Artfully Yours (4 page)

“What the hell do you think?”

“Well, I wasn’t sure. I mean, it’s not a small thing to ask, is it? ‘Please use up all your vacation time for the entire year to come back to your hometown, where you’ll spend that vacation as your sister’s butler-chauffeur-maid, and did I mention, you’ll be homeless.’”

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me any of this.”

“Listen. I have a plan, all right? It’s not a great plan—I’m aware of that—but I have a plan. We stay here until the house sells, we rent somewhere together, short-term, and as soon as I’m back on my feet and can find another job, I’ll be able to pay you back.”

Elle sat back in her chair and stared. “You lost your job at the garden center?”

Jenny dipped her chin. “Prick fired me.”

“Did you
do
something, Jenny? To the Universe? Disturb a grave, steal a relic, spit on a little old lady with a broom and a tall black hat?”

Jenny smiled. “No. Feels like it.”

“I’m not kidding.”

The smile vanished. “I’ll make it right. It might take a while, but I’ll keep a record and pay you back every last cent. With interest.”

“I can’t believe you.”

“I’ll do it!”

“I can’t believe you’d think you had to do it in the first place! You don’t have to give me any money, Jenny. In fact, don’t you dare. You need me? I’m here. You need a roof? Share mine. You need food?” She pushed the plate with her half-eaten sandwich toward Jenny. “Share mine!”

“Actually, the roof and the sandwich are already mine.”

“You get my point. I can’t believe you’d let things get this bad, and then come up with some stupid plan to pay me back. With interest!”

“It isn’t a stupid plan.”

“You’re my baby sister. It’s my job to take care of you.”

“Not since I turned eighteen, it isn’t. And shit, not even before then. We had parents, Elle.”

“And they sucked.” Their father had been a drunk, which had pissed their mom off so much, she’d walked away and left them. “I’ve always taken care of you, Jenny. Why did you think I’d ever stop?”

“I wanted you to stop, damn it. I don’t want you to take care of me.”

Elle threw out her hands as if to say,
So why am I here?

“I don’t want you to
have
to take care of me. It’s not your job. I’m not your goddamn job.”

“You’re my sister.”

“This is why I didn’t tell you. Do you have any idea how humbling it is? I have to beg for help.”

“Oh, did you beg? I must have missed that bit. Mostly you just snarled at me.”

“My marriage is over. I have a kid depending on me. I don’t even have a place to live anymore. And I have to get down on my knees and beg my perfect sister for help. This isn’t exactly how I saw my life going. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite direction I saw my life going. Forgive me for snarling.”

“I wish you’d said something earlier. I could have helped before you got this far down the road.”

“Have you listened to a word I said? I never wanted to have to ask for help. I’m a grown-ass woman. I’ve been trying to fix it.”

“Jenny—”

“When was I supposed to come crying to you? When my marriage started falling apart? In other words, about six months after I married the jerk? When I realized Dean had taken out three credit cards and a loan and re-mortgaged the house?”

“I don’t know, Jenny, but maybe any time before the pastor’s son starts repossessing your television. Any time before then would make sense, don’t you think? Or how about when you ended up in the hospital? You don’t think I’d care to know something like that?”

“No. I don’t think. You have a life off in Seattle. What do you care about me back here? You haven’t been back here for years, not since Dad’s funeral.”

“I came back for Katie’s birth. And for your wedding.”

“Births, deaths, weddings. But never for a visit. Never because you wanted to be here, to see us, just because you had to be here.”

Elle shook her head. “You should have told me.”

“Well, I didn’t. You’re going to have to accept you missed out on a year of gloating.”

The gloating comment slid right off. “A year? You’ve been dealing with all this crap alone for a year?”

Jenny glared.

Elle jumped up, grabbed her keys, and strode out of the house.

CHAPTER FOUR

It was full dark by the time Elle calmed down enough to turn back to the house. First, though, she had a stop to make.

She pulled into the forecourt of the gas station at the edge of town, slammed the car door and ran through the slashing rain to the store. Her hand slipped on the handle and she barged in with her shoulder leading the way, like she was about to flip out a government badge and start screaming at people to put their hands up. The teenage clerk resting his forearms on the countertop and staring out into the night didn’t even flinch. Rubbing her shoulder, Elle glanced around for the freezer section and squeaked down the aisle in her wet shoes.

She’d been in this store about a thousand times growing up, often on the exact same errand as she was on now, and it hadn’t changed a bit. Kind of seedy, but convenient for a girl trying to stretch a household budget as far as it would go, which meant she couldn’t afford the gas to drive into town every time they needed groceries. The aisles had the same clutter of basic goods, the prices were still a bargain, and she was almost sure she recognized the dust bunnies under the shelves. She continued briskly on her way, turned at the bottom of an aisle, and came to a jarring stop.

She’d walked straight into a man—as in
straight
into him. Hard to say which one of them jolted the most at the sudden intimate contact as their bodies collided, from kneecaps to where Elle’s forehead hit his collarbone. She grabbed onto his narrow hips to keep herself upright, and pushed away.

“Sorry,” she said, tipping her head back with an awkward smile.

She got a good look at his face, and the smile dropped. Mostly because her jaw dropped.

He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

His dark hair was wind-crazed and beaded with droplets of rain that sparkled under the fluorescent lights. It was possible the rough beard covered a weak chin, but going by the cheekbones and the rest of his fantastic bone structure, like the broad shoulders and long arms and legs that had to be almost half as long again as hers, the weak chin seemed unlikely. Yep, most beautiful guy ever, right here not six inches away from her. Elle realized she’d given him a silent, inappropriate, and thorough body scan from head to toe and back up when her gaze returned to his face, and she saw that his black eyebrows had flattened straight over dark chocolate eyes.

“Hah,” she said.
Shit. Did I just laugh at him for no reason? What the heck was that noise?
Clearing her throat, she took a long step to the side. “Excuse me,” she managed to get out, this time sounding like a normal human being. Breathless, but human.

He took a step to the side at the same time as she did. Unfortunately, to the same side.

“Yikes,” she said, and immediately wanted to slap herself. She cleared her throat again—now she sounded like she had a phlegm problem—and tried the other side. Predictably, because this was indeed turning into some kind of comedy skit—
kill me now
—it was at the same time he decided to move. Same direction. “Awkward.”

His nostrils flared, and she was almost certain she heard his teeth snap together as he glowered down at her.

Okay. He may be the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, but the IQ-stealing aesthetics of his appearance dimmed in the face of his overwhelming size and obvious anger management issues. He was practically trembling.

“You know what? I’m going this way,” Elle said, pointing to the left and stepping into him, assuming he’d move.

He didn’t, and she bounced off him again. He sucked in air in a short hiss.

“Fine.” She whirled around and stalked back the length of the aisle. “I’ll go this way. Jerk.”

Beautiful, angry, and rude.

Jerk.

She took the scenic route through the store and made it to the cold section. Leaning over the freezer, she swiped away the condensation clouding her view. Eww. Not condensation, dirt. She wiped her smudged palm on her jeans and peered in.

Uh-oh. Where was all the ice cream?

She ignored the stacked tubs of vanilla. Vanilla ice cream didn’t count. It was like cream. Worked as a garnish on the top, but not as the main event. Back in the day, there was always a selection of Ben & Jerry’s. God. She didn’t want to take vanilla back. Jenny was so touchy, she’d think it was a deliberate insult rather than the peace offering Elle planned. Heck, she might take it as a declaration of war.

Oh, there. She squeaked the glass clear at the back. The colors of the container were blurred by its fur coat of ice crystals, but the blues and yellows were unmistakable. Chunky Monkey. Score. Elle was more a Chocolate Fudge Brownie girl, but Chunky Monkey was Jenny’s favorite. She reached out to slide the top open, but before she made contact, her hand collided with someone else’s. She jumped, snatching her hand back.

The guy was there. Right there next to her. Shouldn’t she have heard him coming? Felt the ground shake? He was a freaking Sasquatch. How did he manage to sneak up behind her without her knowing? “Man, you’re tall,” she told him.

He grunted, staring down at her.

“Guess you already know that,” she said, and rolled her eyes at herself. This was ridiculous.
Get it together, Finley.
She’d seen hot guys before. Of course, the hours she worked and her almost total lack of social life meant most of those hot guys had been patients and she’d been pinning them down or helping a doctor pull things out of them or sew bits back on, or up. Hard to feel romantic about a man when he was shrieking like a three-year-old because he was scared of needles. Turned out being face to face with a hot guy when he was upright, all in one piece, not visibly leaking, and
focused
on her was a whole different experience.

Shake it off. You’re on a mission.

“Right,” she said. “Excuse me.” She tried to open the freezer top again, and again his hand was there. She clenched hers into a fist under his. “I forgot. ‘Excuse me’ doesn’t work on you, does it?”

He tipped his head a fraction. He still vibrated with emotion, but she was beginning to think it wasn’t anger after all. That beautiful chocolate gaze tracked over her face as if he was trying to see into her soul…or as if he…

“Ohhh,” she said, and his gaze flew to hers, eyes widening. Okay, she’d made another weird noise. Had to stop doing that. “You don’t speak English.”

His straight brows snapped low.

He wasn’t rude or angry; he couldn’t understand her. “
Hablas espanol?
”

He took in a deep breath, and she realized how close he was standing when his chest almost brushed hers. Then he spoke.

Elle shifted from one foot to the other. “Well,” she said. “That wasn’t Spanish.” It was
freaking hot
. “Was that… Are you Russian?”

His voice dropped and he said something else.

Great. She had two choices. Snag the ice cream and run. Or stay put and have an orgasm, because apparently it had been so long since she’d had one, all it would take was a hot guy speaking Russian (Elvish? Klingon?
Hot
) in a voice so deep it echoed in her chest, and she was going to lose it, right here. Elle was in favor of orgasms, but she preferred to have them in private. Also, she preferred to be at least expecting them, rather than have them jump on her out of nowhere as the result of a previously undiscovered kink.

Go for the ice cream. Then run.

Feeling his eyes still on her, but aware they had drifted lower than her face at this point, Elle worked her fingers under his on the freezer, snapped the lid open, and dove in for the Chunky Monkey.

So did he.

“Oh, come on. You’re messing with me now, right?”

He drew his hand back, but he didn’t let go of the tub. Neither did Elle. He brought their joined hands out of the cold and they stood there, both holding the ice cream.

“I don’t speak Russian, so I’m not sure how to get this through to you, but let go of the ice cream,” Elle said after a minute.

“I
do
speak English. I’m American.”

She narrowed her eyes. Back to plain rude. She gave the tub a harder tug. His fingers closed around it tighter.

“Listen, I need this ice cream.” He stared at her. Wow. He had amazing eyes. Had she thought they were chocolate? No, they were darker than that. More of a coffee, the deep rich kind with a hint of russet. And his eyelashes were as gorgeous, short but thick and defined against his skin. He blinked slowly, and she realized she hadn’t said anything for a while. “I need it. Give it to me now. The ice cream. Nothing else. I need the ice cream.”