Callie started up the path to her front door. She heard Josh’s car door open, then another sound. Her key was in her hand. Only another couple of metres more and she’d be inside.
“Callie, hold up a minute. I have something for you.”
Josh’s voice arrested her retreat and she took a breath to quell the sudden butterflies that rose in a maddening flock from the pit of her stomach. She turned to face him.
Her eyes widened as she saw the “something” he’d mentioned. A flat rectangle, wrapped in brown paper.
“I know I didn’t give you a whole lot of notice about tonight. I’d like you to have this, as a token of my appreciation.”
“That’s not necessary. You pay me well for my job. I—”
“Callie,” he interrupted. “Take the damn parcel, okay?”
Callie’s eyes locked with his and beneath the blue depths she saw something more than what had been there earlier. Gone was the lazy humour. Instead, it was replaced by a blazing blue flame. His eyes dropped to her mouth and the flame burned brighter, before meeting her gaze again. As if under his control she accepted the parcel, her fingers brushing his briefly as she did.
Josh gave her a short nod. “I’ll see you Monday.”
Then, in a roar, he was gone. Callie stood and watched his retreating taillights, then turned to let herself inside and locked her door carefully behind her. She rested her head against the door. He’d wanted to kiss her, she was sure of it. Kiss her and more. She was no naive ingénue. She knew desire when she saw it.
So why hadn’t he acted on it? Why hadn’t he breached the distance between them and taken her mouth with his? Her lips had burned under the touch of his stare, burned for the reality and not the dream.
Callie straightened up from the door and forced herself to pull her thoughts, and her hormones, under control. She stepped through into her sitting room off the small hallway and dropped her evening bag on the coffee table. Then, carefully, she laid the package on the sofa. Her fingers were uncharacteristically clumsy as she plucked at the tape securing the package until, finally, she pulled away the paper.
Callie pushed her fisted hand to her mouth to stem the cry of recognition as the painting was finally revealed.
“Hope.”
He’d given her Hope.
Four
Saturday morning dawned with a hint of rain on the horizon. Already the air outside was warming and the weather promised to be hot and sticky with the coming showers. What she wouldn’t give for a lead-up to Christmas in a cooler climate for a change. Callie padded down the stairs and walked through to her kitchen, automatically switching on the jug for the mandatory cup of Earl Grey tea that drove the sluggishness of sleep from her body each morning.
Well, it would, had she been able to sleep. When she hadn’t been tangled in her sheets, tossing and turning, her dreams had been fractured by overtones of the night before. Of the sensation of Josh Tremont’s hand on her back, of the scent of his subtle cologne in the confines of his car. Of the heat of his gaze before he’d left her at the front door and of her own body’s insistent response.
Every workday for the past two weeks she’d managed to keep a lid on her reaction to him. And then he had to go and mess that all up by insisting she accompany him to the gallery.
Unexpected anger rose swiftly from the pit of her stomach. He’d gone too far giving her the painting last night. No matter how much she’d wanted it, a person just didn’t do things like that—at least not in her world. In her world every gain had its price. Some you could afford, some you couldn’t, and this was very definitely one she couldn’t afford on any level.
As she waited for the pot of tea to draw she stomped through to her sitting room and stopped to stare at the painting she’d left propped up on the seat of her cream leather two-seater. Her chest constricted as her eyes locked on the figure.
It was impossible. No, Josh Tremont was impossible. There was no way she could accept this gift from him. She’d return it to him today. Monday would be too late. If she held on to it a moment longer than necessary she might just give in and keep it and there was no way her pride would allow her to do that. She was already in over her head repaying a debt she’d never asked for. She certainly didn’t want to owe Josh as well.
She flung a glare at the mantel clock that ticked quietly in the background. Was seven-thirty too early to call your boss on a Saturday morning? With a huff of air through pursed lips, she conceded that any time before Monday was probably too early.
Nine. She’d phone him at nine on the dot and sort out some time to drop it back to him.