portrait was astonishing.
Toni had painted him standing at the mullioned window of the office. His legs were braced and he was wearing cold weather gear and the fur-lined boots he had arrived in from Alaska. It was a side view and his left hand was resting on a wide decorated chart spread out on the mapping table in front of the window. Survey equipment and a dog sled harness were right there, on top of the map.
But that was not where the eye was drawn to. Scott’s gaze was riveted by the expression on his face. He looked tanned, unshaven, with swept back hair but, with his chin up and his back straight, he looked the equal of any of the other Elstrom men captured on these walls. Strong, powerful and in control. Even down to the grey in his beard and stubble.
But this portrait was different.
Toni had seen something in him which nobody alive had ever truly noticed before.
Yearning. It was in the way his blond eyebrows came together in concentration as his eyes stared out of the window where gentle snowflakes blurred the hazy outline of the tall buildings opposite Elstrom. His mouth was curved into a small warm smile as though he was dreaming of somewhere else. She had painted his eyes a shade of blue that he knew from his reflection in the mirror every morning. The exact perfect shade.
Tears pricked the corners of Scott’s eyes and he left them there.
Freya was right. This painting was intensely personal. Every single brush stroke screamed out to him that the hand that had painted his image cared about him so deeply and intensely that it was impossible to conceal.
It was a love letter in the shape of a painting.
Toni Baldoni was in love with him.
A bubble of happiness popped up from deep in his chest and he scrubbed his chin a couple of times. Men like him rarely got second chances and he had never imagined that it could happen twice.
Damn Toni for showing him how wrong he had been.
No way was he going to lose his chance of love again!
Leaping to his feet, Scott saluted the strong and intelligent-looking man in the painting before whirling around and striding to the door. ‘Wish me luck. I have ten minutes to work out how to tell Toni what I feel. And it had better be good!’
* * *
‘Oh, rollers,’ Toni grunted through gritted teeth as a great splodge of white emulsion paint dropped off the end of her paint tray and on to the leg of her painting overalls. She didn’t mind the paint; she was used to that. It was the wet patch she was not too keen on.
No time to get changed. She was determined to finish the studio walls today and that was precisely what she was going to do! It was the third coat and the last. From now on, the studio walls were going to reflect back every bit of the natural light she needed if she had any chance of working the way she wanted.
For the past three weeks Toni had filled her days and sometimes her nights with the perfect challenge. Transforming the Baldoni studio into a space which she could use for new clients and new portraits. She didn’t need a photographic studio on the high street. Not any longer.
The first things to go were the cracked paint trays and old chewed paintbrushes which she knew that she would never use. She had broken up the old wooden cracked picture frames and battered shelving and used them as firewood. That little splash of linseed oil really helped warm the old stone walls. Papers went for recycling. Same with the dried-up paints and oil cans.
It was as though working on Scott’s portrait had unleashed a cleaning demon which had been waiting inside to get out.
The portraits that her father had hung on the terracotta-coloured walls were the last things to be taken down. His hoarding of every receipt and invoice had actually come in useful for once and in three cases the client who had sat in this very studio so many years ago had been delighted to pop in and buy a copy of their portrait from the artist’s family and at very good rates.
The nice thing was, the moment they’d taken a look at Scott’s painting on the easel, they had been so delighted that they’d wondered if she might be available to paint their granddaughter or son who had just received a wonderful promotion at work.
Three new commissions in three weeks.
She would never have thought it possible.
Scott Elstrom had a lot to answer for, in more ways than one! No matter how many late nights she worked or how physically exhausted she was at the end of the day, Scott still filled her thoughts with dreams of what could have been and what had been lost.
It only took one glance at his portrait to take her instantly right back to Elstrom Mapping and the man who owned it.
It was gone now. Freya had collected it yesterday. All boxed up and packed away.
So why did Scott’s face still flood her mind even now, halfway up a ladder with her arms stretching up to cover the walls with white paint?
Stepping down from the ladder for a moment to check for dark patches, Toni was suddenly aware that there was a cold draught from the kitchen but she was sure that she had closed the back door.
Wiping her hands, she stepped into the kitchen and was suddenly aware that there was someone standing in front of her.
It was Scott.
In the flesh.
He was here. Standing in front of her. All tall and gorgeous and clean and handsome and so attractive she could happily have dived into those blue eyes and warm arms and not come up for air.
The masculine strength and power positively beamed out from every pore and grabbed her. It was in the way that he held his body, the way his head turned to face her and the way he looked at her as though she was the most fascinating woman he had ever met, and oh, yes, the laser focus of those intelligent blue eyes had a lot to do with it as well.
He was so close that she could touch him if she wanted to. She could practically feel the softness of his breath on her skin as he gazed intently into her eyes. The background noise of the radio she always played at full volume when she worked seemed to fade away until all of her senses were totally focused on this man who had captivated her.
She couldn’t move.
She did not want to move.
There was an awkward gap and just then her resolve gave way and she felt that she simply had to say something—anything—to fill the silence. ‘What are you doing here, Scott? What do you want from me?’
Her words blurted out in a much stronger voice than she had intended, and she instantly warmed them with a small shoulder shrug. ‘I thought that you were travelling?’
Scott straightened his back and lifted his chin. ‘What am I doing here? Well, I thought that was fairly obvious. I’m here to thank you for the portrait.’
Freya!
‘Do you think it is a good likeness?’ Toni asked as casually as she could.
‘Perfect. It’s me. All of me. Outside and inside too. I don’t know how you did that with paint but you did. Clever girl.’
‘It’s
