“Look,” she said. “I promise I’ll talk Eden out of coming back.” She swallowed her pride. “And I want to thank you for driving me to Grover Beach after Zac…” She let the sentence drift off. “Anyway, I appreciated it.”
Grayson turned to her. She’d thought that all Beaumonts were flawless, but being this close, she realized her mistake. Grayson wasn’t perfect. His nose had a bump on the bridge, the curves of his top lip were slightly uneven, and his chin had an indention in the center. Although most women probably wouldn’t call that a flaw. There was something sexy about it. Something that made her want to slide her tongue along the whiskery cleft. Her gaze traveled to his uneven top lip. It really wasn’t a flaw either. She lifted her eyes to the bump on his nose.
But before she could assess the imperfection, she got lost in his eyes. Captivating eyes that seemed to pull all the stress and worry from her and replace it with a feeling of…desire. Desire to lose herself in the lavender fields of his eyes and never return to her harsh reality. Without even realizing what she was doing, she tipped her head and moved closer. Her mouth was a breath away from those imperfect lips when the garage light clicked off. Once hidden in darkness, Grayson’s eyes no longer held her spellbound, and she pulled away.
Damn. He is the Woman Whisperer.
Feeling completely foolish, she scrambled for something that might distract him from the fact that she had been about to kiss him. “Umm…I guess I’ll just wait here while you check on your bird.”
After what felt like an eternity, he opened the car door and got out. But instead of heading inside, he walked around the hood of the car and opened her door. “Come on, I want you to meet Jonathan.”
She should’ve stayed in the car. The desire strumming through her veins wasn’t good. Unfortunately, she was curious. Not about the bird, but about Grayson’s house.
It wasn’t what she’d expected. For some reason she’d thought his house would be filled with art and color and as messy as his French Kiss studio. Instead the living area on the third floor was very white, very contemporary, and very neat, with muted paintings of the ocean on the walls. As if reading her mind, he explained, “I haven’t changed much of anything since my sister-in-law Olivia lived here.” He walked to the balcony and opened the sliding glass doors. He peeked out, then closed the door and turned to her. “I guess Jonathan Livingston Seagull is roosting elsewhere for the night.”
Chloe couldn’t hide her surprise. “A seagull? I thought you were talking about a parakeet or a parrot. You can’t have a seagull for a pet.”
“Tell that to Jonathan. I can’t seem to get rid of the bird.” He walked into the kitchen. “So do you want something to drink? Something to eat?”
Since she had burned off the Chips Ahoy! cookies hours ago, she was starving. But she wasn’t taking any chances on the weird thing that had happened in the car happening again.
“No, thank you,” she said. “I really need to get going. Madison is expecting me.”
“Suit yourself.” He pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge and unscrewed the cap. She watched as his lips opened slightly and kissed the opening of the bottle. Watched as his tanned, whiskered throat bobbed with each swallow. He lowered the bottle and studied her, and she hoped the lighting was dim enough that he couldn’t see the flush on her cheeks. “So I can’t talk you out of going.” It was more a statement than a question, so she didn’t answer. With an exasperated sigh, he set the bottle of water on the counter. “Then I guess I don’t have any choice.”
Chloe didn’t comment. She’d figured out a long time ago that few people had choices. Most were just pawns in someone else’s game.
He headed for the stairs, and she followed behind him. On the second level, he turned toward an open door. “I thought you might like to see the rest of the house before we go.”
The bedroom was more like Grayson’s studio. Clothes littered the floor. The king-size bed was unmade. Paint tubes covered the top of the dresser. And canvases rested in stacks against one wall.
“Let me guess,” she said as she stepped in. “This is your room.”
Grayson studied her with his intense eyes. “Actually, for the next week, it’s your room.” He walked out, and there was a click as the door closed behind him, followed by the sound of a dead bolt sliding into place.
CHAPTER SIX
It was kidnapping. There were no two ways about it. Grayson was keeping a woman against her will. Something he’d never thought he would do. Of course, he’d never thought he’d stop painting either. And yet he couldn’t even paint an apple. Obviously he had changed…and not for the better.
He made sure that the dead bolt he’d installed on the door before he’d gone to The Lemon Drop was secure, then went back upstairs and turned on the television to try to drown out the pounding and yelling coming from his room. It didn’t help. And finally he picked up his cell phone and called his home number.
She picked up on the first ring. “Have you lost your mind!”
Since it certainly felt like it, he ignored the question and moved on. “It’s only for a week. Once Nash and Eden are back, you can do whatever you want.”
“You realize that, since you left me with a phone, I can call the police, right?”
“You could, but we both know that you won’t. I think your fear of the police was proven this morning.”
There was a long stretch of silence before she spoke. “I really hate this new Grayson.” She hung up.
He stared at his phone. Yeah, he hated him too.
It was a restless night. He tried to watch some late-night television, but nothing held his attention. So he finally went to bed. He slept in Nash’s old room, the one right next to his, and every sound that came through the wall had him wondering what she was doing. She had stopped pounding on the door and yelling. Now she seemed to be moving around, opening drawers and then slamming them closed. It was annoying to think of her going through his stuff, but he had little choice. His bedroom was the only one with an adjoining bathroom.
After what seemed like hours, there was silence. The silence freaked him out even more. But silence had always freaked him out. Having grown up with two rowdy brothers, a carousing father who came in at all hours, and a snoring grandfather, he was used to noise. After Nash had moved in with Eden, the house had suddenly been quiet…and empty. At first Grayson had thought the quiet would help him paint. But it had the reverse effect. The quiet seemed to suck all the creativity right out of him, and he was left with his logical brain. A brain that always ended up in the same place.
His mom.
He’d seen enough pictures of her to know what she looked like. In fact every feature was stenciled into his brain. Even now he could pull up her image in vivid detail—the deep indigo of her eyes, the uneven curves of her lips, and the delicate bones of her body. But while he could visualize her, and even sketch her, he couldn’t pull up one memory. Not one. Not of her eyes filling with love. Of her lips pressing to his cheek. Of her arms hugging him close.
Which made no sense. He had been young when she died, but not so young that he shouldn’t be able to remember one thing about her. Especially when he had other memories. Like catching his first fish with his father when he was four. And crashing on his bike when he was five. And winning a drawing contest when he was six. He remembered every detail of those events, from the color of the scales on the fish to the color of his first grade teacher’s dress when she handed him the blue ribbon. But not his mom. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find memories of his mother.