Heart of the Hunter by Bj James

you’ve planned a romantic dinner just for the two of you.” Rising from her desk, like a minuscule queen of the Amazons, she crossed to Mrs. Atherton. Taking her arm firmly, she led the speechless woman to the door. “I’m sure you understand that we need to close a tad early today.”
    â€œNo, I don’t.” Unaccustomed to such cavalier treatment, the self-acclaimed savant of the arts struggled to remove her arm from Annabelle’s grasp, but discovered the pudgy hand gripped like a vice.
    â€œOf course you don’t mind.” Annabelle cut short her protest. “I’m sure you realize as well as I how impatient young lovers can be.”
    â€œYoung lovers?” The covert struggle ceased, avid eyes stared at Nicole and Jeb over Annabelle’s shoulder.
    â€œYes, indeedy, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?” The gallery door was open. The pressure of Annabelle’s hand had to be bruising as she stepped into the street with Mrs. Atherton. “ Do come to see us again, soon. Surely by then we’ll have something you’ll like as well as Ashley’s paintings.”
    One step back, a hearty shove of the door and the newest Amazon turned to face them. “There now.” She dusted her hands on her skirt as if the touch of Mrs. Atherton left them soiled. “As of this minute, we are officially closed.”
    â€œAnnabelle,” Nicole managed to utter, “do you know what you just did?”
    â€œIndeed, I do. Exactly what I’ve always wanted to do—throw the old battle-ax out.”
    â€œBravo!” Jeb clapped his hands.
    â€œAnd you!” Nicole rounded on him. “Do you know what you’ve just done?”
    â€œIndeed, I do.” Jeb rested one hip on the edge of Annabelle’s desk as he brushed a wisp of ebony from Nicole’s temple. “I just saved the old battle-ax’s life. I don’t believe she realized how close you were to losing your temper.”
    â€œI might get angry, but I don’t lose my temper,” Nicole said through clenched teeth.
    â€œNo, I’m sure you don’t. It isn’t allowed, is it? That’s why you have nights like last night, when you’re wound so tight.”
    â€œI wasn’t wound tight.” She dodged away from him.
    Jeb chuckled. “No, I don’t suppose you were.” Undeterred by her abrupt move, he stroked her hair. A not so subtle reminder that he’d done the same in the moonlight on a deck overlooking the sea. “Just tight.”
    Nicole caught his wrist, her fingers closing like handcuffs over the tanned flesh. “I was not tight then, I’m not angry now.”
    â€œYou’re not angry.” Jeb agreed conversationally.
    â€œNo, I’m not angry.”
    â€œHey! Who’s arguing?” Her hands still circled his wrists, he left them there. “Then it’s settled, you’re going to dinner with me.”
    Nicole released her grasp as if his touch burned and backed away. “I will not go to dinner with you.”
    â€œThen you’re angry with me.”
    â€œI am not.”
    Jeb grinned, propped one foot over the other, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then, sweetheart, tell me why.”
    â€œBecause.”
    â€œBecause, why?”
    â€œBecause I have work to do.”
    â€œName it.”
    â€œI have to close the gallery.”
    â€œAnnabelle just did that.”
    â€œI certainly did,” Annabelle murmured from her vantage point by the door.
    â€œAnything else, Nicky?” Jeb asked.
    â€œThere are new paintings to catalog.”
    â€œI can do that,” Annabelle piped in.
    â€œI have some packages to ready for shipping.”
    â€œThat, too.”
    â€œAnnabelle.” Nicole turned to her assistant. “You need to get home to your husband. He must be disturbed with the long hours we’ve been working.”
    â€œNo, I don’t, Harry