After Cole had told his boss, mentor and friend about the cards he’d viewed during his last interview. Showed him the photo he’d taken of them.

  And to both ends, keeping boundaries around himself, and discussing the business he had with her, he asked, “So what did you think?” as he turned his SUV toward the city freeway that would lead them to the state highway back to Shelter Valley just after eleven that Friday morning.

  He listened with satisfaction, pleasure and then...more as she enthused about every aspect of her tour. The quality of materials, the state-of-the-art machinery and tools—and the obvious pride that the employees all took in their work. She’d homed in on the core of his job. A physically and emotionally healthy work environment. Happy employees.

  Her comments were all about others. Not herself. As she spoke, the thing that kept coming back to him was that her excitement revolved around what she’d like to contribute to Elite Paper, not what the company could do for her. And he found himself enamored all over again.

  “You want to stop and get some lunch before we leave the city?” he asked her, slowing to get off the freeway. “I know a family-owned Mexican place not far from here that serves the best...everything. It’s a small place, in a strip mall. Nothing fancy...”

  And was gratified some more when she turned that beautiful smile on him and said, “That sounds wonderful, thank you.”

  In the parking lot, walking beside her, feeling like a giant towering over her slim perfection, Cole kept his hands in his pockets and reminded himself once again that she was only a work associate. The lunch was a welcome-to-the-company thing, and a practical thing—since it would be after lunch by the time they got back to Shelter Valley—not a pleasure thing.

  Absolutely not a personal thing.

  As life would have it, the place was crowded—mostly with businesspeople from the skirts and ties around them—and the only thing available to them was a booth. Which meant spreading his legs wide enough that his knees weren’t constantly bumping hers, and trying to maneuver so his stomach wasn’t touching the edge of the ceramic-tiled table.

  “You want to move?” Lindsay asked him before he’d even had a chance to open his menu. “I’m fine to wait for a table.”

  Her smile radiated empathy—but not repulsion or even judgment.

  “I’m fine,” he told her. And other than that initial moment of embarrassment when he’d slid into the booth, he really was. “It looks worse than it is,” he said to her with a grin. Adding, “There’s still plenty of room for me to squeeze in a full-size chimichanga plate. Which I highly recommend by the way.”

  His comfort in the booth—personal conversation, and therefore frowned upon. The menu—not personal, so safe.

  They ordered drinks. Both looking at the menu. Didn’t matter that he had it memorized and already knew what he wanted. He was keeping his focus off a potential new friend who would never be more than that.

  Just until he was absolutely certain he wasn’t going off the rails. He couldn’t remember a time when he was so immediately aware of the emotions emanating from another person.

  The drinks came.

  While Lindsay ordered, rather than watching how she seemed to make the waitress feel comfortable, how she took time to compliment the older woman on her jewelry with what came off as complete sincerity, rather than allowing himself to risk a relapse into liking his lunch mate too much, Cole set himself an agenda for the lunch.

  Purely business. Present their new employee with his boss’s proposal from the night before. If they were going to get holiday cards produced with the quality required by Elite’s owner, there was no time to waste.

  Finished delivering his own order, Cole turned back to facing straight ahead after conversing with their waitress, and his gaze collided with the brown eyes across from him. While she watched him, Lindsay was stirring her straw in her soda. Around and around. Over and over.

  It was almost like he could feel her tension. Or doubt?

  The woman was not only gorgeous to look at, she was a truly gifted artist. And yet, had no confidence?

  Was second-guessing herself?

  Someone must have done a real number on her.

  Which got his dander up.

  “Several people mentioned Brent Wilson this morning.” Her words, not his own mandates or self-control, brought him back out of the quagmire he kept trying to fall into with her.

  Ironically, on the exact track he’d just set for the business lunch to follow. Almost as though she’d received a copy of the agenda.

  “Is he really as focused on quality as everyone seems to think?” She’d stopped stirring as she looked over at him, giving him the impression that the future rested on his answer.

  “Absolutely,” he looked her straight in the eye with that one. “The man has had multiple offers to be publicly traded, which would likely make him a billionaire overnight, but he refuses to do so because he knows that the minute he does, a board will take over and profits will then drive every single decision made.”

  Straw moving again.

  He noticed.

  And leaned forward, ready to do whatever it took to make her feel as comfortable, as safe in her new life choices and changes, as she seemed to try to do for everyone around her.

  Brent Wilson, Elite Paper Company, gave him perfect fodder. His own confidence in his ability to help women assured him that he could get the job done.

  Sometimes life was about more than smart personal choices. Sometimes a guy just had to do what he could to help an obviously struggling person through a difficult transition.

  Because he could.

  Chapter Three

  “The man seems too good to be true,” Lindsay said aloud what she’d been thinking all morning, as Cole took a break from his long list of business choices, loaded with anecdotes, relating to Brent Wilson. Both as a business owner, and as a man.

  Lunch had arrived. While it was as good as Cole had promised, she’d picked at it. Spicy food wasn’t cohabitating nicely with her knotted stomach. Growing knottier by the second.

  She almost told him to stop talking. To change the subject. If she believed half of what he was telling her about various work situations where Brent had intervened, or ideas he’d had, policies he’d made and promises he’d kept, the man who’d fathered her was a saint.

  She knew better than that.

  Saints didn’t run out on their responsibilities. Leaving a frightened, emotionally sensitive young woman to deal with a pregnancy—and her disappointed parents—on her own.

  After excusing herself to the restroom to escape the praise parade, she splashed her face with cool water. Bent at the knees so the hand dryer attached to the wall could dry her skin.

  What was she doing?

  Or better yet, why?

  How could she want to meet such a horrible human being? Claim him as her own?

  But if he was half the man he seemed to be, how could she walk away? The not knowing would eat at her for the rest of her life.

  She had the thought as another woman pushed through the bathroom door. And she let herself out, knowing she’d just hit on her answer.

  It wasn’t about her having a relationship with the man who’d fathered her. Or even knowing him. It was about being done with the not knowing.

  So she could put the broken parts of herself to rest.

  And find a way to let the parts that were smothering fly instead.

  What that meant, or how it would look, practically, in her real life, she had no idea. And that was part of the problem. She expected herself to always know.

  Her entire life was one regimented plan. Including regularly scheduled appointments—weekends away—to help Lindsay Warren breathe.

  Reaching the booth feeling back on task, she sat down with new purpose. To know. Whatever was there. No preconceived notions.

  And only one sure boundary. No one was to get hurt. Not even her father. And certainly not his family. What he’d done before them had been no choice of theirs.

  She could know without telling.

  Leave town with her knowledge, but give none up to others.

  “You okay?” Cole asked, still working on his large plate of food.

  “Fine,” she told him, smiling, as she presented herself to her own lunch with a new appetite. Set to enjoy the moment as she worked on gathering her knowledge.

  It didn’t all have to happen at once. She had a month.

  She would get the lay of the land and then figure out a way to naturally bump into Brent Wilson—employee to employer only.

  Maybe that was all it would take.

  “Brent wants you to design an entire line for Christmas.”

  Fork suspended, she stared at the large redheaded man glancing at her. She was completely unprepared.

  More knowledge regarding Brent Wilson’s life than she needed. What he wanted...not part of her search.

  “Don’t look so shocked,” Cole said, smiling that captivating smile again. How a look could make her want to crawl inside it and stay there, she had no idea. But it did. “You’re an incredible artist, Lindsay. The way you see ordinary things, express what’s there, what we all know is there, but with dimensions us regular guys don’t see...”

  “There is nothing regular about you, Cole Bennet,” she said, mostly because she had to lighten a moment that was threatening to bring tears to her eyes. Her father wanted her to design her own Christmas line? She swallowed hard, and said, “I heard as much about you as I did about Mr. Wilson.” Her words came out sounding to her as though they’d been announced on a loudspeaker in a filled-to-capacity sports arena. But she kept rambling. “I heard you single-handedly broke up a domestic dispute last year out in the parking lot. You managed to de-escalate some guy who was over the edge due to an emotional break.”

  He put down his fork. Wiped his mouth. Nodded.

  “Okay, yeah, I did that, but they make it sound like more than it was. It’s not like he had a gun or anything.”

  “No, from what I heard he had his hands around her throat.” She’d heard it from the woman he’d saved. Elite’s production manager of more than ten years. Not knowing that her husband had just lost his entire life savings in a high stakes card game, she’d told him by phone an hour earlier that she was filing for divorce.

  “He wasn’t a violent guy,” Cole said then, as though that somehow made his intervention less valuable. “I’ve known him for years. Had never, in any way, shown physical aggression with her. He had a gambling problem he couldn’t get on top of.”

  “You saved him from himself.” Lindsay said the words softly, as she was thinking them. The man’s strange effect on her had done that to her a few times in the short while she’d known him. Had her just blurting out her thoughts without filters. It was like all of the normal guards she held up evaporated around him.

  Or she was just feeling particularly vulnerable.

  Which made more sense.

  “So...was all that distraction your way of saying you aren’t interested in taking on a project as big as your own line? In time for production for a holiday lay down?”

  “It’s July. How could that happen in such a short period of time?”

  “We’d have to limit the number of cards to fit one production line, keep them all within the same medium and probably only offer them to key accounts that first year...”

  Wow. Her mind raced. Or rather, Lindsay Warren’s did. Her fake persona was giving him a big silent hell, yes. And was wanting to jump up and kiss the man.

  Her own line of cards? Produced by a company with one of the highest reputations in the business? It was a dream come true. One she’d never even let herself dream through to the end.

  The real Lindsay reined in Ms. Bohemian, as she sometimes thought of the alter ego who’d been pushing at Lindsay’s edges her entire life. “What kind of deadline are we talking?” she asked. Just to be polite.

  And because she was weak. Wanting another few minutes to let the artist lurking inside her bask in sweet possibility.

  Cole’s grin melted her again. Probably a bohemian residual. Maybe that was what all of her uncharacteristic responses and reactions to him were about. The thought struck like lightning. And stuck, too. That explained it. Lindsay Warren had been set free for more than a weekend at a small art show in a random park. She’d been given the reins to live completely.

  Ms. Bohemian, not Lindsay Warren-Smythe, was overreacting emotionally to the great man they’d just met...

  “A month?” The man asked, eyebrows raised, smile still fully in place, as he made the ridiculous request.

  “Okay.” The word was out before Lindsay could calculate, formulate, mark off time.

  “Okay?” He sat straighter. Even chuckled. “Seriously?”

  No. She didn’t think so. But wipe that look off his face? “Yes,” she said. “I can do it.” Neither of the Lindsays had any doubt about that.

  The real one just wasn’t sure she should even try.

  Because as much as she’d love to let her inner heart fly on its own, she didn’t see how it would work, her father carrying a line of her pseudonym’s work without him eventually figuring out who she really was.

  And there was no place yet, in her current plan, for that to happen.

  * * *

  So much for Cole’s plan to remain distant from Lindsay Warren. All the way back to Shelter Valley she was like a fluorescent light sparkling colors that touched everything around her. No way could a guy ignore something like that.

  She spouted ideas, wondering how to bring various nebulous things, like the love and excitement of a present under the tree, to the naked eye, and then coming up with ways to make it happen. Talking about raised paper, three-dimensional embellishments. Colors. Asking specific questions about some production limitations, smiling when she heard there were none on some of the ideas she was coming up with.

  Everything about her intrigued him. But as he pulled into Shelter Valley, disappointed that he had to drop her off to her own transportation, he felt as though he was setting a child free and giving a huge responsibility to someone he fully trusted to get it done. She talked a mile a minute about her own vision. And then asked practical questions about processes, even some tools and supplies, that he’d have expected her to know far more about than he did.

  “Brent’s having a barbecue tomorrow afternoon at his place,” he said, feeling the pressure of knowing he only had half a mile left before she’d be out of his car. “All of the management of Elite has been invited, but there will be even more people from Shelter Valley there...” Thinking aloud, he just kept talking. “You have any interest in coming as my guest?” No! Sounded too much like a date. “In light of your now incredibly tight deadline, and a schedule that’s been severely escalated, it would give you a chance to meet key company people face-to-face, in a relaxed setting. And give you a crash course in Shelter Valley life, too. You know, so there will be familiar faces as you settle into town.”

  Good save, man.

  She obviously thought so, judging by her nod. “That makes a lot of sense. I’d love to go. What time? Where? And what’s the dress code?”

  He couldn’t help the grin that spread across his big round face. “Two. I’ll pick you up. And this is Arizona in the summertime. We’re casual. A lot of people will be swimming, so you can bring a suit if you’d like. Otherwise, cool and comfortable. Brent has outdoor misters and portable air conditioners, but in the direct sun, it’ll still be hot.”

  He was breaking out in a sweat just thinking about what he’d let himself in for as he pulled up beside her old, but surprisingly fresh and snappy, yellow car in the parking lot behind Elite Paper’s home office.

  If someone got the wrong idea, thought he was moving in on the town’s newest beautiful woman before anyone else got a chance...because, of course, that would likely be the only way he could get her...

  “I’ll be ready at two,” she told him, opening her door. “With so much to do in such a short time, I’m going to go in right now and get settled into my office. And thank you so much for today. For lunch. Everything.”

  She was out of the car, a beauty who moved with a model’s grace, heading toward the building before he realized he hadn’t responded.

  * * *

  With so much new coming at her, and the strong possibility of the project of her life actually being on the table, Lindsay sailed through the rest of the Friday. Stayed busy in her new little office off the art room at Elite Paper Company Headquarters until she was told the building was closing down for the night.

  At which time she texted Cole to ask him if it was possible for her to get access to the place after hours.

  Her phone rang less than a minute later. His number on the screen.

  “Are you still on the property?”

  “In my workspace,” she told him, unable to call the small room an actual office. “I was just told I have to leave.”

  “Stay put,” he said. “I’ll be there in a few.”

  Happy to keep exploring canvas with many of the supplies she’d found, but never used, Lindsay was lost within the visions inside her head when she heard Cole’s voice again.

  “Hey.”

  Her jump sent her brush across the eleven-by-fourteen canvas, and slid the palette smeared with a mixture of glitter, glue and paint to the floor.

  “I am so sorry,” he told her, crouching to pick up the palette. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Seeing the back of his curly head, the huge shoulders, bending over the results of her playtime, she quickly dropped her canvas in the large trash can on the other side of her stool. “It’s not your fault,” she assured him. “You spoke softly.”