an eyebrow.

She inclined her head, conceding the point. “More complicated than it sounds, then?”

How to put this? “It’d be like me saying that you have a photo of a tree, so it should be obvious how to paint it.”

“And that’s when I’d want to staple things to your forehead.”

He dipped one shoulder in a shrug. “I’d deserve it.”

“Sorry for the ignorant question.” There was no sarcasm in her tone—the apology was sincere.

“You didn’t know.” He nudged her leg with his toe. “If you ask something like that again…”

“Staple time?” Humor glinted in her dark chocolate gaze.

He angled his jaw. “It’s better than a machete manicure.”

“Ha, yes.” She rolled to her side, propping her head in her palm. “Topic change. Vi asked me to critique her book. I said yes, but realized maybe I should have asked you if you were okay with that.”

“I’m okay with it.” He didn’t need to think about it. From the interactions he’d seen between her and his daughter, he knew she’d be a good person for Violet to get feedback from.

“Good.” She nodded. “I was going to feel like an ass if I had to withdraw the offer.”

“I don’t know if I should ask you to be gentle or honest. It’s her first time trying to write anything like this, so I don’t want her to be crushed by criticism, but if she’s going to really do this, she’s going to have to grow a thick hide because not everyone will be kind. Even blunt honesty can hurt. A lot.”

“I’ll be both.” She reached out to pat his ankle. “I’ve learned how to balance the two with young painters in my art classes. It’s a transferable skill.”

“Thank you.” He let out a breath. “I don’t want to see her hurt. It’s…been a rough year for her.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “For you too, I’m guessing.”

“Yeah. For me too.” A rough year, but nowhere near the roughest of his life. He’d had one that was so bad even thinking about it made his gut wrench with pain. So he tried not to think about it.

“How are you holding up?” Now her fingers curled around his ankle, giving a comforting squeeze.

It had been a long, long time since anyone had offered him support. Usually people wanted to take, not to give. Something sweet cinched tight in his chest. Sympathy shone on her face, and she waited patiently for an answer to her question. How was he holding up? Could he say he felt like he was drowning without coming across as pathetic? He’d dealt with crazy deadlines before. He’d been juggling the demands of parenthood for going on fourteen years. Shouldn’t it be easier by now? He wished it was. “I’m…fine. Or as fine as I can be.”

“Liar.” The word was soft.

“Yeah.” He let his head fall back against the tree. “It’s one of those things where if you start talking about it, if you let some of it out, it’ll all come pouring out. I just…I don’t have time to do that now.”

“Fair enough. But you should give yourself that time. If not now, then soon. If you keep shoving emotions down, they fester, the pressure builds and then…boom. Meltdown, ulcers, therapy. You don’t want that. For Violet’s sake, if not your own.”

Ouch. “Point taken.”

“Time to work?”

“Yes, please.” Anything but talking about all of his problems.

“That’s what I thought.” She shifted until she was lying flat again, and began adding details to her drawing.

He waited for a few minutes to see if she really meant it. There’d been more than one woman in his life who couldn’t stop chatting if there was someone nearby to talk to—Cara had been like that, though hardly the sole offender. But Laurel remained intent on her work, only glancing up at the landscape she was sketching.

Okay. Good. A little surprising, but good. He focused on the paper in front of him, twirled his pen between his fingers a few times, then started jotting down thoughts. Anything and everything was fair game at this stage of the process, so he didn’t limit himself or try to edit. That part came later. The wind ruffled through his hair and made the leaves rustle overhead, but it barely registered in his consciousness. He sank into the words he wrote, picturing the scenes until they felt almost real enough to touch.

Even then, he was aware of Laurel. Some corner of his mind noted when she sat up and pulled her sketchbook into her lap, when she flipped to a new page to draw something else. The silence between them was companionable, not loaded with resentment because one of them felt ignored. It was unusual, and he had to admit he liked it.

He had no idea how much time passed as he worked, but his hand flew across the page, the words pouring out of him. Ideas piled up, fighting to get out first. His fingers cramped, his shoulders pulling taut, but he ignored the discomfort. He knew the basic premise of the story, but some things would need to be tweaked, changed, and he could see it so clearly. How to preserve the integrity of the narrative, keep the major plot points and twists, but pare down the excess so that it was just the essentials. Not too much detail for people who hadn’t read the book, but not so little detail that it pissed off his hardcore fans who knew the novel and wanted a blow-by-blow movie version. This would work. If it fleshed out the way he envisioned it now, he might even be happy with it. But it would be several months before he knew if that vision came to fruition.

“Hey.” Laurel’s toes slid down his bare calf.

Even that slight touch was enough to send a tremor through him, and goose bumps broke over his skin. A lightning flash of instantaneous need arced through him. He sucked in a breath, his gaze snapping up to meet hers. Desire roughened his voice. “What?”

Her eyebrows arched, but instead of responding to his tone, she cocked her wrist and tapped her watch. “If you want to meet Violet for lunch, we need to start walking to the lodge.”

“It’s almost noon?” He scrubbed a hand down his face, still feeling as if he were resurfacing from a deep sleep. It wasn’t an unusual state after diving headfirst into the creative process, but this time it was more like he was waking from a wet dream.

She nudged him with her foot again. “Time flies when you’re in the zone, right?”

“Definitely.” He dropped his notepad onto the grass, pushed to his feet, and slowly stretched out all the kinks. He shook out his hands, flexing his fingers.

After flipping her sketchbook closed, she set it aside and moved to grab the edge of the blanket. He slipped on his flip-flops, and then bent to help her. They worked together to fold up the cover, and he tucked it under one arm. Then he reached over to pick up his tablet of paper.

“Are you happy with what you got done?” She slipped on a strappy pair of leather sandals—dyed an electric shade of pink, of course.

“I am.” He let a satisfied smile spread across his face. “Are you?”

“Very.” She scooped up her sketchbook. “Shall we?”

“Oh, yeah.” Because he couldn’t help himself, he dropped a light, lingering kiss on her lush mouth, just letting himself savor the sweet flavor of her. She looked delightfully befuddled when he pulled back, and he enjoyed that far too much.

“Mmm.” She sucked her lower lip into her mouth, as if to catch a last taste of him. Dark desire wrenched through him at the sight, and he had to force himself to step back.

“After you, sweetheart.”

They dropped everything off at their respective cabins, then walked side by side toward the lodge. Her arm brushed his occasionally, and it sent pinpricks of heat over his flesh. She gave him a glance beneath her eyelashes, a hint of wicked invitation in her gaze. He doubted he could resist the temptation much longer. He’d been struggling against the craving for her since the moment he met her, but he was losing that fight. Maybe there’d never been a real fight in the first place. Instead of wishing the need away, he was starting to savor the burn of anticipation.

An affair with her began to feel like a
when
instead of an
if
. There was something about her that drew him like a moth to flame. The attraction was inevitable, but if he let himself get too distracted from his work, he was going to get burned. Another thing to juggle, but one the most pleasurable of his competing priorities. Because he had no doubt that they’d be good together.

Their hands bumped for maybe the fifteenth time and he caught her fingers, linking them with his. She squeezed his hand, but made no comment. It was surprisingly nice to have her slim palm nestled against his—when was the last time he’d held a woman’s hand? Maybe one or two actresses he’d escorted to some movie premiere or other, but that had been so she could show off for the cameras and make reporters speculate if she was dating him, not because they had any real intimacy to their relationship.

“So,” she said, interrupting his thoughts.

“So?”

She swiped her thumb along his palm, making him shudder. “How long to do think it’ll be before we—”

Breaking off, she let his hand go. Then she waved toward the large log building before them. “There’s Vi and Ruth. Right on time.”

Okay, then. If they did begin a fling, she didn’t want anyone to know. Her actions now told Neil a great deal. He typically didn’t bother to hide his affairs—Vi was aware of who he was seeing at any given time, though he didn’t go into any details and she rarely spent much time with the women he slept with. Usually, she never met them. That would be unusual with Laurel, but this summer mentoring program was hardly his norm.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “With my kid, a few minutes early is a little late.”

“Oh, yeah?” She pushed back a loose strand of hair that was dancing in the breeze. “What about you?”

“On time is on time for me. Cara always ran late, but she had to get better about it because it stressed Vi out so bad. She’s been that way since the moment we taught her to read a clock.” He glanced down to see her smile.

“I try to be on time. My dad’s in the early-is-late category too.” Something darkened in her normally bright expression, and Neil sensed there was trouble in that father-daughter relationship. A shame. His bond with Violet had been one of the most important factors in his life from the day she was born and wrapped him around her little finger. That was how it should be, in his opinion.

Ruth had gone inside by the time they reached the lodge porch. Vi sat on the rail, her bare legs swinging. She’d put a pair of shorts over her bathing suit, and her towel was slung over her shoulder. “Ruth’s eating in the kitchen with her grandma. It’s supposed to be tomato basil soup, and we get to build our own sandwiches.”

“Did your friend tell you that or did you memorize the menu already?” Neil held open the door and the two females entered in front of him.

She gave a sheepish shrug. “A little of both.”

“That’s a useful skill.” Laurel shot a grin over her shoulder at Violet. “I never remember that kind of stuff.”

“That’s okay. I’ll remember for you.”

The look on Violet’s face told him how much she liked Laurel. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was some hero-worship girl-crushing going on there. As potential heroines went, he had no problem with his daughter picking Laurel. Better a respected, dedicated painter than some reality show star. Please God, never let his daughter want to emulate the Kardashians. He could handle wild hair colors, but flashing one’s ass—literally—on the internet wasn’t his idea of admirable behavior.

“Tomato basil soup sounds awesome.” Laurel slapped a hand over her grumbling stomach.

“I’m hungry enough that anything sounds good,” Neil agreed.

Violet poked her head in the dining room. “I wonder what kind of bread they have for the sandwiches. There’s this place called Pete’s back home with marbled rye that was so bomb.”

“In Maine, not LA,” he added for Laurel’s benefit.

Something in Vi’s tone and wording made him frown. Even after visiting every summer since she was seven and living there for a year, she still didn’t think of California as home. He didn’t know what he could do to change that, because he sensed part of her pain in the last twelve months was feeling displaced, as if she didn’t belong anywhere. He’d offered to relocate to Maine when Cara died, even move back into the house that his ex had gotten in the divorce settlement. It would have been weird as hell, but he’d have done it for Violet. She’d said the house and town reminded her too much of her mom and that she’d rather come to California. But the transition had been rough, and still didn’t fit perfectly. He’d let it ride, hoping it got easier with time. He was available if she ever wanted to discuss anything, but mostly she talked about Cara when she needed to vent, not the lack of belonging.

“Fooooood.” Laurel sniffed the air as they joined the short lunch line.

There were definitely more people than had been there that morning though, and Laurel started chatting with everyone in earshot. She introduced their little group, and by the time they’d reached the front, she had all the particulars on every artist there. She was like sunshine, bright and warm.

More than one of the men gave her an interested glance, and Neil couldn’t help the possessiveness that ripped through him. He stepped closer to her, a subtle message to other males.
Mine. Back off.

Yes, it was he-man and stupid, but now that he’d stopped fighting the fact that this summer wouldn’t be all work and no play, he wasn’t about to let some other guy swoop in and try to romance her.

“Let’s sit here.” Vi trotted over to a table by the window and set her tray down.

Neil slipped into the seat across from his daughter, and he was gratified when Laurel chose the seat next to him. Of course, that meant their legs slid together every time they shifted position, and that was a tease that made the anticipation more intense. Especially since, with his daughter there, he could do nothing about the way he burned for the woman sitting beside him. The conversation was mundane, which was somehow…nice, comfortable. They just caught up with each other about their days, chatted about what they’d like to do with the rest of the weekend.