Victoria Dahl - Flirting with Disaster

She wrenched up the garage door and got back to her car without getting wet at all. But she couldn’t say the same about her cantaloupe. As soon as she opened the gate of her SUV, it rolled past her outstretched hand and straight into a snowbank.

“Fuck you, too,” she said to the cantaloupe, then felt immediately guilty. It took her only a minute to rescue the melon and dust off as much snow as she could. It hadn’t really caused that much trouble. It took a lot more time to repack the bag that had tipped over and haul it inside.

Next time, she’d remember to put the boxes of art supplies she’d picked up from the post office into the back; then she’d have room to store the groceries on the floor of her backseat, where they’d be less likely to—

“Art supplies!” she gasped and rushed back out to the truck to haul in the boxes of goodies.

She grinned as she set the first box on the kitchen table and slit the tape to reveal the treasures inside. She’d been out of yellow ocher for three days now, and even though she hadn’t needed it, the lack had hovered at the back of her mind like a foreshadowing of tragedy to come. She snatched up the tube and breathed a sigh of relief. Disaster averted. She was whole again.

After unpacking the box and carefully laying out each precious item on the kitchen table, she retrieved the other two boxes from the backseat and went through the same routine. She beamed at the sight of the bounty spread over the table. Seven more tubes of color, a new studio light to get her through the winter, a dozen prestretched canvases and her favorite brush conditioner that smelled like something close to sandalwood. It made the task of looking after her brushes almost soothing. Discovering it last year had been a treat.

Satisfied with her unveiling of the goods, she made five trips to the room she used as her studio, shelving the paints she didn’t need yet and getting the new lamp set up at her current workstation. She played with the LED settings for a while, still dubious about the idea that she could get good color temperatures, but the settings seemed sufficient. Nice, even.

“Hmm.” Isabelle crossed her arms and stared at the unfinished painting, trying to decide if the daylight setting was pure enough. There weren’t new technological advancements in the world of oil painting very often, so she’d be happy if she could get excited about this one. Still, she’d have to work under the light for a couple of hours and see how it felt.

During the summer, she wouldn’t need it much at all. This room was meant to be the great room of the cabin, and windows climbed up the two-story wall to the peak of the roof. The windows faced south, and during the summer, she had good light here for nearly twelve hours of every day. But during the winter, there were only a few decent hours of sunlight, and that was assuming the sky was clear.

As a matter of fact... She glanced out, hoping to spot an approaching break in the clouds, but it was solid white out there. A good time to try the lamp, then. It was almost two, so she should force herself to grab lunch first, but then she’d have hours to work.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the heavy slide of fur against her ankle. “Hey, Bear,” she said to the cat, surprised by his affection. He was an ornery twenty-pound stray who’d wandered into her cabin three years before, and he didn’t cuddle often.

He meowed loudly for attention, but when she leaned down to scratch his chin, he sidestepped and eyed her scornfully. “I suppose you just want food?” she asked. She’d run out of wet food yesterday, which was why—

“The groceries!” she gasped, but her heart barely managed a quick leap before she calmed it down. The bags in the SUV were fine. It was cold enough that she could leave them overnight and not lose anything. Except bananas, maybe. Those weren’t as hardy as people thought, not in the cold. If it were summer, though... Yeah. She’d lost hundreds of dollars of food that way over the years. But this time the only bag in danger was the one on her kitchen counter.

She rushed to the kitchen and unpacked that bag, happy to find that, aside from that damp cantaloupe, everything else was perfect. She shoved a frozen meal into the microwave, opened a can of food for Bear and went to haul in the rest of the bags. Half an hour later, she was organized, full of chicken piccata and happily planted in front of her canvas, adding a glistening highlight to a long stretch of a man’s triceps.

Glancing from the canvas to a spread of photos hung on a board next to it, she nodded. “Perfect.” Her eyes swept down the triceps muscle to the hard knot of elbow beneath it. What a beautiful line.

Her attention twitched for a moment, and Isabelle glared at the gleam of the light on wet paint, but then she shook off the random irritation and dipped her brush in white again. Just the tiniest drag of paint, just—

Her hand jerked, nearly touching the canvas before she pulled back. “What the hell?” she snapped as she finally registered that a sound had interrupted her. A loud sound. The staccato knock of some stranger come to screw up her workday.

She wanted to ignore it. It definitely wasn’t Jill, her neighbor and the only person who dropped by unannounced. Jill didn’t knock like that. She rarely knocked at all, because she knew Isabelle wouldn’t hear it. But it could be one of Isabelle’s other friends. Lauren. Or maybe even Sophie, who was supposed to be back in town soon.

Had Isabelle forgotten another meetup? It was possible. She vaguely remembered Lauren mentioning something about a new girl they might be able to bring into their little group of friends since Sophie was usually on the road these days.

Isabelle set down the brush, wiped her hands on a rag and decided she’d have to answer the door, just in case.

Whoever it was knocked one more time, just as Isabelle reached for the door. She yanked it open, ready to apologize to Lauren, but it wasn’t Lauren. Or Sophie. Or any other girlfriend. It was a man, taller than she was, snow dusting his short, dark hair and drifting in on the breeze as she frowned.

“Sorry to disturb you, Ms....?”

Really? He was going to start this off by asking for her name? “Yes?” she responded, tempted to close the door on his face and march right back to her studio. Whatever he was selling, she didn’t want it.

His gaze sharpened a bit, but his chin dipped in acknowledgment, and he reached into the pocket of the nondescript navy blue parka he wore. “I’m Deputy US Marshal Tom Duncan.”

Her hand tightened on the doorknob, and something went wrong with her ears. His lips kept moving, but she couldn’t hear the words. Then he paused, watching her as if waiting for a response.

Isabelle cleared her throat, hoping the noise would force her ears back into working condition. “I’m sorry,” she said with more calm than she could believe. “I wasn’t paying attention. Who are you?”

His brow tightened with irritation. “I’m Deputy Marshal Tom Duncan.”

“I got that part,” she bit out, her veins too flooded with fight-or-flight to keep her voice even now.

“I’m in the neighborhood as part of a protection detail, and—”

“This isn’t a neighborhood,” she interrupted, angry that he couldn’t come up with a better excuse. Did he think she was an idiot?

“All right,” he said carefully, his jaw clenching around the words. She’d made him mad. Good. She hoped he was cold, too. Because he was ruining more than her day. He was ruining something much larger than that.

He tried again. “I’m in the immediate area with a protection team, and I wanted to make contact with each of the residents. First—”

“What immediate area?” She glanced pointedly toward the one other house on her road, knowing damn well that Jill didn’t need the sort of protection a US marshal provided. This was ridiculous. Why was he even pretending?