Elizabeth Lowell - Innocent as Sin

“Take a break. Look around.”

“In a minute.”

Rand squeezed a long bead of ocher onto his palette and mixed in a touch of black and a touch of crimson. To his eye, the color of the stone walls of the Bertone house was offensive.

“Brindleshit,” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” Faroe said.

“The color of the house.”

With that Rand shut out the world and concentrated on creating a color that was close to that of the house, yet more pleasing against the natural desert backdrop. It took time, but then he found the right color, the right balance of weight and light, and the painting began to condense in front of his eyes. This was his favorite part of his work, when he vanished and only the canvas lived.

When he finally stepped back to view his progress, the scent of cinnamon and vanilla curled above the pungency of his oils. The perfume alone told him that a woman was standing behind him. Close. If she hadn’t moved away quickly, he’d have bumped into her.

Without looking at her, he waited for her to speak.

She didn’t.

Curious, he glanced over his shoulder-and into Kayla Shaw’s ice-blue eyes. His first thought was that the surveillance photos hadn’t done her justice. There were shadows and light, haunting sadness and laughter, heat and cold, a whole universe of possibilities in her fiercely intelligent eyes.

He felt like he’d been sucker-punched.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking where the hell is Bertone?” Faroe shot back.

Rand pulled out the earbuds and put them in his pocket with the butchered iPod.

Kayla looked from the painting to the man. Somehow she expected artists to be short or slight or old or shy or…unthreatening. This man wasn’t any of those things. Tall, long-limbed, wide-shouldered, powerful, with gray-green eyes that could etch steel.

“I think,” she said, “that it’s too bad the subject isn’t worthy of the artist.”

Rand almost smiled, almost swore. She’d seen right through him, knew he thought the Bertone estate was a screaming paean to bad taste.

“I’m not quite sure what that means,” he lied.

She smiled, softening the lines of tension around her mouth. “I think you do. But don’t worry. Elena will love your work. You make her look good.”

What’s a woman like Kayla doing in a place like this?

But instead of asking the age-old question, Rand used a palette knife to blend some of the fresh oil paint, then applied a few dabs to the canvas. He squinted to measure the effect.

“It’s called artistic license,” Rand said without turning around. “If you don’t want the filter of the artist’s vision, use a camera.”

“Flattery is Elena’s meat and drink. You’ve read your hosts beautifully.”

He continued to work, still with his back to his critic, still with the scent of cinnamon in his lungs, in his blood. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No. I’m just jealous. If I had that kind of instant insight into people…” Kayla shrugged. “It would be useful.” Understatement of the year. Maybe the decade. “At the very least, I’d be rich.”

Rand gave in to temptation and glanced briefly at Kayla. She was turned half away from him. If you didn’t look in her eyes, she seemed younger than he knew she was. Her body was athletic, fit, attractive, and so tightly strung she all but vibrated. Tan skin, black linen, and a scoop-neck silk blouse that just revealed a small rose tattoo on her collarbone.

He wanted to lick it.

This is one hell of a bad time to get a boner.

But there it was. Her dossier had intrigued him, his dreams had been hot, and her reality was even hotter.

Cursing silently, he focused on the canvas and said, “I thought everybody here was rich.”

“Some of us are hired help. We get to drink the champagne, but first we have to dance attendance.” Kayla hoped the artist didn’t hear the bitterness in her voice.

“Yeah, I bet the Bertones have cast-iron whims,” Rand said casually. “At least she does. I haven’t seen him. Is he here tonight?”

“Yes.” She knew her voice was too curt, but she couldn’t do anything about it. Bertone flat-out scared her. “I’ve seen a painting before…”

“Of course.”

Her laugh was as tight as her body. “No, I mean a painting like this.”

“Same subject?”

“It has nothing to do with the subject.”

There was silence, the soft sound of paint spreading on canvas, and then, “Meaning?”

“I’m not saying this very well,” Kayla said. “There’s something…the way you see light. No, the way you paint it. Alive and powerful, defining the ridgeline and the fountain and even the wild rosebushes around the helipad beyond the pool. I’ve seen that kind of light before.” She laughed suddenly. “I bought one of your paintings at a garage sale. R. McCree, right?”

R. McCree. The name rang in Rand’s mind. Does she have one of Reed’s paintings?

“That’s right,” he said. “Rand McCree.” He certainly wasn’t going to raise the issue of his murdered twin with the killer’s banker.

“I don’t remember you being on the program.”

“I’m a late entry,” he said easily, but he was careful not to look at her. He’d seen more beautiful women, but none of them had the ability to blow his concentration to hell like she did.

With a feeling close to awe, Kayla watched Rand bring the canvas to life. The result was beautiful but not at all mild. A very masculine kind of beauty. Intense. Edgy. Riveting.

Like him.

“Garage sale, huh?” Rand said. “Which painting?”

“‘Maybe the Dawn’ is written across the back, along with a date.” Then she said quickly, “Garage sale sounds awful. It was really an estate sale.”

“I feel a lot better,” he said dryly. “But I’m sorry to know that Mrs. Braceley is dead. She hoped she’d live to be one hundred if she got away from the Pacific Northwest’s cold rain.”

A woman’s artfully modulated laughter rose above the sound of the fountain. Elena Bertone, responding to something a gorgeous young man had said to her.

“My hostess,” Rand said. “See a lot of her in the society pages. Haven’t seen a picture of him, though.”

“He’s a very private man. This is only the second event he’s attended. Elena is the public face of the Bertones.”

“So this is a really special occasion.”

“Yeah. I’m betting that Elena expects this shindig to cement her position on the board of directors of the Plein-Air Museum.”

“That’s important to her?” Rand asked.

“One way or another,” Kayla said absently, watching Rand work, “Elena has put out several million dollars in the name of Phoenix art, so yes, it must be important to her. Not to mention how she twisted arms and called in favors so that most of the important socialites and half the politicians in the West are here.”

Then Kayla heard her words and cringed. Private bankers shouldn’t gossip about their clients. It was a fast way to get fired.

“Forget I said that,” she said quickly. “I was paying attention to your art rather than my tongue.”

“Forget you said what? I didn’t hear a thing,” he said.

He heard her long breath of relief and almost smiled. He didn’t blame her for being nervous. Bertone might not be called the Siberian anymore, but beneath the designer suits, he was still a very nasty piece of work. Anyone gossiping about him would have a short future on his payroll.

And maybe a short future, period.

Under the pretext of viewing the canvas from another angle, Rand turned sideways, coming closer to her. Cinnamon and vanilla. Sunshine and just plain woman. Her dark brown hair was streaked by the sun or a very expensive colorist. Ice-blue eyes, minimum makeup, and that damned tempting rose tattoo.

I hope you’re as innocent as I believe you are, Rand thought grimly. But innocent or not, we’re stuck with each other.

Maybe we should just lie back and enjoy.

“Your hands look too big, too rough, for an artist,” Kayla said without thinking.

They fit real well around a man’s neck. And that was something Rand didn’t plan on telling her. “They come in…handy.”

She groaned at the pun.

He grinned.

Curious, she studied him rather than the canvas. He was dressed in black jeans with generous paint smears, a loose-fitting shirt the precise color of his eyes-except for the paint blobs-and soft black leather boots that bore random decorations in paint. Despite the evidence of the canvas and his paint-smeared clothing, he just didn’t seem to fit the artist mold. Or maybe it was just that some of the darkness he saw so clearly within light was also inside him.

“You aren’t from around here, are you?” she asked. Then said quickly, “Sorry, you have a bad effect on my tongue.”

He gave her a sideways glance that picked up her heartbeat. “Sounds promising.”

She hoped that the color climbing up her face would be written off as sun flush rather than foot-in-mouth blush.

“I spend most of my time in the Pacific Northwest,” he said, turning back to the canvas. “Have you lived here long?”

“Born and bred a Zonie,” she said.

“How’d you end up working for the Bertones?”

“I don’t. Not exactly. I’m their banker. I work for American Southwest Bank in Scottsdale. At least for now,” she added, then wished she hadn’t.

The earlier meeting with Bertone had rattled her more than she’d realized.

Or else R. McCree did. It wasn’t often she found a man with the body of a linebacker and the edgy soul of an artist.

“Sounds like you’re jonesing for another job,” Rand said.

“Everybody needs a new challenge from time to time,” she said. “I’m thinking about a career change.”

“You don’t like banking?”

For the first time Kayla realized that she didn’t. Not anymore. “It’s always about money, and money doesn’t always bring out the best in people.”

“Artists don’t know much about money,” he said.

“You know enough to paint yourself into a lather over a faux canvas that might be worth first, second, or third prize, when you ought to be somewhere else painting something worthwhile.” Then she blew out a breath. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it came out.”

Rand doubted that. But then, he felt the same way. “It’s called putting bread and beans on the table.”

“And it’s always just a question of what you’ll do to keep from starving to death, right?” she asked with false brightness.

“Pretty much. Speaking of starving, what are you doing afterward?” He glanced at her in time to catch her startled expression. “What’s the matter? Hasn’t a man ever asked you out for dinner?”

“Not five minutes after I first met him, and not ten minutes after somebody else asked me to meet him in a few hours.”

“I’m too late? Please tell me I’m not too late,” Rand said lightly.

It was easy to flirt with her, maybe too easy. Maybe she was playing him instead of vice versa.

Problem was, he didn’t feel like playing at all.

“I kind of have another commitment,” Kayla said.

The look on her face said she didn’t want it.

“Can you break it?”

“I’m thinking about doing just that.”

“So I’m not entirely out of the running,” Rand said.

“Why do I feel hunted?”

“My technique must need work.” Rand turned to smile over his shoulder at her.

And saw the one man in the world whose neck he wanted between his hands.

Castillo del Cielo

Saturday

5:51 P.M. MST

Who’s that?” Rand forced himself to ask.

Kayla looked over her shoulder, saw Bertone and another man striding toward her. The men were having an animated but not angry conversation.

“The tall, burly guy on the right is Andre Bertone,” she said quietly. “On the left is Don Cowley.”

“Ah, Mr. Bertone, the mysterious host,” Rand said, hoping his voice didn’t reflect the adrenaline hammering through his body, bringing him to fight-or-flight alert. “Should I know the dude with him?”

“He’s a political consultant for statewide and national congressional candidates.”

“Big man, huh?”

“Very big.” What she didn’t say was that Cowley was an American Southwest private banking client whose political business had made him very wealthy. Anyone who wanted to go anywhere in state politics had to get his blessing first. “A real mover and shaker.”