Jacqueline Diamond - Dad by Default

Then Dad had found a job in Mill Valley and relocated the family, forcing Yvonne to switch high schools for her senior year. Her mom’s as-yet-undiagnosed Alzheimer’s disease had further complicated the picture.

That was ancient history. Annoyed at herself for dwelling on what couldn’t be changed, Yvonne went out to the car.

An hour later, she had finished reassembling the crib in the smallest of the three bedrooms. In an adjacent chamber, she heard Beau and Bethany laughing as they played with the electric train.

Yvonne hoped their bond would last. Bethany needed a father figure.

From overhead, a thump resounded. She waited, listening for further sounds, but there was no repeat. All the same, she couldn’t imagine what would make such a noise in the empty studio.

She entered the playroom. “Do you have raccoons in the attic?”

“A big one,” Beau answered gleefully. “He’s real tame, though.” He sat on a low stool, watching Bethany pull dolls from a trunk.

“See raccoon!” Bethany’s pout signaled oncoming crankiness.

Beau gave a negative shake. “No can do.”

“Yes! Now!”

“No! Not now!” the old man grumped.

To Yvonne’s eye, both her charges appeared tired. “Nap-time.”

The toddler clutched one of the dolls. “No, Mommy!”

“For you and Grandpa both.” Quickly, she added, “May she call you that?” Addressing him as Beau would be too familiar, and the child couldn’t handle a moniker like great-great uncle.

“Fine,” he answered hoarsely. “I ain’t tired, though.”

“If I say you’re tired, you’re tired,” Yvonne informed him. “Must I tuck you into bed or can you go alone?”

He assumed a sly expression. “I’ll be a good boy, Nurse Johnson, if you’ll promise to poke your nose upstairs and make sure that raccoon stays out of trouble.”

“We’d better call a trapping service,” she answered irritably. It didn’t take a genius, however, to guess that a raccoon hadn’t caused the thump. What mischief was the old coot up to? For Bethany’s sake, she’d better investigate. “Okay, I’ll check. First, however…” She swooped up the toddler and the doll.

“Stay here!” Bethany struggled.

“She don’t look tired to me,” Beau protested.

Rather than argue, Yvonne tried distraction. “You could read her a book.”

He rose in a hurry. “You bet.”

“Book!” Bethany cheered.

Once the two were settled in the nursery, Beau chose a picture book about trains. As he read in a dry voice, Yvonne watched the pair from the doorway.

The tableau formed by the gruff old man and the tiny girl in the crib brought unaccustomed tears to her eyes. Beau seemed to have been waiting for a subject on whom to lavish his affections.

Satisfied, Yvonne went to inspect the attic.

She remembered these stairs right down to the worn places in the handrail. Although she’d believed no one went up here, the doorknob at the top rotated as if newly oiled.

When she stepped inside, Yvonne inhaled the scent of lemon cleanser mingled with an unidentified chemical smell. Despite a hint of warmth, the air lacked the stifling heat she’d expected.

Puzzled, she advanced into the open.

Easels stood at angles, perhaps to catch the light throughout the day. They held paintings done in a vivid, realistic style so familiar that she must have seen the artist’s work before. Against one wall leaned several blank canvases, one of which had toppled. That probably accounted for the thump.

Near the room’s center, his back to her, a man radiated intensity as he focused on his work. Paint-daubed jeans and a blue shirt clung to a muscular body that also struck her as familiar.

From this angle he bore a disconcerting resemblance to Connor Hardison. Who on earth was this man and why was he working in Beau’s attic?

On the canvas, roughed-in male and female shapes blazed with sensuality. Yvonne could feel their body heat and the texture of the sand, and smell the suntan lotion.

A laptop computer on an adjacent table displayed the image that served as inspiration. It showed a pair of sunbathers on a beach, the man applying lotion to the woman’s bikini-clad figure as they lay sprawled in careless intimacy.

When a floorboard creaked beneath her, the painter froze. Then he laid down his brush and swung around.

It was, amazingly, Connor. He appeared as shocked as Yvonne.

The suggestiveness of his creation made her aware of him in a new way. Aware of the rough masculine texture of his cheeks and the curve where his throat disappeared into the open shirt collar. Aware of the denim clinging to his thighs and the gleam of white teeth between parted lips.

Instinctively, she toyed with a strand of hair. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.” He frowned. “What about you?”

She couldn’t make sense of his statement. “You can’t live here. This is Beau’s attic.”

“He rented it to me.”

“You mean as a studio?” But that wasn’t what he’d said. “You can’t live here! This is the Johnson house!”

“You two weren’t speaking,” he answered quietly.

“We made up. Sort of.”

“Your uncle wanted a tenant. I needed a place close by and the space accommodates my hobby.”

They stared at each other. Both breathing fast, for some reason. She’d just climbed the stairs. What was his excuse?

How bizarre that Beau hadn’t mentioned renting the place. “He claimed you were a raccoon and sent me up to investigate.”

Connor burst out laughing. “I like that old man!” About to disagree, Yvonne recalled the tender scene in her daughter’s room. “He has a few good qualities.” She eyed the canvas. “You did the painting of the Allens, didn’t you?” That was where she’d seen the style before.

“Guilty as charged.”

“Incredible.” She indicated the pictures on the easels. “Do you always work from photographs?”

“Mostly.” His cheek, she noticed, bore a colorful smear.

His subjects were all people. No landscapes or abstracts.

Yvonne circled to examine a nearby work in progress. Charcoal lines roughed out the figure of a woman walking a small dog directly toward the viewer. Even at this incomplete stage, she could visualize the alluring sway of the lady’s hips and hear the click of the dog’s toenails on the sidewalk. “You’re brilliant.”

“That’s very flattering.” He seemed uncomfortable at being complimented.

“I don’t flatter people. It happens to be true.”

“Thanks.”

Another painting, completed and hung on the wall, showed a rear view of a partially draped female. To Yvonne, the style appeared less developed than his current work, so perhaps it stemmed from an earlier period. Yet it had a nearly three-dimensional quality lacking in the pictures derived from photos. “Was that a live model?”

A nod. “From art class.”

“You ought to use more models. They give your work extra depth.”

“It isn’t practical,” Connor replied. “Too expensive. It’s not as if I were a serious artist.”

“You could’ve fooled me.”

“I don’t suppose you’d…” He shook off the notion. “Never mind.”

“I’d what?” Had he nearly asked her to model? The prospect gave her a small thrill.

Even now, she felt his artistic eye examining the contours of her body as if he were touching her through the light summer dress. Her breasts tingled as she imagined his strong hands arranging her in a pose.

When he met her gaze, Yvonne caught an answering glint of hunger. He was seeing her as a woman now rather than as a model.

In the quiet room, she could hear his heart beating. Or was that her own pulse?