“I promise you he’s not that cool,” Pippa pipes up.
Tommy looks at her in disbelief. As if she’d just told him men never walked on the moon or that George Clooney had just retired from acting. “Not that cool?” He looks from Pippa to me. “You’re a legend.” His eyes bounce around the art displayed around him. “And your eyeballs have landed on my art. Holy shit.”
I follow his gaze, looking at the pieces hanging in the booth. “Are these yours?”
“Yes,” he squeaks.
“Can I get closer?” I ask, already taking a step around the table to walk behind it.
“You can do anything you want,” the kid—Tommy—answers, backing away as if I need that much space to get behind the table.
“Tommy graduated two years ago, and he’s been selling his art at shows and conventions and things like that. He even did the mural for me in the shop that leads to the back.”
“Are you in school at all?” I let my eyes roam over his different pieces. They’re vastly different, but you can still see his style shining through each piece. They are all landscapes. There are mountains, beaches, forests. They seem very traditional, but also, he brings a modern twist to each one. They’re very eye-catching. The longer you look at them, the more things you notice. Like how he changes his brushstrokes halfway into painting the beach to make each side look different. Normally such a difference of strokes would make things seem off-balance, but he makes it work.
“He can’t see you shaking your head,” Pippa says from the other side of the table.
“Right,” Tommy states. “No, I’m not in school at all. I’m hoping if I sell enough art that maybe I’ll be able to save enough money to go.”
I circle the back of the booth, inspecting all of the pieces he has on display. He’s got a lot of talent for someone who seems to have no technical training.
“What’s your pricing?” I focus on a landscape of a forest. It’s at night, but it still feels warm and inviting. Like everything is asleep around you, and you get to be at peace for once in the calmness of the night.
“That one is one hundred.”
“Thousand?”
Pippa sputters behind me. Or maybe it’s Tommy because when I look at him, his face is bright red. “No,” he whispers, his voice scratchy. “Just one hundred dollars.”
I frown. “You’re severely undercharging for your art.”
“I am?”
“Definitely. I already have people in mind who would pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for these pieces.”
“What…” The redness from his face is gone. Now he’s white as a ghost. “I’ve never even dreamed about that much money.”
Pulling my wallet from my slacks, I fish out my business card. I hold it between my pointer and middle finger as I hand it to him. “I’m going back to Manhattan tomorrow, but here’s my card. Email me, and we’ll get your art in my gallery. You’ll find out what at least half a mil looks like by the end of the month.”
“Half a what?” the kid asks. His eyes are so wide with shock that he looks like he’s straight out of a cartoon.
“Million,” I finish, confident his pieces will sell. The kid will be in for a real treat when he finds out what people will pay if he does custom work for them. I know ten people off the top of my head who’d want a custom piece done for sentimental reasons.
Pippa looks as shocked as Tommy when I finally look at her. Her mouth hangs open, and I hate that the first thing that pops into my mind is how fun it would be to shove my cock in it. Her tongue is a perfect shade of pink. It’d look hot as fuck licking cum from my shaft.
The thought is so abrupt that I almost trip over my own feet. The only reason I don’t face-plant is because I’m able to reach out and steady myself on the corner of the table. Luckily, Pippa and Tommy seem to be so swept up in the amount people are willing to pay for art that they don’t notice my slip-up.
Straightening my spine, I look around the room to see if anyone else noticed. No one seems to be paying any attention to us. Tucking one hand in my pocket, I slide my other through the crook of Pippa’s elbow.
“Any other undiscovered talent here I should know about, shortcake?”
I stop us, turning around so we’re almost chest to chest. It isn’t lost on me that I could easily drop my hand. She doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so I don’t need to keep hold of her. My fingers stay in place. The thrum of her pulse beats underneath my fingertips. Or is it mine?
“You know you just changed his life, don’t you?”
“No. That was all you.”
16
PIPPA
“Should I be concerned that you’re going to murder me and hide my body where no one will ever find me?”
I laugh, turning into the long driveway that leads up to my family home. “As tempting as that is, how could I torture you if you’re dead?”
“Fair point.” He looks out the window, and I wish I knew what he was thinking. What does he see when he looks at the place where I grew up? I don’t know how you could look at the rolling hills, the mountains around us, and not fall in love with Sutten Mountain. There’s not a better view in this world than the one at the place I called home growing up.
I drive through the gate to the ranch, watching Camden look at the large “Jennings Ranch” sign that hangs over us.
“A ranch?” he questions. “What are we doing here?”
I keep driving, marveling at all the work that’s been done already to prep the land for winter. I try and help my dad and my brother, Cade, out as much as possible, but with my own business, I can’t be out here as much as I’d like to. After my mom passed, I spent a lot of time here trying to do whatever I could to help my dad and my brother. After some time, I couldn’t handle being around them. I couldn’t handle being here, being reminded that I lost my mom, so I threw myself into work. All I did was eat, breathe, and sleep the bakery until I realized it was out of control, and I got Kitty to force me to get some work-life balance.
I had no idea what was going on with my brother, my dad was a shell of the man I knew growing up, and I didn’t know what to do about it except to distract myself by working.
“Is the guy walking up to us going to help with your murder plot?” Camden teases. He seems looser than when we first started our day, more carefree. That might change once he figures out what I have planned for us.
“The guy walking up to us is my brother. And while he can be a dick, I doubt he has any intention to murder you.”
“That’s your brother? Is this your family’s ranch?” He seems a little shocked as he looks around. It reminds me of how little we know each other. I don’t know much about his family dynamic or his life outside of being here at all, actually. It’s strange to spend an entire day with someone and not really know anything about them.
“Welcome home,” I say with enthusiasm, stopping my truck. Cade holds a saddle over his shoulder, looking at me with a confused expression.
I may have forgotten to mention to him that we were stopping by. He’s been a disaster since Mare, my best friend and his girlfriend, left for work. She’s currently in Chicago writing a book and in constant meetings. I don’t hear from her a lot, and while he might hear from her more than I do, I know he won’t get that depressing scowl off his face until she’s back here in Sutten. If she comes back to Sutten. It’s all up in the air right now.
“I should’ve known you grew up somewhere like this.” Neither one of us makes a move to open the door, even though my brother stands in front of the truck with an even deeper frown on his face than he normally has.
“Should I be offended by that?”
For a fraction of a second, his gaze lingers on my lips. If I blinked, I would’ve missed it. But I didn’t miss it, and I can’t help it when my tongue peeks out and traces the spot his focus was just on.
He clears his throat, making both of us jump. “I didn’t mean it as an insult.”