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Chapter 3
“So…” Tanith poured all that was left of the white wine between the two glasses, her whole body prickling with awareness of the man seated on the gallery sofa behind her. A new addition post-renovation was the seating area near the windows overlooking Main Street. Tanith planned to host more social events in the space, and she thought a few couches made of soft faux leather might encourage people to sit and stay a while. Paired with a chilled drink from her wine mini-fridge humming nearby and it would make a perfect evening.
Thus far, that had proved to be true. Blake had been there all afternoon and now well into the evening. He stayed and helped throughout her high-end pizza dinner, which she offered to the after-work crowd who wanted to check out Angel Fire’s latest renovated attraction. Why he stayed was anyone’s guess. She had already shown him every inch of the gallery except her office, and he still hadn’t politely found a way to escape.
That had to mean something. For all the attempts to convince herself that nothing could happen with this man, she should be terrified at the prospect that he was paying this much attention to her. But instead, she remained perfectly calm, even finding herself pleased by his behavior.
And now they were the only two left in the gallery, with piles of empty pizza boxes by the door for her to take out later and half the lights off in the back, signaling to outsiders that she was on the verge of closing for the night. Blake, meanwhile, took zero hints and only seemed to be making himself more comfortable when she returned and offered him the refilled glass of white wine.
“So,” he said, tipping his head to one side as she settled on an entirely different couch. With the way she was feeling, she didn’t trust herself not to fall asleep on his shoulder if they snuggled up beside one another. After an exhausting opening, with visitors popping in and out all day, two events, and entertaining Blake Byrd for hours, Tanith was ready to crash.
Yet she wasn’t ready to say goodnight. The wine gave her a little buzz throughout her limbs, right down to her toes. The way Blake looked at her, palpable interest radiating off him, gave her a pleasant tingle between her thighs. Although totally spent, she liked the way she felt in his presence. Even if he was, well, a bit vanilla for her.
“So,” she said after a quick sip, her head settling into a pleasant warmth that a glass or two of wine always brought about, “why didn’t you continue with photography?”
Apparently, he had a huge thing for it in high school and had even won a number of national contests for his work. Impressive, given he had been a teenager at the time. By what she gathered from their conversations, any interest in his old hobby was long gone.
Which Tanith didn’t put much stock in. The way he talked about the black-and-white prints she had lining the stairwell down to the basement studios told her otherwise. Listening to him comment on them was the most interested she had been in him beyond his outer appearance.
“Med school squashed all thoughts of a passion outside of medicine,” he told her with a one-shouldered shrug. After swirling the wine around and taking a quick sniff, he downed about half the glass and sighed. “I just didn’t have time for it anymore. It was so competitive back then. Still is now. If you let yourself lose focus, you’re done for.”
She hummed in agreement. “Bit like the art world.”
“You think?”
“People don’t ever see it because we’re all a bunch of free-spirited New Age airheads,” Tanith said, smirking when he chuckled at her dripping sarcasm. “But you have to be competitive if you want to survive. Only a few lucky ones get to do what their heart desires, even in the artist community. At the end of the day, it’s all still a business.”
“I guess I never looked at it like that.”
“Oh, I don’t either,” she insisted. His eyes flickered down when she crossed her legs, his attention bringing a rush of heat to her cheeks. “I mean, of course I have to, running and owning my own gallery, but I’d go insane if I didn’t wholly love the artwork I did too.”
“I suppose that makes perfect sense. It has to be a blend of both.”
She smiled, and when he seemed to have nothing more to add to the conversation, downed the rest of her wine in a single gulp. Although Blake was an incredibly attractive man, she had noticed that he seemed a bit…shy. At least, she hoped he was shy. He had stayed for hours with her, chatting and asking questions about her job and the art collections, yet all the answers he gave to her inquiries had seemed stilted. Muted, maybe. Like he was trying to hold something back.
She couldn’t fault him for not being the sharing type. Tanith was curious about everyone and everything. She had a tendency for butting into conversations and asking too many questions. Perhaps she overwhelmed him. Maybe he was just an introvert who had reached the end of his social quota for the day.
Maybe, just maybe, he too only found her attractive in a physical sense. Maybe he had spent the whole night waiting for her to lock up and invite him back for the private tour of her office.
No, that seemed unlikely. Given how composed and almost docile he was, Tanith didn’t take him for a spur-of-the-moment romper in a potentially public place.
All that aside, she didn’t really mind that he wasn’t a wild child. Tanith had had her share of off-the-rails relationships in the past, and spending time with a man like Blake, someone more composed and seemingly in control, might be the best route to take.
“So,” she said once more, setting her wine glass on the coffee table between them, careful to avoid the pamphlets she had meticulously arranged that morning, “you work in the emergency room?”
***
This woman had the most stunning pair of lips Blake Byrd had ever seen in his life. If he didn’t stop staring at them soon, she was going to think he was a complete cad—but he just couldn’t help himself. Plump and kissable, highlighted with a desert rose pink that almost matched her pastel hair, he wanted to study the curve and contour of every part until he had her lips imprinted on his brain.
Because her lips weren’t the only thing he’d never forget.
It was her scent, too. The scent of his fated mate.
Black bear shifter Blake Byrd had moved to Angel Fire a little over a month ago. He hadn’t intended to go in search of his fated mate -- ever. Now in his late thirties, he had always just assumed that there wasn’t a soulmate out there for him. He had no problems dating, both human and shifter women alike, but there had never been that moment, that spark that all shifters are said to experience when in the presence of the mate destiny had chosen for them.
So, a month ago, he packed up all his belongings and shipped them down to a little middle-of-nowhere village in rural New Mexico. The resident bear clan was in need of a new doctor, and it was actually their clan sorceress, Ursalina, who had found him and offered him the job.
Apparently, he had the right juju for her, because she kept contacting him until he said yes, until he was ready to give up his position as head of trauma at his hospital in Washington. Back then, he hadn’t been working for a specific clan. He dealt with shifters occasionally, ones who knew of him or wandered into his ER by accident. This, however, was the perfect opportunity to get back to his roots and to give back to his community.
