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She liked it that way. She reveled in it. She felt almost safe. But things had changed last year. After dozens of trips to the library over the years to pick up interlibrary loans of rare, specialized anatomy books, one of the librarians had started a conversation. An interesting conversation. And Isabelle’s bubble of isolation had finally popped.
Lauren Foster was a good friend now. And Sophie Heyer, another librarian. Those two women had pulled Isabelle further out of her comfort zone by insisting on girls’ nights out every other Sunday.
But there hadn’t been much room for men. Not enough room. Her lies wouldn’t accommodate a long-term relationship, and neither would her heart. So she’d had a man for a week or a month at a time here and there, but never more than that.
Maybe that explained why she found herself watching Tom as he spoke, wondering if those lips would taste as good as they looked. Or if those shoulders were as wide as they seemed.
She shook her head. She needed more wine. Or less. Or she just needed to get laid. But definitely not by a US marshal.
But it didn’t matter tonight. Tonight she was full of wonderful food and less afraid of why he’d shown up on her doorstep. There was more wine, dessert was waiting and nobody was asking anything about her father. She’d be able to paint tomorrow. She could feel it.
As if the universe was offering a reward for her new good mood, Tom unbuttoned the left sleeve of his shirt and began to roll it up as he told Jill a story about a fugitive who’d fallen into an icy creek.
“The thing was, he wouldn’t come out.” His wrist was exposed first. The same tan color as the back of his hand, dark against the white cotton of his shirt. “His lips were turning blue. He couldn’t stop shaking. He couldn’t even speak anymore. But he refused to come out.”
Now the start of his forearm, slim but much harder than hers, muscles visible even at rest.
“None of us wanted to go in after him. It was probably twenty-five degrees in the sun, and the creek was solid ice around the banks. We just stared at each other across the water, waiting for someone to break. I mean, this guy was going to die, and the office kind of frowns on that.”
Now the thickest part of his forearm, the rolled cuff starting to tighten up around it. He was just as tan here, but the light from the wrought-iron chandelier skimmed his skin and caught on the hair of his arms, glinting golden and bright.
“So what happened?” Jill asked.
He grinned. “I broke. I had to do it. I was the senior officer. And holy shit, it was cold. So cold it felt like fire at first. The numbness set in pretty quickly, but that was only the skin. Deeper, in the muscles and joints, it hurt. And then when I hit a deeper pool of water...” He shook his head and turned the sleeve up one more roll. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Jill nodded solemnly. “Can you still have children?”
“I doubt it. Then again, they do freeze sperm, right?”
After she stopped laughing, Jill pointed at Tom. “A hero like you deserves dessert. I hope you like cherry pie. It’s Isabelle’s favorite.”
Isabelle laughed. “You make me sound like a bad ’80s sex joke. But I do love cherry pie. Almost as much as Jill does.”
A faint wash of pink appeared on Tom’s cheeks. Was he blushing? That was cute as hell. Maybe he wasn’t used to women joking about sex. But Isabelle had discovered that freedom was the best thing about getting older.
She’d felt a touch of it when she’d turned thirty. She’d suddenly felt less like a big kid blindly feeling her way through the world and more like an adult. Then at thirty-five she’d realized she was at that age when so many women really started to worry. That they were too old now. That they hadn’t married or had children. That this was their last chance to really live.
Isabelle didn’t feel as though this was her last chance. She felt as though she was finally free. Capable. Happy with herself. Comfortable with her body. And allowed to say anything she wanted to out loud, even if it made a grown man blush. Maybe especially if it did.
She loved it. She couldn’t wait to be forty. She was going to own that shit. And then at fifty, when strangers would stop hinting that it was time to settle down and have some babies, and just start looking at her with pity? That would be glorious.
So she grinned at Tom Duncan and took an extra-large piece of pie and didn’t bother stifling her moan of pleasure at the taste. Tonight she was almost sure she was safe, her mouth was sweet and tart with juicy red cherries, and tomorrow she would
paint. She had every reason to moan.
* * *
ISABELLE WEST WASN’T only a mystery. She was also a distraction. First, there was that threadbare shirt, pale blue but marred with paint, and stretched too tight across her breasts whenever she reached for her glass. The shirt looked old enough to be turned into rags, and he’d been very afraid that one of those buttons was going to give way at any moment. So afraid that he’d constantly found himself checking to be sure it was still closed.
Then there was her glare, suspicious and narrow and almost as distracting as the smile she’d finally settled into toward the end of the meal. The cool smile was as interesting as the glare, as if she had a secret to go with every emotion.
Curiosity paced inside his brain like a caged lion. Who was she? Instincts weren’t everything, but Tom had learned to trust his own, and he would’ve bet quite a bit of money that she wasn’t a criminal. But she wasn’t innocent, either. Innocent women didn’t press themselves into a corner to hide and listen the way she’d done at Jill’s house.
“I’d better get going,” she said drowsily from the couch. She was curled up with the last of the wine and didn’t look as if she wanted to leave. “I’ll be painting for hours tomorrow.”
“At least it’s not summer,” Jill said. “You can sleep until eight and still get the morning light.”
“So true. And I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. A drunk baby.”
