Freefall (6 page)

I had not finished when she picked up her paper and hastily wrote a word. She ripped the paper from the pad and held it up. “Break,” I read it aloud. She wrote another word and held it up. “Ouch.” She wrote a third word. “Ouch!!” I smiled. She wrote one last message. “All good.”

“That’ll work,” I said.

Hammond stuck his head in and instantly her demeanor changed. Her soft smile disappeared, and her face looked fragile, and rigid, and beautiful like fine porcelain. He was still talking on his phone, but apparently he’d felt the need to check on her.

He walked back out, and her shoulders relaxed.

I picked up the gossamer thin stencil paper, but it was no match for the rubber of the gloves. A corner of the stencil paper ripped off, and I came to the conclusion that the gloves had to go while I transferred on the stencil. I pulled them back off, and her round eyes narrowed with curiosity.

“Sorry, those don’t usually go on until after the stencil transfer.” I felt like a complete idiot, but I was certain that she hadn’t caught my true motive for putting the gloves on early. I took another deep breath and stood. I was directly in front of her, just a ruler’s length away from her face, just twelve inches away from a pair of eyes that melted my heart, a foot away from lips that pushed all kinds of ideas into my head. “Lie down on your stomach and lift your shirt up. Then I can position the stencil to see exactly where it should start.” Paying client, I said over and over in my head trying to keep my mind on the fact that this was just another job. Something to pay the rent on the shop.

Scotlyn stretched out her long legs and lowered the top half of her body down. She didn’t seem to be the least bit nervous, but I was ready to jump out of my skin. I pulled the hem of her shirt out of the top of her jeans and slid it up along her side. The lacy pink scar outlined the smooth curve of her waist and hip. I looked up at the wall where I’d taped the original drawing. I lifted the shirt up to the bottom of her bra line and looked at the drawing again. There was no way it could start that low without ending up on her leg. I walked over and took the art off the wall. I lined it up next to her on the table.

Scotlyn twisted around to look at it and then seemed to sense my dilemma. Her lip curled up in a smile. She sat up and performed the magic trick that girls had perfected where they remove their bra without taking off their shirt. I pretended to busy myself with the ink. She hopped off the table with her wadded-up bra of pink satin and shoved it into the pocket of her sweatshirt. Then she climbed back on the table and lowered back down to her stomach before sliding up her shirt to expose the white, silky skin that ran alongside her breast. The scar started just an inch below that.

I picked up the stencil and transferred the picture of the intricate flower to her creamy skin. She rested her head down on her forearms. I took care to keep my fingers on the paper the entire time.

She wiggled her shoulders.

“Sorry, does that tickle?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Almost finished and then we can get started.” I pulled the stencil up and looked at it. “Do you want to see where I’ve placed it?”

She shook her head without lifting it from her arms. “It almost seems that Hammond is more interested in this tattoo than you are.” No response at first then she lifted a thumb in the air.

“That’s what I thought. Are you sure you want me to do this?” I stared down at her. Other than the incredibly long scar, her skin was flawless, like everything else about her, she was perfection and it seemed a sin to do anything to disrupt it.

She remained stretched out in front of me, every damn incredible inch of her, and I wondered how I was going to get through this knowing that once it was done she would be gone forever. Hammond popped in again. He looked at the stencil, and he seemed to think it was the actual tattoo. “Oh, you’ve gotten pretty far.”

I looked at him over my shoulder. “This is just the stencil.”

He looked embarrassed, and it was obvious he hated that. Thankfully, his phone rang again and he walked out.

“This table folds up in the middle. You can straddle it with your legs and lean forward on the other half. It’s more comfortable than staying on your stomach.”

She lowered her shirt and sat up while I propped up the table. I could hear Hammond arguing on the phone in the front room.

“He gets a lot of calls,” I said. “Must get kind of annoying.” I knew the only reason I brought it up was to bad mouth the guy and show her that he was an ass. It was stupid, but I couldn’t stop myself.

She wrote something on her paper. “I prefer him to be talking on the phone.” She crossed it out after I read it. I held back a smile.

“All right, spin around and throw your leg over the side then you can lean against the table.” Her long leg crossed the table, and she straddled it and then leaned forward and pressed her cheek against the pad. I stared at her profile. She looked as if someone had painted her. Only an artist could come up with an image as amazing as the girl in front of me.

“I can safety pin your shirt up if that’s all right with you.”

She nodded, and I slid the shirt up her back. I’d taken so much care to not touch her while applying the stencils, and then, without thinking, my fingertips grazed her skin as I lifted her shirt. A shallow, soft, almost imperceptible sound came from her lips.

“Sorry.” I tightened my fingers into a fist for a second to stop the sensation from climbing through my arm and to the rest of me. It took a minute for my pulse to slow.

I pulled on a new pair of gloves and opened the needle package. Having my familiar tools in my hand helped me focus on my task. “I’m going to start,” a warning I gave all my clients, but this warning was more for me than her.

My radio in the background and the buzz of my gun helped lull me into a work state of mind. The only way I was going to get through this was to block her from my thoughts as much as possible. I concentrated on the patch of skin and ink lines in front of me.

After about twenty minutes, I’d gotten most of the outline in. “Did you want to take a break before I put in color?” She nodded, sat up, and swung her leg around. Her little pad of paper came out and she wrote. I’d already memorized the style of her handwriting.

She looked around the shop and held up the note. “You’re so young to own all this. Impressive.”

“Nah, not that impressive,” I said. “An inheritance paid for most of it.”

She shook her head and wrote again. “But you work hard. Good rep.”

“Thanks. I don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t started this shop. I was getting into some stupid things.”

Her blue gaze seemed to be assessing me.

Hammond popped in. “Done already?” The guy seemed to always be on edge, and he was definitely antsy about getting this finished.

“Just a break before we put in color,” I answered tersely.

“I’m going down the block to get a coffee. Do you want something, Nix?” he asked.

“No, I’m good.”

He looked at Scotlyn. “The usual, Babe?”

She nodded.

“Whipped cream?”

She raised a smooth brow at him, and I found myself mesmerized by her expressive facial gestures.

“Of course you want it. What was I thinking,” he said and turned to leave, but she tapped the table to stop him. He turned back around and she held up a paper that said, “sprinkles”.

“Right.” He walked out, and I heard the door shut.

“Do you live here?” she wrote.

“At the shop? No. Actually, I live on a boat.”

Her blue eyes widened. She made a wavy motion with her hands and looked at me questioningly. Another look she’d perfected.

“Yeah, the Zany Lucy is on the water down at Southland Mist Harbor.”

“Fun,” she wrote.

“Sometimes. Scotlyn is a unique name. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”

A sweet grin deepened the dimple on her cheek, and she bit her plump bottom lip as she quickly drew something. A few seconds later she held it up. There was a stick figure drawing of a man with a briefcase and tie. The name Scott was scribbled underneath it. Next to the man was a stick figure of a woman with a purse and floppy sun hat. The name Lynne was scribbled beneath.

“Ah, it was a combination of your parents’ names. Nice. And you’re pretty skilled with that pen and paper.” My phone buzzed and I looked at it. “It’s my grandmother. I’ve got to answer it. She lives alone.”

A pair of dimples reappeared and she nodded.

“Nana, is everything all right? I’m not coming tonight. Yes, tomorrow. Did you turn off the stove? Go lock the front door right now while I’m on the phone with you.” Scotlyn was smiling at our conversation. She picked up her writing pad. “All right, Nana. No I’m not coming tonight. Sleep tight.”

“I’ve never met her but she seems adorable,” the paper read.

I smiled and nodded. “She raised me during my teen years. She had to put up with a lot of crap.”

She wrote again. “Does she have dementia?”

“You could tell, huh? Yeah. She used to be the most brilliant person I knew. She was a college professor.” I looked at Scotlyn. She was listening intently, and there was genuine sadness in her face.

And then she stopped the note writing and gestures and she gazed at me. Every emotion showed on her face, sadness, loneliness, and even a touch of hopelessness. It was the same layers I saw when I looked at her picture.

“Was it a car accident?” The words popped out.

Her gaze dropped to the floor, and I wanted to kick myself for asking. Then she lifted the pad up and wrote. It wasn’t as fast and scribbly as usual. She moved the pen deliberately across the paper and then stared at her own words for a moment as if she was surprised she’d written them. Or maybe she just hadn’t ever written them before. She lifted the paper up.

“I lost my whole family.”

I looked at the neatly written sentence. As simple as it was, it took me a second to really comprehend it. I finally worked up the courage to look at her, but there was nothing I could say.
Sorry
didn’t work when someone had lost their whole family.

She seemed to sense that she’d knocked me speechless.

“Are you sure you want me to cover it?” My throat was as dry as cotton.

She lifted her shirt and her long lashes shaded her cheeks as she looked down and touched the scar. Then she looked back up at me and without warning she reached up and dragged her fingertips across the stubble on my jaw. It was only the slightest, briefest touch, but the sensation of if stayed on my skin long after her hand dropped back to her lap.

The door to the shop opened and shut. Hammond was back. Scotlyn’s posture stiffened at the sound of his voice. He stepped into the back room with the coffee. “Wow, I thought you’d be close to done by now.”

Scotlyn took the coffee and sipped it. She shooed him out of the room and then swung back around to straddle the table. Still recuperating from her touch, I filled in the color on the vine and the flowers. I could have applied the color in half an hour, but it took me an hour. I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted her to stay there beneath my hands for as long as possible.

When it was time to leave, she walked slowly over to her sweatshirt and took it off the hook. She winced at the soreness on her side, and I walked over to her. No longer gloved, and completely done with self-control, I dragged my calloused fingertips along the smooth skin of her arms and across her shoulders as I helped her put on her sweatshirt. She did not pull away from my touch, and once again, a small breathy sound floated out from between her lips. She spun around, and I found myself just inches away from a face I knew nearly as well as my own. Her sweatshirt was on and we were done, but she stayed next to me and stared up into my face. I wondered if it showed. I wondered if she could sense that I knew her, that I’d had her picture folded up in my wallet for a year, that I’d imagined kissing her a million times.

Hammond’s sharp, self-important footsteps sounded on the tile floor and we parted. “Great,” he said, “let’s get going, Babe. I’ve got to meet some people at the house.” He pulled his phone out and seemed to be searching his day planner. He was definitely a guy with a day planner. “Day after tomorrow? Same time?”

“Yeah, I’ll write it down,” I said, as if I would need to remind myself.

“That’s going to be sore for awhile,” I told her, forcing myself back into my professional role. “Keep it dry and stay out of the sun. Call me if you have any problems.”

She smiled at me.

“Oh, or text me?” I asked hopefully.

She pulled a phone out of her jeans and handed it to me to put my number in.

Hammond reached for the phone. “Uh, I’ll just call you if there’s a problem.” He handed it back to her. She pulled her sweatshirt hood up over her head, and her long dark lashes swept down as she stared down at the ground, looking slightly embarrassed and plenty pissed. Controlling asshole that he was, I was surprised he allowed her to have the thing at all.

“The shop is Freefall. You can Google it.” I made a point of talking directly to her.

“Let’s go, Scotlyn. Hopefully, traffic has died down.” Hammond stopped at the wall and looked at one of the flyers Clutch had posted there about a car show. “Do you mind if I take this flyer? I’m looking to buy one of those vintage muscle cars.”

“Sure, go ahead. There should be some great cars there tomorrow night. The guy who put that flyer there is a friend of mine. He’s got a few muscle cars for sale. You two should come.” I was fucking nuts of course, but I wanted to see her again, even if Hammond was hovering around.

As he reached up to take the flyer off the wall, Scotlyn peered up at me. Every muscle in my body tensed as I stared at her face. And then she pulled her gaze away and walked out of my shop.

I watched the Porsche peel away from the curb. So much for my theory of reality obliterating my obsession.

C
HAPTER 8

Scotlyn

The skin where he’d drawn the tattoo was sore, but the sensation of his fingers trailing up my shoulders was all I could think about. Lincoln drummed the steering wheel of the car, keeping beat with the music, music which he blasted annoyingly loud. Of course, it wasn’t like we could have a conversation. I rarely even wrote notes to him anymore.