Midnight Jewels

layers of paint."
    Mercy held up her hand, laughing ruefully. "Forget it. You're not much good with the social compliment, are you?"
    "I can produce one if that's what you want."
    "Somehow it just wouldn't sound sincere now." She tilted her head, studying him curiously. "What are you doing here today, Croft? I thought you'd gone back to Oregon."
    "Why would you think that? I told you, I'm going to Colorado with you."
    "You've got a one-track mind," she said with a small groan.
    He shook his head immediately. "No. Everything is interrelated. Understanding the whole makes it possible to understand the part. I try to focus my mind, but it's not the same as being single-tracked. There's a difference."
    She threw up her hands in mock protest. "Enough. It's too nice a day to argue about your brains or lack thereof."
    "How about driving into Seattle instead?" he suggested easily.
    Her eyes widened. "Seattle?"
    "We can have lunch there. Maybe walk through some of the galleries in Pioneer Square or take a ferry ride. How does that sound?"
    "It sounds wonderful," Mercy said instantly. "Just give me a minute to put this stuff indoors." She turned and swooped down on the paints, easel and the unfinished water-color scene, gathering them up and hustling them into the living room. Five minutes later she brushed her hands on her jean clad thighs. "I'm ready."
    "Just like that?" he asked.
    "You want me to take another half hour to get ready?"
    He grinned and there was an unexpectedly exciting, thoroughly wicked attraction in his rare laughter. "I'm not going to question my luck. Let's go."
    They spent the afternoon as tourists, arguing over the merits of paintings in the galleries, eating a sidewalk picnic lunch on the Seattle waterfront and browsing through some downtown bookstores that were open on Sundays. They skipped the ferry ride on the grounds that the afternoon was rapidly slipping away and they didn't want to spend a lot of time sitting and sampling the view through a window. Every minute seemed somehow very important. They ate dinner at a popular pier restaurant and drove back to Ignatius Cove as the late summer sun began to set.
    The afternoon jaunt to Seattle represented the first time Mercy had actually relaxed around Croft. She savored the feeling, hugging it to her during the drive back. But by the time he had parked the Porsche in the lot below her apartment, a niggling sense of doubt had risen to ask if she hadn't been
meant
to relax.
    In the morning she would be on her way to Colorado and Croft had told her more than once he intended to accompany her.
    She climbed out of the Porsche with a return of the uncertain feeling that had been pleasantly absent for the past several hours. As she closed the door of the car she looked at Croft over the low roof of the Porsche. He stared back at her, waiting.
    "I'm still not going to invite you to go with me to Colorado, you know," she said with what she hoped was a casual firmness.
    "The evening's not over," he pointed out, not bothering to sound casual at all. "I thought I'd come in for brandy."
    "Did you?" Her pulse throbbed in her throat.
    He didn't say anything else. He simply took her hand as she walked around the car and started up the stairs. She probably ought to halt him at her door, Mercy thought.
    But she knew she wasn't going to do that.
    At the door he took the key from her without a word and turned it smoothly in the lock as if he had every right. Mercy took a deep breath and stepped inside her apartment, flipping the light switch on the wall. Across the room the unfinished watercolor scene confronted them. Croft's eyes went to it.
    "I'll get the brandy," Mercy said softly. She hurried into the kitchen. Perhaps it wouldn't be totally impossible to take him with her to Colorado. She was only going to spend two nights with Gladstone. If her client objected too strongly to her bringing along a guest she and Croft could always stay at a motel. If she could convince Croft not to embarrass her by making his desire to own
Valley
too apparent, then maybe…just maybe…
    A week in the Colorado mountains with Croft Falconer stretched out before her, tantalizing her unmercifully.
    She shouldn't do it. It was a bad idea. She barely knew Croft and she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of her client. Besides, although she believed him when he said he wanted her, there was no doubt that he was equally interested in that damn book. Mercy didn't want to play second