LITMIR.BIZ

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collect herself.

      Hit the mental reset button.

      To cool down and get her thoughts back on track, she turned the contract toward her and started reading.

      * * *

      The meeting with Abigail Stewart had gone from interesting to downright fascinating. The tension between them had shifted since the stressful morning meeting. He credited that to several things. Being further removed from the surgery that had threatened to give him flashbacks definitely helped him to relax more around her. Add to that the fact that Abigail was obviously thrilled she’d won the art gig, which put her in a happy frame of mind.

      Best of all, he’d spied a half-finished sketch on her table of a man who bore a striking resemblance to him.

      He would have written it off as a coincidence since he couldn’t be certain, of course. But then he’d seen the way her eyes locked on the drawing and her rush to remove it. There’d been a flare of unmistakable embarrassment. Awareness. Hell, the electricity between them had spiked to a shocking degree in those moments when she’d been close to him. The attraction had been a revelation considering how resolutely—and easily—he’d ignored dating since his deployment.

      The heat Abigail stirred wasn’t going to be ignored.

      Vaughn watched her read over the contract he’d brought, and lingered on her lovely features as she pursed her lips or tilted her head. For a moment, she traced a line of text with her finger, as if to slow her pace or concentrate. Dark curls pooled on the table beside the paper, the silky waves calling to his fingers to touch them. Test how they would feel against his skin.

      She’d changed since he’d seen her at the hospital earlier. She wore an artist’s smock over a loose summer dress. The pale green cotton printed with daisies peeked out of the smock at the hem, the kind of simple summer staple that was probably comfortable for working. Yet on Abigail, the outfit was as seductive as anything he’d ever seen a woman wear. The low-cut neckline visible above the square-necked apron revealed ample curves, and a gold medallion knocked against the table as she bent to read the papers he’d given her. Beneath the table, she crossed her long legs, and her sandaled foot brushed his calf for an instant as she moved, sending his imagination into overdrive...

      And damn. He shouldn’t allow his thoughts to roam in that direction until he knew more about her. What if she was married? Had a significant other? He didn’t see another car in her driveway, and her ring finger was bare, but that didn’t necessarily mean she was available.

      Surely the drawing she’d made of him meant something, though.

      “There.” Abigail signed her name with a flourish. “All set.” She pushed the paperwork toward him, straightening in her seat. “Would you like me to show you around the studio before you go?”

      He couldn’t decide if that was a genuine invitation or a politely worded hint for him to be on his way. He used to be better at reading social nuances. These days, just keeping his own emotions in check took focus. And although he was anxious to get home and decompress from this day, he had to admit he enjoyed this time with Abigail.

      “I’d like that.” Leaving her advance payment on the table along with the security badge and a few other documents, he slid the signed agreement into his folder. He’d give it to Belinda tomorrow to make copies. “It’s not at all what I expected,” he told her honestly, hoping to learn more about Abigail if he spent a little time with her.

      “No?” She glanced at him over her shoulder as she led him past a shelf full of paint cans and chemicals, her dark eyes challenging. “Did you envision me sitting around my garret with a bunch of wine-swilling pseudointellectuals while we debated the novels of Kafka?”

      He laughed out loud, surprised at the sound. “Not quite. But I definitely didn’t envision this many axes.” He stopped near a bunch of sinister-looking hatchets and hand tools leaning against the wall alongside ladders in varying sizes.

      She paused beside him, her embarrassment from earlier in their meeting long gone. She smiled with something like fondness as she looked over the tools of her trade. The whole place smelled like hickory and apple wood, a welcoming scent that reminded him of fall bonfires.

      “Wood carving can be strenuous labor, but I love it.” She straightened a few small blades on a shelf nearby. “I still work in other media, but I’ve been obsessed with wood for the last few years.”

      “The tree sculpture you proposed for the children’s ward will be made from wood?” He hadn’t read the specs of her work very carefully, and besides, she had a great deal of artistic license in the project, so it wasn’t as though the hospital was dictating precise details for the project she crafted for the installation.

      “Yes. I have a perfect length of bay laurel in mind. It’s been drying for years, and I’ve always known that I wanted it for a tree of some sort.”

      “Years? How long have you lived in Royal?” He didn’t remember hearing about her work until after he returned from his deployment.

      “It’s been a little over two years.” She stepped carefully around a short sculpture of a bird with an ox’s head, moving deeper into the stacks of raw wood.

      “Do you mean to tell me you that you brought some of this with you when you moved?” His gaze wandered over all the huge logs of varying sizes.

      “I brought almost all of it since I had access to a lot of wood remnants where I lived in Austin. I haven’t found a good source here yet.” She moved aside some of the limbs with relative ease, making him realize that she had the larger hunks secured with ropes hanging from the rafters so they wouldn’t fall. She spotted the bay laurel she had in mind for the hospital sculpture and showed him some of the features.

      “You should come out to my place sometime,” he said when she finished, even before he’d worked out if she was single or not. “That is, if you want to check out the trees.”

      “I don’t take any fresh wood. Only fallen pieces.” She stepped carefully from her place among the knotty branches and gnarled slabs in every shade and fiber. “Do you think you have any downed trees on your property?”

      “That’s not the sort of thing I typically look for when I go riding. But I’ve got over two hundred acres, so there’s bound to be something if you’d like to take a look sometime.”

      “Really? You wouldn’t mind?” She brightened, the same happy expression lighting her eyes that he’d seen when he first told her about the commission.

      He liked seeing her smile. Hearing the way her pleasure warmed the tone of her voice. He found himself wanting to get a whole lot closer to her and all that warmth.

      “I’m not on call at the hospital this weekend. Come by anytime.” He withdrew his phone to message her with his contact information, dragging her phone number from his electronic copy of the commission contract. “I just sent you the address.”

      “Thank you. I find inspiration just being out in nature, so I’d be grateful for the chance to see any of the woodlands.” She showed him a few more features of her studio, ending with the sunny corner where she liked to paint.

      His eye roamed over the paintings she’d taped up around the windows and walls. There were dozens.

      “You paint, you draw, you carve,” he observed. “You don’t ever feel like you’re spreading yourself too thin?”

      As soon as he asked, he wondered if the question was too pointed. If he sounded critical again, the way he had in the meeting earlier. But the query was honest, and some of his bluntness was simply a part of his personality, long before the PTSD had hit him hard.

      She shrugged, not seeming to take offense. “You repair everything from gallbladders to head trauma. I like to think I take that same kind of holistic approach to my expertise, too. It’s all art, so it’s all in my body of work.”

      “There are so many paintings.” He ran a

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