Best of all, he’d spied a half-finished sketch on her table of a man who bore a striking resemblance to him.
He would have written it off as a coincidence since he couldn’t be certain, of course. But then he’d seen the way her eyes locked on the drawing and her rush to remove it. There’d been a flare of unmistakable embarrassment. Awareness. Hell, the electricity between them had spiked to a shocking degree in those moments when she’d been close to him. The attraction had been a revelation considering how resolutely—and easily—he’d ignored dating since his deployment.
The heat Abigail stirred wasn’t going to be ignored.
Vaughn watched her read over the contract he’d brought, and lingered on her lovely features as she pursed her lips or tilted her head. For a moment, she traced a line of text with her finger, as if to slow her pace or concentrate. Dark curls pooled on the table beside the paper, the silky waves calling to his fingers to touch them. Test how they would feel against his skin.
She’d changed since he’d seen her at the hospital earlier. She wore an artist’s smock over a loose summer dress. The pale green cotton printed with daisies peeked out of the smock at the hem, the kind of simple summer staple that was probably comfortable for working. Yet on Abigail, the outfit was as seductive as anything he’d ever seen a woman wear. The low-cut neckline visible above the square-necked apron revealed ample curves, and a gold medallion knocked against the table as she bent to read the papers he’d given her. Beneath the table, she crossed her long legs, and her sandaled foot brushed his calf for an instant as she moved, sending his imagination into overdrive...
And damn. He shouldn’t allow his thoughts to roam in that direction until he knew more about her. What if she was married? Had a significant other? He didn’t see another car in her driveway, and her ring finger was bare, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was available.
Surely the drawing she’d made of him meant something, though.
“There.” Abigail signed her name with a flourish. “All set.” She pushed the paperwork toward him, straightening in her seat. “Would you like me to show you around the studio before you go?”
He couldn’t decide if that was a genuine invitation or a politely worded hint for him to be on his way. He used to be better at reading social nuances. These days, just keeping his own emotions in check took focus. And although he was anxious to get home and decompress from this day, he had to admit he enjoyed this time with Abigail.
“I’d like that.” Leaving her advance payment on the table along with the security badge and a few other documents, he slid the signed agreement into his folder. He’d give it to Belinda tomorrow to make copies. “It’s not at all what I expected,” he told her honestly, hoping to learn more about Abigail if he spent a little time with her.
“No?” She glanced at him over her shoulder as she led him past a shelf full of paint cans and chemicals, her dark eyes challenging. “Did you envision me sitting around my garret with a bunch of wine-swilling pseudointellectuals while we debated the novels of Kafka?”
He laughed out loud, surprised at the sound. “Not quite. But I definitely didn’t envision this many axes.” He stopped near a bunch of sinister-looking hatchets and hand tools leaning against the wall alongside ladders in varying sizes.
She paused beside him, her embarrassment from earlier in their meeting long gone. She smiled with something like fondness as she looked over the tools of her trade. The whole place smelled like hickory and apple wood, a welcoming scent that reminded him of fall bonfires.
“Wood carving can be strenuous labor, but I love it.” She straightened a few small blades on a shelf nearby. “I still work in other media, but I’ve been obsessed with wood for the last few years.”
“The tree sculpture you proposed for the children’s ward will be made from wood?” He hadn’t read the specs of her work very carefully, and besides, she had a great deal of artistic license in the project, so it wasn’t as though the hospital was dictating precise details for the project she crafted for the installation.
“Yes. I have a perfect length of bay laurel in mind. It’s been drying for years, and I’ve always known that I wanted it for a tree of some sort.”
“Years? How long have you lived in Royal?” He didn’t remember hearing about her work until after he returned from his deployment.
“It’s been a little over two years.” She stepped carefully around a short sculpture of a bird with an ox’s head, moving deeper into the stacks of raw wood.
“Do you mean to tell me you that you brought some of this with you when you moved?” His gaze wandered over all the huge logs of varying sizes.
“I brought almost all of it since I had access to a lot of wood remnants where I lived in Austin. I haven’t found a good source here yet.” She moved aside some of the limbs with relative ease, making him realize that she had the larger hunks secured with ropes hanging from the rafters so they wouldn’t fall. She spotted the bay laurel she had in mind for the hospital sculpture and showed him some of the features.
“You should come out to my place sometime,” he said when she finished, even before he’d worked out if she was single or not. “That is, if you want to check out the trees.”
“I don’t take any fresh wood. Only
