The Survivor. Rhonda Nelson

that had put them all in jeopardy.

      To be fair, it was her practice to take pictures on-site, particularly if the piece was going to be something she’d put up for auction online. It was faster to do it that way and it made the process a whole lot simpler. She’d come in from the road, upload the photos, write the descriptions and activate the auction. If things needed a bit more cleaning up before selling, she’d do that once she got back to the store, but for the most part, her clientele didn’t care if something was “clean.” Like her, they could look at it and see the potential. Furthermore, collectors weren’t as picky.

      If only she could remember where she’d gotten that Coca-Cola sign, Bess thought for what had to have been the millionth time. She’d racked her brain, had gone through everything she’d had on auction during that time, and could not recall where she’d gotten the sign. It could have been someone she regularly visited or someone she’d never picked before. If she saw promise—barns, old buildings, rusty cars and bicycles in the yard—she’d stop and do a cold call. She always kept a record of what she bought, but the truth was she’d bought dozens of Coca-Cola signs—the brand was highly collectible—and it could have come from any one of those places.

      Luckily she’d been in the process of trying to organize those records and had off-loaded them onto her laptop, so the—she was just going to call him Bastard—didn’t have access to them.

      And really, without those particular records, Bastard was looking for a needle in a haystack. She took a mild amount of satisfaction from that.

      “Ooo, I think he’s here,” Elsie murmured, peering out the window. She patted her extremely teased hair and moistened her heavily painted lips. “That has to be him. Nice khakis, black cable-knit sweater—you know how I love a cable-knit sweater on a man.” She gasped. “And, oh, look! He’s brought a dog!”

      He had, Bess thought, watching covertly off to one side of Elsie, who was positioned behind the counter. While she would have ordinarily been more interested in the animal than the man, it was the man that held her attention right now.

      Mercy.

      Bess sucked in a shallow breath as every hair on her body suddenly prickled with goose bumps. Her heart galloped into overdrive and her mouth instantly parched, forcing her to swallow. She felt a bizarre sort of tug behind her navel and then a swirl of heat slid into her belly and settled there, making her more aware of the warmth than was strictly comfortable.

      He was big and broad-shouldered with dark brown hair that was more swept to the side than styled, and the way that it clung to his head made her want to slide her hands through it, to see if it was as sleek as it looked. He had a face that was incredibly masculine—broad planes and angles, a nose that had been broken at least once—but an especially full mouth that gave him a slightly boyish quality, one she instinctively imagined he resented.

      But the mouth was…incredible. She licked her own lips as she stared at his and wondered what it would be like to kiss him, to feel his lips against hers. Her nipples beaded behind her bra and she released a small sigh and leaned closer to the window.

      As Elsie had pointed out, he wore khakis that showcased long legs, a narrow waist and, from the side anyway, an ass that was nice and tight. The sweater stretched over a pair of heavily muscled shoulders, clung to an equally muscled chest and basically let a woman know that there was a rock-hard, beautifully maintained body beneath the clothes. The only part of him that she couldn’t truly see were his eyes, which were hidden behind a pair of designer aviator sunglasses she desperately wished weren’t in the way. I bet he has brown eyes, Bess thought, imagining a warm dark chocolate with long sooty lashes.

      He opened the car door and clipped a leash to the dog, a blond mutt of questionable origins, but pretty all the same, and the animal leaped down onto the pavement. He scoped both ends of the sidewalk before studying the storefront and she watched his lips—that sinfully carnal mouth—twist with something akin to humor, but not as kind. A pinprick of disappointment nicked her heart, but she shrugged it off. Just because he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life didn’t mean he was going to be any different from the rest.

      Sad, that, she thought, because her reaction to him had certainly been different from previous reactions to any man she’d ever seen in print, in person or in film.

      She got the impression that he’d taken one look at her business, gotten her measure and had already—even though he hadn’t met her yet—found her lacking.

      The bell over the door tinkled as he walked in and he went immediately to the counter, stuck out his hand and introduced himself. He’d removed the sunglasses along the way, but to her irritation, she couldn’t get a good look at his eyes. “Lex Sanborn, Ms. Cantrell,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

      Elsie, who was hardly what one would call a wall-flower, smiled brightly at him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too,” she said, lowering her voice to a husky purr à la Lana Turner.

      Bess smothered a snort and then had to cover her hand with her mouth when she caught Lex’s temporarily transfixed expression. Evidently he was picturing going on the road with a lusty senior citizen intent on making him her boy toy. After the look he’d given her shop, he could just keep that image, Bess thought, and stayed out of view.

      He tried to withdraw his hand, but Elsie clung firm. She had closed her eyes, evidently going into one of her psychic trances. She murmured a nonsensical noise and gave a delicate shudder. “You came very close, didn’t you?” she said.

      Lex gave an uneasy laugh. “I’m sorry?”

      Elsie patted the top of his hand and, when she opened her eyes, her expression was strangely warm and sad. “But it wasn’t your time.”

      Some of the color leached from his face and the dog nuzzled his leg as though picking up on a shift in its master’s mood. “Er…if you’re ready, we should probably get going.”

      Bess frowned, puzzled over his reaction, and shot a look at Elsie, who seemed to have wilted against the stool behind the counter. The older woman very rarely looked her age—on purpose—but at the moment she seemed every one of her seventy-five years. What had happened? Bess wondered.

      Elsie finally seemed to snap out of whatever had a hold of her. “Go? Go where?”

      Lex smiled uncertainly. “After the man who has stolen your hard drive and is harassing your customers,” he reminded her, and it was obvious he thought she was a touch senile.

      Elsie chuckled. “Oh, I’m not going,” she told him, as if he were the one who was confused.

      He blinked. “You’re not?”

      “No, Bess is,” she explained.

      He gave his head a shake. “You’re not Bess?”

      Elsie positively cackled with laughter. “Goodness, no,” she said. “But I wouldn’t mind being her for a few days,” she confided with a wink and, though Elsie’s comment was wasted on Lex, Bess knew it was in reference to her youth. Elsie often accused her of “squandering” it with old junk, cable internet and reality television, which was hardly fair when she’d caught Elsie watching Real Housewives, as well.

      Elsie looked past Lex’s shoulder and he instinctively turned around.

      “I’m Bess,” she said, coming forward. His gaze slammed into hers and, though she knew it was impossible, she practically floated the rest of the way across the room, tugged inexplicably by the pull of his stare. She felt a smile drift over her lips and released a slow steady breath.

      Mystery solved, she thought.

      His eyes were blue. And she was drowning.

      3

      HE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN more stunned if he’d been knocked over the head with a frying pan, Lex thought as he watched the woman come toward him.

      In the first place, she was young. As in not old. Or not as