You Say It First. Susan Mallery

there had been the occasional man in her life, there hadn’t been anyone close to “the one.” Or even “the right now.”

      Part of it was where she lived. Happily Inc was a relatively small town and in her part of it, there weren’t that many single guys. The ones she knew happened to be relatives, so ick. There was also the fact that she had a way of holding herself back, emotionally. She knew why—what she didn’t know was how to change. Which meant being propositioned was rare and something to be treasured. Not that Nick had. He’d been talking about—

      “Pallas?”

      “Huh?” Oh, right. He wanted an answer. “If you’re willing to accept my sad little hourly paycheck, then I’m happy to offer it,” she told him.

      “It’s a deal.” He held out his hand.

      She shook it, ignoring how large it was and the brief heat she felt. Nick was so far out of her league as to be an extraterrestrial. Still, he was nice to look at. She would enjoy the show while it lasted.

      “You can work whatever hours you want,” she told him. “As long as you’re not interfering with a wedding. I’ll give you a time sheet for you to keep track of your hours. You’ll get paid twice a month. Do you need tools or supplies or anything?”

      “I’ll bring my own.”

      “Good.” Because she wouldn’t know where to start. “Then I guess I’ll see you around.”

      “You can count on it.”

      If only that were true, she thought humorously. She wondered how wrong it would be to ask him to work shirtless. Because he’d made a fine Roman soldier.

      Maybe one of her brides would want a Garden of Eden wedding where the attendants would be naked. Nick could be an extra. A fantasy to brighten her day, she thought as she returned to her office. One she would be sure to remember.

       CHAPTER TWO

      NICK HANDED HIS brother a beer. The evening was clear and promised to be cold, but for now it was warm enough. They sat on Mathias’s back patio, overlooking the sixteenth hole of the golf course to the right. To the left was, well, definitely an open, grassy area. It wasn’t the landscape that required an explanation so much as the residents.

      “You’ll get used to it,” Mathias offered as Nick stared at the shapes moving in the near twilight. “They head in for the night.”

      “To what? A barn?”

      “I’ve never asked,” Mathias admitted. “Something. My guess is they get out of the open to avoid predators.”

      Nick didn’t bother pointing out there weren’t any predators—at least not that he knew about. Instinct was instinct and he’d long since learned there was no arguing with nature.

      A couple miles southwest of town, just beyond the golf course, were hundreds of acres of grassland. If you kept going, you got to the city dump—a high-tech, ecofriendly kind of place where everything that could be recycled or reclaimed was. But the most interesting part wasn’t the fact that Happily Inc had one of the lowest trash-to-resident ratios in the country, it was the animals that made the grasslands between the dump and the golf course their home.

      So far Nick had seen zebras, gazelles and something that looked a lot like a water buffalo. All grazing animals. In the past few days, he would swear he’d seen a giraffe strolling around, but that could have been a trick of the light.

      “It’s odd,” he muttered, then took a drink of his beer.

      “We grew up in Fool’s Gold,” Mathias pointed out. “We don’t get to say any other town is odd.”

      That was probably true, Nick told himself. And a reason why he was already comfortable in Happily Inc. Once you’d lived in a weird place, it was hard to settle for normal.

      But there were differences. Fool’s Gold was in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Happily Inc was on the edge of the desert. There were mountains in both towns, but the ones here seemed newer, with sharper peaks and more edges. As interesting to his artist’s eyes were the changes in colors. Dawns were a mix of oxblood and carnelian with umber and sepia for shading.

      He’d been in town for three weeks. Mathias owned a ridiculously large house on the edge of the golf course and had offered him a place to stay until he figured out what he wanted to do.

      “Why’d you move here?” Nick asked. “Why not Sedona or some artists’ village in Tennessee?”

      “Atsuko was already selling our work,” Mathias said, mentioning the gallery owner in town. “She wanted us to meet, and when she heard we were leaving Fool’s Gold, she suggested we stop by and visit her. One thing led to another and here we are.”

      His brothers had a sweet setup, Nick thought. Atsuko had contacts all over the world. With her acting as broker, they didn’t have to bother with the business side of what they did. Instead they could focus on their art. Their studio was large and open. They had each other for company and yet plenty of space.

      While Mathias lived here, by the golf course and the zebras, Ronan had a house up in the mountains. Built mostly of stone and native materials, the structure blended perfectly with the surroundings. There was even a large studio out back, when Ronan didn’t want to make the drive into town.

      When Nick had figured out it was time for him to get somewhere else, he’d considered a lot of options, but Happily Inc had been the obvious choice. Especially with the Dubai commission looming.

      Twilight turned to night. There were a million stars out here. Nick studied the sky and wondered if they were far enough south for it to be different from what he was used to. Probably not.

      “Any regrets about leaving?” Nick asked.

      “No.”

      Because of their father, Nick thought grimly. Ceallach had made an impression on all of them. Some good and a lot bad.

      There were five Mitchell sons. The oldest two hadn’t been blessed—or was it cursed?—with any form of Ceallach’s talent. They had been mostly ignored by their father, while the younger three had gotten the brunt of his attention.

      “Ronan okay?” he asked. Their youngest brother had had the most to deal with.

      “We don’t talk about it.”

      “Still?”

      “Always.”

      Which had to be a bear. Mathias and Ronan had always been tight. Probably because they were twins—or they used to be.

      Neither of them would want to talk about that so he changed the subject. “How was your date Saturday night?”

      Mathias looked at him over his beer bottle. “It wasn’t a date.”

      “You didn’t take a woman to dinner, and then have sex with her?”

      “Yeah, sure, I did that.”

      “How is it not a date?”

      “I’ll never see her again.”

      “I guess that does change the definition.”

      Since moving to Happily Inc, Mathias had started taking up with the various bridesmaids that came into town. He hooked up with them for a night or two, then they were gone.

      Nick enjoyed women as much as the next guy, but he’d never been that into volume, or variety. He liked the idea of having someone in his life—as long as he could keep things under control. He wanted enough passion for things to be interesting, but not so much that he was consumed. Sometimes that balance was difficult to find so he erred on the side of not doing.

      “Just be careful,” Nick warned. “You don’t want some woman coming back in six months and saying she’s