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He showed her the whole building, top to bottom. She had, of course, seen his office when she’d burst into it earlier. But after he took her through the galleries and the studios and workshops, he brought her back upstairs and showed her around his top-floor apartment with its skylights and its twelve-foot ceilings and highly polished oak floors. Her whole condo could have fit in the main living space of his apartment. On one wall, his sister, Martha, had been painting a mural.
“She’s not finished,” Lukas said. “It’s a work in progress. She’s adding things as I think of them.” So far she had done a panorama of what Holly presumed were significant places and events and people in Lukas’s life. There was a New York City skyline, a South Pacific island, the deep reds and ochers of the Australian outback and the blue-and-white houses of Santorini. A man who looked rather like Lukas’s friend Skeet was whittling a piece of wood. His parents were dancing at a wedding. Martha herself was with a man Holly guessed was her husband. Three little kids clambered all over them. She spotted the house he’d lived in on the beach in the Hamptons, the facade of the building in which they were standing right now, and a dozen other things—rain forests, old manuscripts, a rough-coated retriever-ish sort of dog—all symbols of Lukas’s many interests, of the wide and various enthusiasms of his life.
And, of course, there was a sailboat. Not the one he and Matt had never repaired. This one was whole and skimming through the water. At the helm, looking toward the future, no doubt with his eye out for whatever would catch his fancy next, was a man with sun-streaked, windblown brown hair.
For a moment, Holly couldn’t look away.
“When she gets going, there’s no stopping her.” Lukas came to stand beside her, so close that the sleeve of his shirt brushed her bare arm. The awareness was like a magnetic pull.
Holly moved back so she could get a broader view. So she could step away.
“She’s got amazing talent. You should feature her.”
“She’s already showing at another place in the city. Besides, Martha’s not Pacific. Not in any sense of the word,” he added with a grin. “You remember Martha?”
“Yes.” Martha had, in her way, been as much of a force as her twin. She had always known what she wanted and gone after it. No one in Martha’s family was remotely arty or painted murals. Martha did.
“She’d like to see you again,” Lukas said. “When she and Theo are in town—they live in Montana—we should get together.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Holly said, certain she’d be gone by then. She glanced at her watch. “It’s past six thirty. Gotta run.”
She had chatted with him all the way down in the elevator, told him again what a great place it was, and, just for good measure, had reiterated that he didn’t need to continue showing up for the kids repairing the sailboat as long as he stopped going now.
Lukas nodded. “No worries. I’ll be there.” And when she’d opened her mouth to protest, he’d said, “I crossed my heart, remember?” Sea-green eyes bored into hers.
“I remember.”
“I’ll even tell you all about what happened,” he said. “Unless you’re going to be there yourself.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll tell you at dinner on Saturday.”
“I don’t—”
“You don’t have a date, do you?” he challenged.
Unfortunately no, she didn’t. And she wasn’t a good enough liar to pretend she did.
He caught sight of a cab and flagged it down, then opened the door for her and shut it again, bending down to lean in the window. “I’ll pick you up Saturday at six.”
Something she wasn’t telling Stig and Althea. God knew what Althea would make of her going out with Lukas.
“We have to go,” Althea said to Stig, who was carving the roast.
Stig looked skeptical. “Birdcages?” But then he shrugged. “Why not?”
Althea beamed. “See?” she said to Holly. “Isn’t he a dear? And he came with me yesterday and picked out your dress.”
“Did he?” Holly tried not to sound as worried as she felt.
Althea nodded happily. “I took him to a couple of boutiques we missed. And he picked a dress.” She smiled. “He says it captures the real you.”
Which could be ominous. Holly wasn’t sure what “real her” Stig was capturing—and how he knew, anyway. They were hardly bosom buddies. She got no clue from the man himself. Stig finished carving and sat back, grinning guilelessly.
