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“I have a van, but thanks for checking.” She smiled sweetly and pulled her coat on.
London wasn’t quitesure why she suddenly felt the need to escape this room. She didn’t regret kissing Ezra, but given how much she had going on right now, she couldn’t risk him finding out about the forgery. He was asking a lot of questions and part of her felt like maybe he was suspicious.
Or maybe her imagination was running wild again. Even if he was suspicious about what she was making, the likelihood of him piecing together anything was slim.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said, shrugging into his coat. “I need to make sure the lot has been plowed anyway. Otherwise, I have to call to remind them we should be on their route.”
“Thank you.” She walked out of the apartment and waited while he locked up.
When they got to the bottom step, he said, “We can cut through the shop and go out back. It’ll put you a little closer to the lot.”
She glanced outside at the swirling snow. It wasn’t falling as fast as it was earlier, but there were still flurries. The street in front looked clear, though, so she took that as a sign.
They went out and then back through the studio, London shaking off the snow as she walked. The back door led to the alley, but she could see the van. They walked in silence to the lot. She eyed the pile of snow on top of the van and decided she would let wind and gravity do their thing and knock it off as she drove.
The lot had been cleared at least once as evidenced by the tracks from the plow that left streaks of snow in its wake. She opened the passenger door and reached over to start the engine to warm it up. She pulled out her snowbrush and began clearing the windows. “I got this,” she said to Ezra, who was looking at the van.
“Interesting choice of vehicle.”
“It’s my friend’s. She uses it for some jobs, but she doesn’t have a place to park it. My loft comes with a parking space, so I get to use the van whenever.”
“It looks like a kidnapper van.”
London laughed, the sound echoing down the alley. “Everyone knows the pedophile kidnapper vans are white, not black.”
That pulled a small smile from him. She really liked him with a smile on his face. Walking back around the van, she said, “Tell Bronte I said hi.”
He followed her to the driver’s side and waited for her to climb up into the seat. “Drive carefully.”
She turned her body because she didn’t want him to see the back of the van. It might not look like much, but it wasn’t empty. Even without Audrey’s equipment, it was clearly a mobile office. She leaned off the seat.
“Thanks for all the help,” she said, pressing toward him for one more kiss.
“Any time.”
“Liar. You hate having people in your studio.”
“You’ve grown on me.” He moved in and kissed her. His lips were cold and his beard bristled against her skin.
They spent a moment locked in a kiss, and then he pulled away. He closed her door and tapped it to say goodbye.
She smiled and waved at him as she pulled out and drove home. The streets were empty except for the salt and plow trucks. The loud scraping of the plow and the pinging of salt as it was being scattered became the background for her thoughts.
She couldn’t believe that Ezra had kissed her. For days, she’d thought he couldn’t stand her. Then, when he showed a little interest, he backed off. She’d never been a huge fan of beards, but the feel of Ezra’s scraping against her neck as she practically rode him made her one. God, she was getting all hot just remembering.
By the time she pulled into the garage at home, all she wanted to do was turn around and finish what they’d started. But Ezra would’ve gone home by now and she didn’t know where home was, so she’d suck it up and wait a couple of days for her toppers. Then she could see him again.
Although she should be exhausted, she didn’t want to go to bed. She’d just end up thinking about Ezra, and that wouldn’t be conducive to sleep. Instead, she opened her laptop and turned on the TV to an old movie. While the video played, she reopened her sketch pad to the pages that held her drawings of the next two paintings she needed to complete.
Both the Casey and the Taggert paintings were nature scenes. She didn’t know either artist, so she knew nothing about their style or methods. So, she practiced the layout and format for the paintings. She reopened the tabs she had in her browser window for each artist. It might not have been the most efficient way to work, but London found that when doing the forgeries, she couldn’t focus on only one at a time.
Something about copying work bored her. Mia had never questioned her process, but now that they were switching up who they were going after, she fell behind.
She looked up the tree topper again to try to find more information about how Maxwell created the topper covered in diamonds. Who would’ve thought a diamond-encrusted tree topper was a good idea? He had been a French artist who had started in jewelry and a few years into his career, he started dabbling in glass. The topper was the culmination of both his worlds. He only created the one, on commission for a wealthy American businessman. Figured.
No matter what, it always came back to rich assholes.
The story was pretty fascinating. Maxwell had created the topper, but the client wanted something more spectacular, as it was a gift for his wife. Maxwell suggested the diamonds. The artist hand-delivered the topper to New York. After the first Christmas, Bradford, the owner, had lent it to a museum exhibit, where it garnered attention.
