NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

 “Yes,” she agreed, “it certainly is. I’m sorry you and your gallery have been inconvenienced by this. Would you mind, just for curiosity’s sake, telling me the name of the painting?”

 “Vergano’s a very powerful and dynamic artist. This oil on linen, custom framed by the artist, is from her Bitches collection. It’s calledThe Amazing Bitch .”

 “Of course it is,” Roz replied.

 She went though the routine, calling the credit card company, and her lawyer, then writing to both to document the incident.

 She took aspirin before going down to the kitchen and pouring herself a large glass of wine.

 David’s note sat propped on the counter.

 Hot date. An exceptional lasagna’s on warm in the oven. Hayley and the baby went over to Logan’s with Stella and the boys. They’re having a little painting party. More than enough lasagna for two. Dr. Studly’s in the library. Just warm up the bread, toss the salad—in the fridge—and you’re set.Buon appetito!

 David

 P.S. Appropriate CDs already loaded in the player. Nowpleasego up and put on those Jimmy Choo’s.

 “Well.” She noted David had set the kitchen nook with festive plates, fat candles, a bottle of San Pellegrino, pale green glasses. And it explained why a bottle of good Italian red was breathing on the counter.

 “Lasagna’s fine,” she said aloud. “But I’m not putting on those shoes to eat it.”

 Content and comfortable in the thick gray socks she habitually wore around the house, she walked to the library.

 He was sitting at the table, wearing his glasses and a Memphis Tigers sweatshirt. His fingers were moving quickly over the keyboard of his laptop. On the desk was a large bottle of water. David’s doing, no doubt. He’d have nagged Mitch to rotate water with his habitual coffee.

 He looked . . . studiously sexy, she decided, with his intellectual glasses and the mass of thick, disordered hair. That rich brown, with just a hint of chestnut.

 There were good eyes behind those glasses, she thought. Not just the color, so deep, so unique, but good, direct eyes. A little intense, unnervingly intense, and she had to admit she found that exciting.

 Even as she watched, he paused in his typing to scoop the fingers of one hand through his hair. And muttered to himself.

 It was interesting to hear him mutter to himself, since she often caught herself doing the same.

 It was interesting, too, to feel this long slow pull in her belly, and the little dance of lust up her spine. Wasn’t it good to know those instinctive charges still had spark? And wasn’t she curious to see what would happen if she took a chance, and lit the fuse?

 Even as she thought it, books flew off the shelf, slammed into each other, then the walls, the floor. In the fireplace, flames leaped in hot reds, while the air shivered with cold.

 “Jesus Christ.”

 Mitch shoved back from the table so fast his chair hit the floor. He managed to duck one book, then block another. As Roz rushed forward, everything stopped.

 “You see that? Did yousee that?” He bent, picked up a book, then dropped it on the table. It wasn’t fear in that lovely, liquid drawl, she noted. It was fascination. “It’s like ice.”

 “Temper tantrums.” She picked up a book herself, and the cold nearly numbed her fingers.

 “Impressive ones. I’ve been working in here since about three.” Grinning like a boy, he checked his watch. “Nearly four hours. It’s been quiet as, you’ll excuse the expression, a tomb. Until now.”

 “I suppose I set her off, as I was about to ask if you’d like to have dinner. David left a meal.”

 Together they began to retrieve the rest of the books. “No question that she doesn’t like the two of us together.”

 “Apparently not.”

 He set the last book on the shelf. “So . . . what’s for dinner?”

 She glanced over at him, smiled. And in that moment realized that beyond the lust, there wasn’t anything about him she didn’t like. “Lasagna, which David bills as exceptional. As I’ve sampled it in the past, I can vouch for his claim.”

 “Sounds great. God, you smell good. Sorry,” he added when her eyebrows lifted. “Thinking out loud. Listen, I’ve been able to eliminate more names, and I’ve been transcribing the interviews we’ve done so far. I’ve got a file here for you.”

 “All right.”

 “I’m going to work on tracking down some of the descendants of staff, and what we’ll call the outer branches of the family tree. But what I’m seeing as the oldest living relative is your cousin Clarise—and happily she’s local. I’d like to talk to her.”

 “Good luck with that.”

 “She’s still in the area, at the . . .”

 “Riverbank Center. Yes, I know.”