The Charmer (Harbor City 2)

She grinned up at him and pushed up her glasses, stray hairs that had slipped her ponytail dancing around her face in the breeze. “Is this where you’re going to off me?”

“Worse,” he said, covering up his nerves with a slathering of teasing and leering. “This is where I’m going to paint you.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to stick one eye here and the other one over there somewhere.”

“I’m more of a realist.”

This was it. The moment when he could change his mind, keep his secret, and drive them both back to the city. But just seeing her here in this light made him crave a paintbrush and a blank canvas like a chocoholic joneses for a candy bar. It wasn’t all-consuming, but it was damn close. That’s why he was doing this—because he’d known from the first moment he’d spotted her at that fundraiser that he needed to get her on canvas. That was the reason. Not anything else. He could just shove any lingering doubts about that to the dark corner of his brain. Helping her was all part of Operation: Bromance because as soon as Tyler realized all he’d been missing with Felicia, he’d start wondering about everything else and then all the little moves Hudson had made to get Tyler and Sawyer together as friends again would pay off. And what did he get out of this? He got to paint Felicia. Sure, he’d hoped for maybe more, but this was enough. It had to be because as he well knew, no matter how close they became, Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle didn’t walk hand and hand into happily ever after at the end of My Fair Lady. They went their separate ways, just like he and Felicia would because fakers like him didn’t end up with women like her. So, all of this would have to end, but not today, not yet.

Stop being such a chickenshit, Carlyle, and take her inside.

He did, the sense of being home rolling over him as soon as he opened the door. There was a reason why he’d set up shop at the cabin besides the privacy—the floor-to-ceiling windows on three of the four sides of the open concept main floor that provided ideal light at nearly every hour of the day. Canvases for his upcoming show at Everly’s gallery covered the space. Each one showed the faces of the Harbor City residents he encountered in random trips around the city. Old. Young. Stock brokers. Cabbies. Kindergarten teachers. Those who worked overnight shifts. Those who’d retired decades ago. Those who were decades away from their first job. Each one of whom helped to tell the story of Harbor City. A card detailing each subject’s story would accompany each painting as it hung in the gallery. The project had taken more than a year to come together and the faces—nervous, excited, grumpy, and even combative—that greeted him from the canvases were like old friends at this point.

Felicia went from painting to painting, respecting the ones still covered by sheets and inspecting the finished works on display. Each step she took, each closer look she leaned in for, squeezed his lungs tighter. He’d watched hundreds, thousands, of people check out his work. It hadn’t ever made him as nervous as he was now as he tried to read her face and figure out what she thought. For once, he couldn’t tell. It was making him edgy enough that he was about to chew a hole through his cheek.

Finally, she turned away from the portrait of the bodega owner with a smile as wide as the horizon and cocked her head to one side. “These look familiar, but I know I haven’t seen them before. They almost look like…”

“Hughston,” he filled in for her.

She nodded, walking to his side. “You’re a big fan?”

“I am Hughston.” He didn’t even hesitate. He should have.

“No one knows, so you can’t tell anyone.”

Whatever he’d been expecting—and he really wasn’t sure—it wasn’t for her to laugh. A big laugh. Like a Santa Claus kind of belly full of jelly laugh. The kind that made her wrap her hands around her middle and toss her head back with what looked like absolute shock and joy. The breath he hadn’t meant to keep locked up eased out of him, and he found himself laughing along.

“But why the big secret?” she asked.

“It’s a long story.” One he sure as hell didn’t want to get into now—or ever, really. He poured his emotions out onto the canvas not out in the world. “Besides.” He leaned down, slipping on his charmer personality like a well-worn pair of jeans that didn’t fit nearly as well as they’d used to, and traced a finger down the exposed length of her neck. “You haven’t told me what color your panties are today.”

Her blush and stubborn silence on the topic lasted for as long as it took to give her a quick tour of the place as the wind changed from a gust to a howl outside the cabin. By the time they strolled into the guest bedroom, the sky was nearly as black as his mood. It was the last place he wanted her to spend the night, but she’d been more than upfront with him about her goal. Tyler Jacobson. Captain Clueless. Mr. Shit for Brains. Sir Luckier Than He Had a Right to Be. It wasn’t that Hudson wanted to date her—after all he didn’t date, he slept around, everyone in Harbor City knew it—but Felicia deserved someone who wasn’t totally oblivious. Besides, he’d already accepted a long time ago that any woman worth her salt, when she found out why he’d kept this part of his life hidden from his family, would realize he really wasn’t a keeper. Shame and guilt gnawed at him every day of his life but luckily no one ever bothered to look beyond the charming facade. Until Clover. And now Felicia.

Annoyed all of a sudden, Hudson dropped her bag like it was a steaming hot french fry fresh out of the deep fat fryer at Vito’s. It landed with a thunk that was eclipsed a moment later by the near-deafening crack of thunder that boomed outside the windows. Felicia let out a yelp of surprise right before the lights went out and they were plunged in darkness.

…

Felicia didn’t hate the dark, but it sure wasn’t her best friend. She was the kind of person who left a tiny light on in the bathroom—for Honeypot, of course—and quick-stepped it from the light switch to her bed at night. So when Hudson took her hand in his and led her down the stairs, as the entire main floor lit up in giant flashes of white light followed by loud crashes of thunder, it made the iron hand fisting her lungs loosen its grip a bit. Together they made it to the kitchen where he grabbed a large lantern-like flashlight from under the sink and placed it on the island. The light provided a soft yellow oasis for them while the sudden storm battered the trees outside.

“The utility lines are above ground so the wind knocks out the power whenever a storm comes up like this,” Hudson said, looking out the huge windows at the trees dancing back and forth while still holding her hand. “They’ll get it back on soon.”

Obviously, her body trusted his pronouncement, since her stomach picked that moment to let out a loud growl. “Sorry. I’m a nervous eater.”

“Don’t like the dark?”

“Only if my eyes are open.” Shit. She didn’t mean to say that. With her size, it was hard enough to get people to take her seriously. Admitting she got nervous in the pitch black wasn’t something she did. But you just did.

Hudson didn’t tease her like Frankie would have or roll his eyes at her like Fallon usually did. Instead, he kept hold of her hand as they walked around the lit safety zone and gathered two bowls, a box of cereal—the kind with clover-shaped marshmallows, bonus!—and milk from the dark but still cold fridge. Half a bowl later, her stomach and taste buds in a sugar-induced chill pattern, she tried to reconcile her mental image of Hughston with the man in a dark-blue sweater eating Lucky Charms with her while the storm thundered outside. Maybe she should have doubted him, but she didn’t. It made sense in a way. There was such a sense of joy edged with a bittersweet yearning underlining Hughston’s work that it fit with the Hudson she’d come to know. So when he’d made his declaration, the pieces fit together perfectly logically in her mind.

“So why the big secret? I’d think your family would be proud of you.” The words rushed out before her brain had a chance to stop them.

“Proud?” He snorted and shook his head. “Not likely.”

She’d met his brother and mother. They weren’t as gregarious as the Hartigan clan, but there was no doubting they loved Hudson. The disconnect made her brain itch. “Why?”

He took another bite of cereal. “When did you know you liked ants?”

“The first time my parents took us to a church picnic. I watched the ants marching away with as many crumbs as they could carry, and I was hooked.” She’d followed the little conga line of insects back to their nest, nearly decking a kid older than her who tried stomping the ants at the end of the line. If Frankie hadn’t gotten to the kid first, she would’ve had her ass handed to her. As it was, it took her older brother, who was big for his age even at twelve, to shoot the jerky kid a dirty look and he scurried off.