“Bother me about what?”

Her heart jumped up, to her throat. She turned. Oh, boy.

She’d managed to avoid him since the hot springs incident, and she’d been fondly imagining that her feelings were back under control. Nope. Vivid images of the hot springs incident blazed through her body.

Her face turned pink. No. Her whole body was turning pink.

“Hi.” Jack nodded to Dwayne and Margaret. “Heard the tractor.”

“I figured it was dry enough by now,” Dwayne said.

“I’ll walk down with you,” Jack said.

Oh, God. All she needed. Vivi swallowed her dismay. “Okay.”

Fortunately, the rumble of the tractor chugging ahead of them made their silence less embarrassing on the walk. Vivi had been using the quiet days while the weather dried up to hang pictures, write down goals, make shopping wish lists for some future when she had money to spend. She’d set up her portable studio on the floor, and had made several trips back and forth to the van to haul back her work supplies.

It was a new artistic era. She had to beef up her stock, dream up new designs. Scrounge for pretty rubbish. She liked to incorporate what people thought of as garbage into her work. Part of her artistic philosophy. Making garbage beautiful. All in the attitude.

Her first investment would be a big worktable. Then some metalworking equipment. Big pieces of stained glass to play with. She was eager to spread out. Everything in her life for the past six years had been miniature; from her income to her camper-van home all the way to her artistic ambitions. She was sick of being miniature. She wanted to sprawl. Take up space. Breathe big breaths.

Not that she regretted the choices she’d made. Her back straightened up at the thought. The traveling jewelry business had been good to her. Her jewelry sideline had started one day when Nancy admired a sculpture Vivi was making out of beads, wire, and glass.

“This is beautiful,” Nancy had said. “If it were jewelry, I would wear it.”

The comment had given her an idea, and for each of her sisters’ and Lucia’s next birthdays, she’d made personalized earrings. Then necklaces to match. Then she’d tried a couple of brooches. It was fun. Ideas for designs flowed easily.

Her art school buddy Rafael had persuaded her to try selling them in his booth at the open-air market down on Sixth Avenue. She had sold several, to her surprise and Rafael’s glee. The profit had almost paid her rent that month.

Brian had been disdainful of her “craftsy hobby,” and resentful of the time it took from the work he demanded from her, but she’d kept quietly on with her sideline. And after things exploded with Brian, the jewelry gave her something to fall back on. Not what she’d dreamed of, but it was creative, and it paid for her gas, her car insurance, her food.

She’d been trying to use some of these long, silent days to churn out some more work, but she’d had no luck. She’d chalked it up to exhaustion, worry, and unsatisfied lust. And Haupt, and John the Fiend, of course. That zesty pinch of mortal dread, just to liven things up.

She hoped it wasn’t artist’s block. She’d experienced a bad period of that some time after she’d signed the contract with Brian’s gallery.

Working with Brian had been great, at first. He sold a bunch of her pieces, the wilder, angrier ones. Money started coming in, and she’d quit her cocktail-waitressing job and basked in the thrill of being the hot new thing on the art scene. She spent a lot of the money she made on clothes, preapproved by Brian, of course. Then she started experimenting with another style. Brian didn’t like the new pieces. He demanded that she make more of the old series that sold so well.

“But I’m bored with them,” Vivi protested. “They’re so angry and negative. I’m not as pissed off now as I was a year ago.”

“They sell, babe. The new ones aren’t right for our catalog, and they’re not right for our clients. I need more pieces like Scream and Howling Skeleton. You’re making your name. Ride the market trend.”

Vivi chose her words carefully, already afraid of making him angry. “But inspiration doesn’t depend on market trends. It—”

Slam. Brian’s hand slapped down into his desk. “Don’t even start,” he snarled. “I’m already bored.”

She jumped back. An ebony goddess figurine teetered and almost fell on her substantial behind. He stared at her, his gaze menacing. “Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “You’d better fulfil your contractual obligations to me. Or else.”

She was shocked by his ugly tone. “But…but I just—”

“You signed that contract, Viv. Don’t forget. Your future as an artist depends on it.”

She gaped at him. Brian leaned back in his chair and leafed casually through a big glossy catalog of Wilder Gallery artwork.

“What do you mean?” she finally managed to force out.

His smile did not reach his eyes. “We discussed this, remember? Before you signed. You agreed not to play the diva.”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean that I would be a—”

“I need more pieces like the old series. End of discussion.” He slapped the catalog shut. “Another thing. Our date tonight. I can’t make it. Something’s come up. Since you have the evening free, I suggest you get to work. I have clients asking for your work. I mean to satisfy them.”

He got up and stood in front of his desk, hands twitching in the pockets of his tailored suit. He sighed and tilted her face up to his. His cold, hard lips brushed hers. She flinched from his touch. “I know you’re upset, but it will have to wait,” he said, sounding bored. “I’m busy today.”

She’d done as she was told. Trotted to her studio, tried to make pieces that would please him. Vivi cringed at the memory of how hard she’d tried to satisfy his demands. How pointless her efforts had been.

She’d run dry immediately. She’d cranked out a few things, but they were obviously bad, flat. Her output ground to a total halt.

Brian had been furious. He was convinced that she was doing it on purpose, to spite him. That was when sex with him started to go from tense and problematic to outright scary. Brian used sex to punish.

The only thing she’d still been able to work on was the jewelry. It was the one thing that Brian had never tried to control, so she’d gone with it. Thrown herself into it, heart and soul. What else could she do?

She cast a covert sideways glance at Jack, walking silently beside her, trying not to think about how he looked soaking wet. How he tasted. The solidity of his shoulders when she sank her nails into him.

Brian might have derailed her artistic career and given her a closetful of stupid sexual complexes. But he had never driven her out of her mind with breath-stealing, toe-curling lust.

The tractor chugged on until the van came into view. Dwayne and Jack attached the chain, and Vivi got in the van and started the engine.

They pulled and pulled. The van shuddered and strained. Dwayne whooped in triumph when it rolled out of the deep ruts.

Vivi felt like cheering herself when she felt those wheels turning, bumping over the ruts. She got out and strode over to the tractor with a huge smile of relief. “Thanks so much, Dwayne. How much do I owe you?”

“Ah, nah,” Dwayne said bashfully. “Just being neighborly.”

He pushed away the banknotes she held out, so she folded them back into her wallet, peeking to make sure he had a wedding ring.

“Well, bring your wife over one of these days to pick out a necklace or a pair of earrings,” she offered. “I’d love to meet her.”

Dwayne agreed to that plan cheerfully, and Vivi and Jack watched the tractor chug up the road and disappear around the bend.

Vivi got into the driver’s seat. Jack climbed in. They sat in silence. “So?” she said finally. “Where do we stand? I’m mobile again. Do I need to get lost? I could be out of here in ten minutes. Just say the word.”