Rarities Unlimited 03 - Die in Plain Sight

looked warily at him. “It does?”
    “Sure. Different things entirely.” He looked at her expectantly.
    “Ah…what are we talking about?”
    “You got me, darling. Mustn’t have been important.”
    Brody snickered and winked at Dottie, who was watching openmouthed as a strange man got around Lacey’s stubbornness as though it didn’t exist. Then Dottie noticed Ian’s steady, dark eyes and knew that her daughter hadn’t heard the last of the subject, but it would be settled later, in private.
    “Before you forget what your name is,” Brody said, “I wanted to tell you that I’m withdrawing my objections to you displaying the paintings.”
    “What? Why?” Lacey asked.
    Dottie answered, “He decided that it’s time to slow down and smell the golf courses. He withdrew his name for the judicial vacancy.”
    Lacey hesitated. “Are you sure this is what you want, Dad?”
    “Yes.” He smiled wryly at his wife. “It just took me a while to figure it out.”
    A knock came from the hall door, followed by a voice announcing the arrival of the bellman.
    “Get that, would you, Lacey?” Ian said. He turned to her parents. “It was real nice of you to drive here with clothes for Lacey. The bellman will need one of you to show him what to bring up for her.”
    “I’ll do it,” Brody said.
    “I’ll come along,” Dottie said. “I could use something to eat.”
    “I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t think that you’d be hungry,” Lacey said, overhearing. “I’ll have something sent up to—”
    “We’ll join you as soon as Lacey has something more to wear than a bathrobe,” Ian said over her words. “The cafe is excellent. Be sure to try the Welsh cakes.”
    He shut the door firmly after her parents and the bellman. Then he went to the locked double doors that led to the adjoining suite. When he opened them, the matching doors on the other side were also open, creating a giant suite that could sleep twelve and host thirty more.
    “How did you do that?” Lacey asked.
    “Easy. You turn this deadbolt and then—”
    “No. I meant how did you get rid of my parents without making them mad?”
    “They mean well and they love you and don’t understand you. You mean well and you love them and you don’t understand them. You all push each other’s buttons without even trying. I just short-circuited the old playlist.”
    “You’re scary.”
    He took the lapels of her plush robe and pulled her slowly closer. “That’s not what you said last night.”
    “Last night you let me paint you naked.”
    “Any time, darling.”
    She stood on her tiptoes and leaned into the kiss, luxuriating in his strength and his willingness to let her be herself. It was an experience as heady as any sex, any liquor, anything.
    “When I bought her more painting supplies,” Susa said, “I didn’t have performance art in mind.”
    Lacey would have jumped back like a guilty teenager, but Ian didn’t let her. He ended the kiss as slow and tender as he’d started it. Only then did he lift his head.
    “How’s the Donovan?” Ian asked.
    “Lonely. Like me.”
    “Time to go painting?”
    Susa looked out the window, hesitated, and then smiled. “You’re an understanding kind of man, Ian. I feel like painting, but not outside.”
    His dark eyebrows lifted. “Okay. Where?”
    “Here.” Susa smiled at Lacey. “What do you say we paint him?”
    Lacey stared. All she could think of was last night, when she’d done a swift study of Ian watching her from the bed, his arousal as clear as his pleasure in watching her.
    Susa laughed out loud. “Oh my, the look on your face. But I’m not thinking about getting naked and rolling around in the paints. I’m thinking of you as you are now,” she said to Ian, “T-shirt and shoulder holster, all gentle and hungry around the edges, with those bleak eyes and trust-me smile.”
    Ian looked like a man whose shoes were too tight.
    Smiling, Susa crossed the room, grabbed his face between her hands, and gave him a smacking kiss. “I didn’t know men still blushed.”
    “You’d embarrass a statue,” he muttered.
    “Good thing you’re flesh and blood,” she said. “I’d like you over by the window, I think.”
    “Lacey,” he said. “Help.”
    “I plan to, just as soon as I get the new paints Susa gave me.”
    He started to point out that Lacey’s time would be better spent salvaging what was left of her shop, but he liked seeing light come back to her eyes too well to