“I bent her back.”
“What?” Jecca asked.
“I bent the photo so she’s not in it. She’s not my type.”
“Oh,” Jecca said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been anyone’s pinup before. I wish she’d sent me a picture of you.”
“I break cameras.”
“I seem to remember Kim saying that all her male cousins are drop-dead gorgeous. I know Reede is. Or was seven years ago. I haven’t seen him since then.”
Tristan smiled. It looked like Kim had been wrong about Jecca and Reede being attached. “Now you’re making me jealous,” he said in a teasing way. “I guess you know that Reede is coming here quite soon.”
“Kim may have mentioned it.”
Tristan groaned. “Don’t tell me I’ve lost before I even have a chance.”
“What a flirt you are! You almost sound serious.”
“If I’m good at flirting I can assure you that it’s not from practice. I’m related to many of the people in this town, and I’m the doctor to nearly all of them. That narrows the field of eligibility down drastically.”
“You know, I can’t see you, and I don’t remember much that Kim told me about you, but my instinct tells me that you don’t have trouble with women.”
“A year ago I would have said you’re right, but I lost one I think could have made it all happen.”
“And what do you want to happen?” she asked softly.
He hesitated, as though considering his words carefully. “I’m old-fashioned. I want a wife and kids. I’m tired of giving shots to other people’s kids. I want to shoot my own children.”
Jecca laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, C">&="0 I do,” she said and tried to repress a sigh. Under no circumstances on earth was she going to get involved with this man. To be caught in tiny Edilean, Virginia, with all possibility of having a career in art removed from her life was her worst nightmare.
However, he wasn’t a man she could ignore. Today Kim had said that her cousin Tristan had a “presence,” and now that she was sitting near him in the darkness, she knew what Kim meant. She could almost feel him, like an electrical charge that went from him to her.
If she were a different kind of woman and this were a different place, she could see herself slipping onto the chaise, stretching out full length beside his body. She could imagine removing clothes, kissing, even making love. It was a titillating thought to make love with a man she’d never seen.
She came out of her dream when he put his hand out and touched her knee. She couldn’t help it as she picked up his hand in hers. “Tristan,” she said softly.
“Yes?”
“I don’t know you and can’t see what you look like, so I can’t use the usual ways of judging a person. But you sound to me like someone in physical and emotional turmoil.”
“True,” he said, his deep voice barely a whisper.
She released his hand. “But I want to tell you that I am not the woman you’re looking for. You want someone who’s ready to . . . to start nesting. I’m still looking for a career. At the end of three months I’ll leave here and I won’t look back. I have to find myself before I can take on another human being—or two or three.”
She waited to see how he’d take this.
“I am warned,” he said. “And I thank you for your honesty. But that’s all right. I don’t think I can handle any more of this love business right now.”
“You need to let your arm heal and I think you should start that now. What time is it?”
“Well after ten.”
Jecca stood up. “I think you should go home and get some sleep.”