“Well, there’s something we don’t have in common—big bucks.”

“You said you were independently wealthy.”

“Not as independently as you apparently are—I’m a retired Army Warrant Officer. My income was never large and doesn’t seem to have the potential to be, but there’s a check each month and it gets me by.”

“You should rethink that potential thing. I looked up wildlife art… I researched it on the web. Some paintings and prints draw impressive sale prices. So—you can get mad at the crash, come out swinging a paintbrush and do better than you could with the military.”

“The best revenge is to live well?”

“Yeah. And I am—thing is, I didn’t plan this. Even if I can’t make it go, I’m having a lot of fun.” She looked briefly upward. “I didn’t start all this with the idea of fun in mind. I just wanted to garden. And, right now, this feels really good.”

Colin removed the plates from the table and took them to the sink. “That’s what I’m not having as much of out of the cockpit. That felt really good and just painting full-time is a poor substitute,” he tossed off. “You need furniture, Jillian,” he said, while thinking about how nice it would be to sit with her on a sofa for a couple of hours.

She joined him at the kitchen sink. Sometimes their hands briefly touched as they passed plates to each other. “I need a golf cart, some lights and, before too long, I’m going to need a good indoor irrigation system for the greenhouses.”

“Where will you go when you leave here?” he asked.

“Totally up in the air,” she said. “But if I can grow stuff I’ll be in the market for some rural property priced right with the best climate and soil conditions. Anything can be moved, Colin. Plants can even be relocated. Jack promised me six months, but he might be inclined to give me a little more time if things are going well. We’ll see what happens over the summer.”

He turned to her while drying his hands on the dish towel. “I have my plane ticket to Africa already,” he said. “I booked early to get a good price on first class—I’m too damn tall to make that long flight in coach. September 1.”

She smiled at him. “Then we also have that in common—we’ll be making the most of the summer. And, um, Colin? I haven’t told anyone else that I was forced out of my last job. Not that it matters, but a lot of people wouldn’t understand. They’d think I’m just a loser.”

“We’re even again—Luke doesn’t know I have a plane ticket.”

Colin really didn’t get it. Jillian wasn’t his type at all. He had always been drawn to women who looked like they wanted sex, and soon. Women who dressed to draw attention to their breasts, legs, h*ps or butts. Not slutty-looking women, though he didn’t discriminate—he liked them, too. More like the soccer mom who was wearing her “out to be seen” dress-up clothes that fit nice and snug. Not to mention plenty of accessories and makeup. Colin developed his style with women early in his flying days; he was smooth—flirty and sexy and ultimately successful. He had never had a shortage of female company, that’s for sure. One of his favorite things was to wash lipstick off his favorite organ in the morning-after shower, something that hadn’t happened often enough in the recent past.

But this woman was different. Jillian was a whole new being. Right above some very delicious-looking br**sts was a fresh, wholesome, beautiful face with large dark eyes that burned in his memory for hours and a smile that knocked him out. And in that head? Some very sexy, unbelievable intelligence. Man, she was way too smart for him. When she talked about corporate strategy, she turned him on. When she talked about growing her fancy seeds, she turned him on. When she ate her eggs and croissant, she made him want to tackle her and lower her to the ground and start peeling off her clothes.

He thought about her all morning. After breakfast he took his painting of the buck to a meadow that got a lot of sun and set up the easel. All the while he asked himself if he’d been off the antidepressants just long enough to get good and horny, or if this woman was just about the finest, rarest woman he’d come across in a very long time.

A small herd of deer—doe and fawns and one buck—wandered along the bottom of the foothills and he snapped a few shots with his zoom. Beautiful extended family out there, does nudging the fawns along, buck tall and standing guard. He wondered if he could paint something as detailed and expansive as a herd.

But then his thoughts returned again to Jillian—so pretty, so fresh, so sexy, so smart. He tried to think about other women—he’d run into a couple when visiting art galleries over in the coastal towns, good-looking women who had been happy to give him business cards. There were a couple of women back in Georgia who had kept in touch after his accident. There were even a couple of old girlfriends he could resurrect without much effort. He was far from rich but could easily afford a plane ticket so he could do some visiting if it was a simple matter of getting with a woman. Anything to somehow scratch this itch and put the confusion to rest.

But his brain and his body were completely tuned in to Jillian. She was a kooky little dish, that one, with her recliner and no furniture, her seed cups, getting excited over her golf cart. Then there was something about the way she could read him. I was forced out of my job, too. And now they shared confidences—his plane ticket and her job loss. He couldn’t remember ever doing that before. It was strangely alluring.

Colin wasn’t a religious man at all, but he had a powerful core faith that had strengthened since being pulled out of a Black Hawk wreck he shouldn’t have survived by fellow pilots who risked their own lives by landing and coming to his rescue. So he lectured God that it was a bad idea to put this quality female in his path because he was a little vulnerable and she seemed like a first-class woman who shouldn’t be hurt by an irresponsible wild man like him.

Wild man? That persona was now mostly in the past. He might still have the soul of a wild man, but at the moment he was just a man in need of a woman.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard the sound of horse hooves and turned to see a man riding toward him. His Jeep was still on the road outside the fence, the hatch up in back, so he rested the palette and brush on the ground and waited.

As he got closer, Colin could see the man was Native American with a feather in his cowboy hat and a long braid down his back. Colin didn’t know much about horses but he knew a pretty one when he saw it. This one was incredible; chestnut in color, young and muscular. The man rode right up to him and stopped, not dismounting but stretching out his hand from his position in the saddle. “How you doing?” he said. “I’m Clay Tahoma.”

“Colin Riordan,” he said, shaking the hand. “Am I trespassing? I didn’t see any signs.”

“There should be signs posted on the fence, but it’s no problem for you to paint here—it’s things like target practice, off-season hunting and poaching we dislike. This is a back pasture—it belongs to Dr. Nate Jensen, the vet who owns Jensen Large Animal Clinic. It’s private property, but you’re welcome here as long as it’s unoccupied. It isn’t likely we’d ever leave a difficult horse this far away from the clinic. Just be careful, that’s all. Look around first. Mind the fence. A broken-down fence can be catastrophic for us.” Clay leaned down from his horse to peer at the painting—it was the four-point buck. “Awesome,” he said. “That’s probably not paint by number.”

Colin laughed. “I got a great shot of them with the zoom,” he said, pointing at the small herd of deer in the distance.

“They’re headed for the river,” Clay said, “taking the youngsters out for a stroll. I’m a friend of Luke’s and Shelby’s—they mentioned you’d be here for a while.”

“Seems like everyone’s a friend of Luke’s and Shelby’s….”

“I think everyone is a friend of everyone else around here. I’ve only been here since last August myself.” He nodded toward the painting. “That’s beautiful work. I have a cousin who paints—Native American art. He’s now some high mucky-muck artist in Sedona, but he grew up next door to me on the reservation, Navajo Nation. Where are you showing your work?”

“I haven’t had a showing or a sale. Right now I’m just painting.”

“Lots of Native and wildlife work around Albuquerque, Sedona, Phoenix… Might be time for a road trip.”

Colin laughed. “Maybe. When I’m ready.”

“Looks like you’re ready, but what do I know.” Clay tipped his hat. “I want to check the back pastures and roads. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around again. Nice meeting you.”

“And you,” Colin said.

Colin watched as Clay rode away from him. Lots of people seemed interested in the idea that he start selling his work. They didn’t know that putting a price tag on his art wouldn’t change anything. He still wanted to get up in the air.

And he still wanted to get with Jillian Matlock.

Colin worked away for the rest of the day and managed to last until 8:00 p.m. before he headed back over to her place. He drove up alongside the house and parked. Before he even got out of the Jeep he saw her sitting on the back porch step in the dark, leaning against the post, a throw wrapped around her. She had lit a large candle and had a glass of wine in a real wineglass; Jillian was living so sparsely he was surprised she wasn’t drinking her wine out of a coffee cup. He got out and just leaned against the Jeep, looking at her.

The second their eyes connected, before either of them said anything, he sensed it. There was mutual attraction.

“I knew you’d be back, but I didn’t know it would be this soon,” she said.

“What made you think so?”

“I saw it in your eyes,” she said with a shrug. “Lust.”

“Listen, there are a couple of things on my mind,” he said, walking over to her. He sat on the same step but leaned against the opposite post, facing her. “That last boyfriend of yours—what did he do to you?”

“Not telling,” she said, shaking her head. “Maybe someday, but not now. Besides, it shouldn’t concern you.”

“It does. Is there any chance that if I’m just an idiot, I could do the same thing to you? Really mess you up bad?”

She laughed at him. “Colin, I’m surprised! You didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who really worried about that kind of thing!”

“You’re probably right about that. In my world… In the world I come from, I’d see a pretty girl and talk to her for a few minutes, get her phone number, take her someplace, get a read on her expectations and usually end up in bed. It sometimes lasted a few times or maybe a few weeks or maybe a few months. That Army post was like a small town and a guy had to be careful not to get things all stirred up. But I had no idea what a small town was until I came here.”

“Ah,” she acknowledged. “You’re worried about your reputation?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I could give a shit about what people think of me. But if you’ve got some baggage from that last boyfriend—”

“No baggage,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, that’s not entirely honest—I must have some because if he walked up the drive right now, and if I had a gun, it would be so hard not to shoot at him.”

“Now, see, getting shot is not on my list of things I’d like to do. That’s why I’m asking what he’s wanted for.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re completely safe. His behavior and insult cannot be duplicated and besides, I don’t want another boyfriend. Period.”

He leaned toward her. “But do you ever want to settle down or something? Get serious, get married, all that? Someday? Because I have other plans and I don’t want everyone in this town pissed at me, and feeling sorry for you and upset with Luke and Shelby for letting me come here.”

“I know, Colin,” she said. Jill took a sip of her wine. “The Serengeti. For the big game, for a possible extension of your flying career, for a life that’s not so tame.”

“Is it possible you really do understand?” he asked her.

“I believe I do. Besides, I’m not looking for a relationship. Don’t want one,” she said, shaking her head. “And I don’t think you do, either.”

He just shook his head.

“It would be a shame if you gave up painting, however. I don’t know much about art, but I suspect you’re exceptional.”

He scooted a little closer to her; he could feel his eyes growing hot as he looked at her. Hot and bright. “Well, that’s just it, Jilly—you know how your mentor told you to always know what you were going to do next? Painting is what I want to do next. I can’t fly forever—but I can paint for as long as I can stand up and hold a brush. But ‘next’ isn’t here yet. I can fly another twenty years. And while I fly, I should also paint and get better so that when I’m done flying, there’s more painting to do. See what I mean?”

She gave her head a nod. “Sounds perfectly reasonable, Colin. Why are you being so high-strung about it?”

“I don’t want a girlfriend,” he said flatly.

“Understandable,” she said. “I can see how that would really complicate your plans. But I get the distinct impression you want something.”

He reached out one of those long arms and toyed with her hair. “I’ve thought about you all day long. I started thinking about you before today. You and your strange little vegetables, your corporate strategy and your freckles. And other things.”