Chapter 5
After exchanging phone numbers with Alexis, Peter headed out to the snowplow with Joey.
When they reached Peter’s SUV, Joey lifted the plow so it was about six inches off the ground. Then he wrapped a large chain around the plow and hooked the other end to Peter’s car. Then Joey backed up the truck until the car was clear of the ditch and back on the road.
After using a tire iron to clear Peter’s tail pipe, Joey pulled up next to the SUV and used jumper cables to charge the battery until the SUV started.
Peter asked Joey to plow the road up to the Simpsons, which he was happy to do for the one-hundred dollars Peter paid him.
Peter followed him up to the driveway and waited at the end so Joey could work without him getting in the way.
When he was finished, Peter thanked him, paid him and took off toward the cabin he’d rented.
He left the car running so the battery would charge.
When he walked inside, he huffed out a breath. “Wow.”
The building was much bigger than Alexis’s cabin.
He couldn’t even call it a cabin. It was a house with three bedrooms and a large kitchen with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.
The layout included a dining room, living room and den, which was already set up with an easel.
The carpet was covered with a large blue tarp, and an old wooden stool that had seen better days was sitting in front of the easel.
This is a nice setup. Perfect for what I want.
He looked out the window and realized he seeing Alexis’s cabin.
He could barely see the entire roof, but it was enough to set his imagination off.
He saw her in front of her painting, using powerful strokes like he’d taught her.
The painting would be great…something special.
He knew it as well as he knew he’d take his next breath.
If he could convince her to display it, he’d buy it.
He already loved what she’d done so far.
She’d perfectly captured the feeling of the meadow alive under the snow, just waiting for spring.
And the cabin near the stream looked as if he could actually be there.
He saw himself fishing in the stream, in the spring, catching a few brookies, taking them back to the cabin, and helping Alexis to fry them up for dinner.
He took a deep breath and sighed. It was just a dream. Heck, he didn’t even know if she liked fish.
Peter shook his head and went back to setting up his painting area.
He’d brought several canvases with him, the largest was two feet by three feet, and the smallest was twelve inches by eighteen inches.
He started with the smallest. If he could get the painting he wanted on the small canvas, he would then recreate it on the large one.
That was his usual sequence. He had hundreds of small paintings in his ranch home.
He supposed he should sell them someday or perhaps give them away.
Maybe he could auction them off for Alexis’s gallery, Armstrong Gallery.
He rolled the idea over in his mind and liked it very well.
Now, would Alexis like it or consider it charity?
The day after meeting him, Horace Beecher discovered that Peter Kincaid had spent the blizzard with Alexis Armstrong, he slammed a fist on his desk.
How did the famous artist know her? Then Deputy McNubbin explained he’d heard, second hand, that his car had gotten stuck, and he’d nearly died because he’d had to walk to her cabin.
The deputy also said Kincaid was planning on showing a new painting at her gallery.
That would get the gallery out of debt and completely foil his plans.
He couldn’t let that happen. Horace might have broken up with her, but that didn’t mean she could suddenly have the more popular and, therefore, more profitable, gallery.
And he would see that she didn’t have it for long.
With a little luck, she’d be selling him the gallery and Kincaid’s painting, too.
All he had to do was keep up with or increase the problems he’d been causing her.
So far they’d been pranks, the next one would be more damaging.
He would have her furnace shut off. The pipes would freeze so that when the furnace was back on the pipes would unfreeze and the water would flood the gallery.
He laughed. No one was in the gallery to see him, but he cared he might look deranged, laughing at nothing…
maybe he was. But if so, Alexis made him that way with her damned independence and determination.
All she had to do was sell to him. He adjusted his necktie.
Why couldn’t she see it would be the best for everyone?
Now that the road was plowed, Alexis headed into Aspen to open her gallery.
The roads were still slick, even though they’d been sanded, too.
She had to drive slowly even in four-wheel drive, but it gave her a long time to think about Peter and the way he’d kissed her.
She’d liked it. A lot. But why had he kissed her?
Was it because he was thankful for her saving his life?
She only did what anyone else would have done. And why did she like his kiss so much?
She touched her lips and still felt his on hers.
His lips were soft and smooth, but he kissed her fiercely.
Crushing his lips onto hers, pressing his tongue into her mouth and tasting her.
She felt her heart pound and heard the sound of blood rushing in her ears.
How could he get her so hot and bothered with just a kiss?
By the time she reached the gallery, she realized she was so busy thinking about the kiss that she’d driven without even thinking about where she was going.
Maybe her car knew the way. She laughed and unlocked the gallery’s back door and walked inside.
She loved her gallery. Loved being in an old Victorian house…
at least from the outside. Inside, they’d had to make the sitting room bigger and had to take down a couple of walls to do so, but they’d left as much of the original wainscotting and scrollwork as possible.
And they had updated the wallpaper, but tried to get something that would enhance the Victorian ambiance of the rooms.
After stowing her purse and hanging up her coat she went to work.
But soon, she was back to thinking about Peter and the kiss.
Alexis shook her head and went back to concentrating on her work.
After she finished changing around paintings, she needed to do her accounting and see just how far in debt she was.
Her plan for an open house in the evening wasn’t enough to save the gallery unless she sold a lot of paintings.
Realistically, she knew that wouldn’t happen.
She might sell a couple, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
She was advertising in the Aspen Times and the Aspen Daily News every weekend.
That brought in some foot traffic, but again, not nearly enough.
By the time she was done, her palms were sweating. She needed Peter’s painting, and the sooner the better. She was lucky he’d literally fallen in her lap, or in this case through her door.
As she walked out of her office, the front door opened.
She narrowed her eyes and clenched her hands when she saw who entered.
Horace Beecher, with his slicked back brown hair that was graying at the sides, his brown suit and yellow tie that hung over his ever growing belly.
He sure as heck didn’t look like a successful gallery owner, and yet he was.
“What do you want? Get out of my gallery.”
Horace lifted his hands in front of him. “Now, come on, sweetheart. Don’t be that way.”
“Don’t you dare call me sweetheart. You lost that right a long time ago.”
“Okay.” He lowered his hands. “I might have made some mistakes, but—”
“Mistakes?” Her voice lowered to a growl. “You used me. You tried to destroy my gallery. Get out of here before I call the police. I know you have Deputy McNubbin in your pocket but you don’t have them all, and if I’m not mistaken, McNubbin is off today.”
“How would you know that?” Horace’s hands formed fists, and he stepped closer.
Alexis held her ground, refusing to step back. “I make it a point to know my enemies.”
Horace clenched his jaw. “I simply came to congratulate you on grabbing Kincaid when he came to town. If I’d known all I needed to do was save his life, I might have been looking for him.”
“You’re an idiot, Horace. Now. Get. Out.” She pointed her right index finger toward the door.
“I’m leaving now but I’ll be back and you won’t get rid of me so easily then.” He turned on his heel and stomped out the door.
She let out a shaky breath. I know he’s up to something. What problem he’s setting me up for now? Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and grounded herself again. She would not let him ruin her day.
Peter’s face swam into her mind. She sighed. He’d left for the cabin he’d rented, but he’d promised to do a painting for her. She wondered if she’d see him again before he delivered the painting.
Two days after leaving Alexis’s cabin, Peter stood back, his brush and palette in his hands, and stared at the painting.
He’d painted a new character for Ranger’s Walk video game series.
This one he called Angel. She was tall, with ample curves and flaming red hair.
He’d drawn Alexis, but he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
He still felt her soft, full lips on his as he held her body close. Her curvy figure was just as he liked his women. But even so, she was different. She didn’t seem to realize how beautiful she was. She didn’t even wear makeup and yet she was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in a very long time.
He wondered if she would recognize herself as Angel. Would she be pleased? Or would she dislike the liberties he’d taken with her figure in the skin-tight uniform he’d painted her in?