“It’s coming along,” Lukas says, turning his attention back to the part he’s cleaning with a greasy rag. “It’s too hot out here. Get your sexy ass in my office while I clean up. There’s cold water in the fridge.”
“Bossy.” I grin at him before heading inside. I steal a bottle of cold water and settle in to read in his office. I only get a few pages in when my phone rings with an unfamiliar number.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Parker Thompson from Sorry, I’m Booked?”
“Yes,” I hedge, confused. Why does this woman have my cell number instead of the shop one?
“Hi Miss Thompson,” she continues cheerily. “My name is Ashley; your friend Sally gave me your number. I’m Mackenna Jade’s personal assistant. I’m assuming you’re familiar with her romance novels?”
I nearly swallow my tongue in excitement. “Yes, I’m familiar,” the words squeak out of me in a decidedly fan-girl manner. To be fair, her Riding Dirty series was my very first introduction to the world of possessive ranch hands and cowboys.
“Fabulous. I’m looking for independent bookstores willing to host Ms. Jade for book signings. After talking to Sally, I thought your shop might be a good fit.”
My brain is on the verge of exploding. This would be huge. Like national attention huge.
“Oh my God, yes! That would be amazing,” I choke out. “She can have any day, any time she wants!”
“Great,” Ashley laughs a little at my enthusiasm. “Let me give you my contact info and we can talk in the next week or so to schedule a date.”
“Hang on, let me find a pen and some paper.” I reach for my purse, but I left it in the car. Of course, I did. Springing to my feet, I round Lukas’ desk and open the top drawer, pulling out a notebook as I reach for one of the pens lying on the desk.
I flip through the pages looking for a blank one, but immediately realize it’s not a notebook. It’s a sketchbook. It falls open to a pencil drawing of the beach; the surf crashing on the shore in breathtaking accuracy while little sandpipers run through the sand. The date at the bottom is from today with the words “Parker/ Kehoe.”
I turn back a page and suck in a breath. A manly hand rests on a woman’s thigh, her skin dotted with little freckles. It’s so intimate it makes my chest ache.
Flipping again, I put a hand over my mouth. The woman in the picture is unmistakably me. I’m looking down at my hands, smiling softly, my hair falling in wild curls over one shoulder of his black t-shirt.
There are more. One of me dancing in a faceless crowd in the outfit I wore to Sally’s party, dated the day before last. One of me in the same cherry print dress I’m wearing today, reaching for a book on a shelf.
There’s one dated the night of my last book club. Lukas drew me standing on the far side of my bookshop. Blurry shadows fill the edges of the paper, but my figure is crystal clear, staring straight out of the page, mouth parted, eyes full of wonder and lust. I look beautiful. Ethereal.
The memory of the moment hits me, the physical manifestation of those emotions filling my body all over again. I wanted him so badly, was drawn to him so strongly, that it defied reason. And somehow, he captured every ounce of that in this one beautiful sketch. My heart is pounding in my chest, my ribs being pulled in every direction at once.
“Hello? Are you still there?”
Oh my god. Right. The phone. “Yeah, sorry. I uh… I got distracted for a second. I’m ready now,” I say, grabbing a torn envelope from the desk. I copy down her info, promising to call in the morning so we can confirm a date.
Under any other circumstances, I’d be flying high after that phone call, but I almost don’t even care that a best-selling author is going to do a signing in my little store. I just want to get her off the phone so I can focus on these sketches.
Ashley finally hangs up and I slide my phone back into my pocket before dropping into Lukas’ desk chair. Scanning through the pages, I realize the dates on the other sketches are farther apart. Before me, he was drawing one or two a month at most. There’s a nice one of his sisters sitting near a fire pit and one of his gran baking something in an apron from last Christmas. Most of the sketches are little daily things, all beautiful in their simplicity.
Maybe I’m vain, but all I want to look at are the sketches he drew of me. I love imagining each stroke of his pencil scraping along the paper as he thought of me. How he did these from memory, I’ll never understand, but it’s clear from the way he captures the emotion that he sees more than he lets on, banking it away quietly.
“I should know better than to leave you alone in here by now.”
I whip my gaze up to Lukas, leaning in the door frame. He’s cleaned himself up and is drying his hands with a paper towel. A wave of cold guilt hits me hard and fast. This was in his drawer. It was private. If he wanted to show it to me, he would have, but now it looks like I went snooping through his things.