Page 25 of Iron Cross

“Anna Jones,” he said with a slight nod. “I’m Aaron Jackson. Our initials match.”

“Oh, yeah…” I said, politely smiling. “Crazy.”

It wasn’t crazy. If anything, it was the most statistically common set of initials in the United States. But that wasn’t important right now.

“Are these your paintings?” he said, gesturing to the canvases.

Of course they were my paintings.

The guy wasn’t exactly the sharpest razor, was he? Or maybe I just despised small talk.

I gave him a tight-lipped smile and nodded.

“That’s charming!” he said, with a smile, bending down at his slender waist to look at them, his hands in his jeans. “You sureare talented. These paintings are…” He let out a low whistle. “Really amazing.”

They all said that.

The word my husband would have used for these people was…dilettante.

“This one’s nice.” He took a knee by a canvas that I had leaned against the table. “How much?”

I felt a chill run down my spine.

“That’s not for sale.” I don’t know why I said it.

The idea of this man havingthispainting was… offensive. Which was ridiculous because I had put it out here to sell! I painted it in a daze, trying to channel something that Eoghan would make, and Hayez’sThe Kisswas apparently what I came up with. Just as he had drawn me as Titania, I drew us as a medieval couple, surrounded by danger and sadness.

Me and my monster, as he forced a kiss on my eager lips.

“Isn’t it?” he said, tapping on a small price tag sticker that was on the corner. “Says it’s going for $150. I’d pay that.”

What? To put in the library you obviously don’t own?

Maybe I was being too harsh and judging a book by its cover, but there was nothing about his flannel and jeans that made me think that he was into classical art, so he couldn’t even begin to understand what I was trying to do with this Hayez knock-off. And on the off chance he did… then that was entirely too personal.

The idea ofthisman putting it in his home seemed almost pornographic.

“Sorry, that’s a mistake.” I reached down for the tag and ripped it off. “Not for sale.”

“That’s too bad.” Aaron Jackson stood up, and looked at me with a lopsided grin. “I really like that painting.”

I took it off the easel, but my gloves slipped and it fell. I gasped, as I knew it would fall into the snow outside my kiosk, and the water and salt would damage the paint, and…

“There you go.” Aaron Jackson smiled, catching it in mid-air before it touched the ground. “Wouldn’t want something as good as that to get damaged.”

He held it in front of him with a grin on his face.

“You sure I can’t convince you to part with it?” he asked, as he handed it back to me, the large thing almost using up his whole wingspan.

I shook my head as I took it back from him, my heart beating out of my chest.

“Are you sure?” he asked, when I said nothing, my mouth open as I stared.

There was nothing in the world I wanted to domorethan to give this man what he wanted.

What the hell was I thinking?

That was the charm of handsome men, wasn’t it? They can make you do things with a wink and a smile that you wouldn’t do for anyone else at gunpoint?

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