business, I did an inventory of everything. That was the first time I’d really looked at the panels. I realized they were in rough shape.”
“They are. They’re old, and the dry air is both preserving them and causing them to split. You can see the workmanship. Someone took a long time to create these. Someone with talent.”
“I wish I knew more about them,” she admitted. She should have asked Gerald about them, but it had never come up. She’d never realized what his plans were. In her mind, she’d been an employee and he’d been a great friend. The inheritance, an unexpected and unbelievably generous gift, had caught her off guard.
“My brothers work in glass,” he said without looking at her. “They talk about the beauty, the cleanness of it. The purity. Glass can be anything. It doesn’t exist until we bring it to life. But wood is alive. Wood has a soul—it tells the artist what it’s supposed to be. You can ignore what it says, but if you do, the carving will never turn out right.”
He turned to her, his dark gaze intense. “I want to work on these.”
She stared at him. “What? No, that’s ridiculous. You’ve been in People magazine.”
He chuckled. “Why does that matter?”
“It just does.” She was going to ignore the fact that he’d been in their Sexiest Man Alive issue and that the picture had been impressive. “I’m going to find some carpenter to—”
“No. Not a carpenter. These are incredible, Pallas. They deserve to be revered. I’ll do it for whatever you were planning to pay. I want the job.”
“Why?”
He turned back to the panels and placed his hands on them. “They told me they trusted me.” He dropped his arms to his sides and faced her. “Don’t worry. I’m not going off the deep end. This kind of work is rare. I’ll enjoy it. I’m between projects right now, so I have the time.”
He paused as if considering how much to tell her. “I’m up for a commission in Dubai. I’ll know in the next couple of months if I’m going to get it. I doubt there’s much question, but until I hear, I don’t want to commit to anything big.”
“Dubai?”
“A hotel wants to hire me to create a piece for its lobby. I would be there about two years.”
“That’s a long time.”
“I know, but it would be an interesting experience. These will keep me busy until then.” He smiled. “I promise to take good care of your panels.”
“I don’t doubt your ability,” she admitted. “Or your commitment. But I’m serious about what I could pay.”
“It’s not about the money.”
Right. Because a guy like Nick didn’t necessarily work for the money, she reminded herself. Wouldn’t that be nice?
“Take advantage of me,” he urged. “You’ll like it.”
She knew exactly how he meant the comment but for one brief second, she pretended he was coming on to her. In a boy-girl kind of way. Because it had been forever since anyone had bothered.
She knew the reasons for that were complicated. She was perfectly normal looking with an average body and no habits that were outside of social norms. In theory she should be able to find some nice guy to date and take to bed. But while there had been the occasional man in her life, there hadn’t been anyone close to “the one.” Or even “the right now.”
Part of it was where she lived. Happily Inc was a relatively small town and in her part of it, there weren’t that many single guys. The ones she knew happened to be relatives, so ick. There was also the fact that she had a way of holding herself back, emotionally. She knew why—what she didn’t know was how to change. Which meant being propositioned was rare and something to be treasured. Not that Nick had. He’d been talking about—
“Pallas?”
“Huh?” Oh, right. He wanted an answer. “If you’re willing to accept my sad little hourly paycheck, then I’m happy to offer it,” she told him.
“It’s a deal.” He held out his hand.
She shook it, ignoring how large it was and the brief heat she felt. Nick was so far out of her league as to be an extraterrestrial. Still, he was nice to look at. She would enjoy the show while it lasted.
“You can work whatever hours you want,” she told him. “As long as you’re not interfering with a wedding. I’ll give you a time sheet for you to keep track of your hours. You’ll get paid twice a month. Do you need tools or supplies or anything?”
“I’ll bring my own.”
“Good.” Because she wouldn’t know where to start. “Then I guess I’ll see you around.”
“You can count on it.”
If only that were true, she thought humorously. She wondered how wrong it would be to ask him to work shirtless. Because he’d made a fine Roman soldier.
Maybe one of her brides would want a Garden of Eden wedding where the attendants would be naked. Nick could be an extra. A fantasy to brighten her day, she thought as she returned to her office. One she would be sure to remember.
NICK HANDED HIS brother a beer. The evening was clear and promised to be cold, but for now it was warm enough. They sat on Mathias’s back patio, overlooking the sixteenth hole of the golf course to the right. To the left was, well, definitely an open, grassy area. It wasn’t the landscape that required an explanation so much as the residents.
“You’ll get used to it,” Mathias offered as Nick stared at the shapes moving in the near twilight. “They head in for the night.”
“To what? A barn?”
“I’ve never asked,” Mathias admitted. “Something. My guess is they get out of the open to avoid predators.”
Nick didn’t bother pointing out there weren’t any predators—at least not that he knew about. Instinct was instinct and he’d long since learned there was no arguing with nature.
A couple miles southwest of town, just beyond the golf course, were hundreds of acres of grassland. If you kept going, you got to the city dump—a high-tech, ecofriendly kind of place where everything that could be recycled or reclaimed was. But the most interesting part wasn’t the fact that Happily Inc had one of the lowest trash-to-resident ratios in the country, it was the animals that made the grasslands between the dump and the golf course their home.
So far Nick had seen zebras, gazelles and something that looked a lot like a water buffalo. All grazing animals. In the past few days, he would swear he’d seen a giraffe strolling around, but that could have been a trick of the light.
“It’s odd,” he muttered, then took a drink of his beer.
“We grew up in Fool’s
