A black-and-white photo of the man had been blown up, along with a brief biography, and placed on an easel between the two paintings. The man wasn’t handsome in the conventional sense. His expression was too fierce, his eyes too close-set. Shifty looking, Ben concluded. He scowled at the portrait, feeling a startling streak of jealousy slice through him.
Maybe if it hadn’t been for that, he would have ignored the light that was on in the back of the shop. Maybe he would have done the smart thing and crept away before getting caught lurking around outside Kathleen’s gallery like some lovesick kid.
Instead, he walked over to the door, tried it, then pounded on the door frame hard enough to rattle the glass panels.
When Kathleen emerged from the back, she looked as if she were mad enough to spit. Ben didn’t care. He wasn’t particularly happy himself.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded as she jerked open the door. “I’m closed.”
“I thought you were anxious for me to see the place,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and avoiding her gaze. The impulse to drag her into his arms was almost impossible to resist. He wanted to feel her mouth under his again, wanted to taste her. Instead, he resorted to temper. “I can see that I came at a bad time, though. Forget it.”
He turned to go, only to hear her mutter an oath he wouldn’t have expected to cross such perfect lips. Oddly, it made him smile.
“Don’t go,” she said eventually. “You just caught me in a particularly foul mood. I wouldn’t even be here, except I was afraid if I stayed at home I’d start breaking things.”
He turned back slowly. “Who put you in such a temper?” he asked curiously. “Or was it left over from our encounter this morning?”
“You merely exasperated me. My mother’s the only person who can infuriate me.”
“Ah, I see,” Ben said, though he didn’t. His own family relationships were complex, but rarely drove him to the kind of rage Kathleen had obviously been feeling before his arrival. He met her gaze. “Want to get out of here before you start slicing up the paintings?”
She gave him a hard look. “I thought you came to see the paintings.”
“So did I, but apparently I came to see you,” he admitted candidly. “Have you had dinner?”
“No. I figured food and all that acid churning in my stomach would be a bad combination.”
“As a rule, you’d probably be right, but I think we can deal with that.”
She regarded him curiously. “How?”
“We’ll take a long walk and release all those happy endorphins. By the time we eat, you’ll be in a much more pleasant frame of mind.”
“Unless you exasperate me,” she suggested, but there was a faint hint of amusement in her eyes.
“I’ll try not to do that,” he assured her seriously.
“Then dinner sounds good. I’ll turn off the lights and get my coat. I’ll just be a minute.” She hesitated, her gaze on him. “Unless you really do want to look around.”
“Another time,” Ben told her.
“Promise?”
He smiled and tucked a finger under her chin, rubbed his thumb across the soft skin. “Promise.”
The word was out, the commitment made before he could remind himself that he never made promises, never committed to anything.
Ah, well, it was only a visit to an art gallery, he told himself. Where was the harm in committing to that?
He gazed into Kathleen’s violet eyes and felt himself falling head-over-teakettle as Destiny might say. The shock of it left him thoroughly unsettled. If he’d been a lesser man, he’d have taken off the instant Kathleen went to get her coat, running like the emotional coward he was.
Instead he stayed firmly in place, telling himself there was no danger here unless he allowed it. No danger at all.
It was the first lie he’d told himself in years.
* * *
“Okay,” Kathleen said as she sat across from Ben in a dark, candlelit restaurant that boasted some of the best seafood in town. “If we’re going to get through dinner without arguing, here’s what’s off-limits—art, Destiny and my mother.”
Ben lifted his beer in a toast. “Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.” He gave her a disarming grin. “Think you can stick to it?”
“Me?” she scoffed. “You’ll probably be the first to break the rules.”
“Believe me, there was not a topic on your list that I’m interested in pursuing,” he assured her. “If you want to talk about your favorite scone recipes, it’s okay with me.”
Kathleen grinned despite herself. “You want me to share my recipes with you?”
“Not share them,” he said, giving her a look that made her toes curl. “I was thinking we could go to your place later and you could demonstrate.”
“You got all the scones you’re getting from me this morning,” she assured him.
“Too bad. I’m really partial to the old-fashioned kind with currants. A dozen of those and I might let you have your way with me.”
Now, there was an image meant to rattle her. She gave him a hard look meant to bring him back into line, then spoiled it by asking, “Are we talking sex or are we talking about me getting to poke around in your studio to my heart’s content? No restrictions. No time limits.”
“Which will be the best way to get you into the kitchen?”
“The studio, of course.”
“Because?”
“Do you even have to ask? All that art just begging for an expert to appraise it.”
He chuckled. “I win.”
She stared at him blankly. “Win what?”
“You were the first one to break the rules and bring up art,” he said.
She studied him with a narrowed gaze. “Then that entire discussion was some sort of game to get me to trip myself up?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re a very devious man.”
“I come by it naturally.”
“Destiny, I presume,” she said, then groaned as she saw the trap. “Got me again.”
He laughed. “Shall we move on?”
“To?”
He held her gaze and waited.
“I am not
