That Magic Mischief by Susan Conley

Bordeaux, perked up, curious.
    “God, no!” Annabelle booted up Word. “I’m a writer, but I think in this instance, I’m more of a scribe.”
    “I’ve got some parchment in here if you’d rather go the medieval route — ”
    “Don’t! Don’t take anything else out of that bag!”
    Jamie laughed again. “I don’t need to take my show on the road, generally, as it were.”
    “Aren’t you the set designer, or something?”
    “Uh, no. Doing Kelli a favor … ”
    “You and everybody else,” Annabelle muttered into her wine.
    “’She made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.’”
    “Excellently rendered Robert Redford — ”
    “Ah, now. You’re just winding me up.”
    “So, what do you do?” Annabelle twirled her wine glass — and then made herself stop.
Just a question,
she thought
. Not flirting.
    “I’m a painter,” Jamie replied. “Well, you know. I paint, not so much selling yet, but some. I restore things, paintings, painted furniture, and the like. So I’m a restorer-slash-painter.”
    “Slashed, huh? So you must be living here for a while.”
    “A good few years, almost six and a half.”
    Any continuing banter was interrupted by Kelli’s suddenly business-like voice delivering her spiel. Annabelle listened with half an ear, aware of the guy beside her, aware of Maria Grazia signaling her from her end of the table. MG spun her butter knife around to point in The Irish Guy’s direction.
    Annabelle shrugged her right shoulder a fraction.
So?
    Maria Grazia tucked a curl behind her right ear and tilted up her chin.
So who is he?
    Some guy
. Annabelle flicked her fingers dismissively.
    Maria Grazia blinked slowly.
Hot.
    Annabelle took up her pen and began to make nonsensical notes.
Stop it.
    MG smiled into her wine, but stopped it.
    The pitch — which wasn’t really necessary, they all could use the abundant funds Kelli was sending their way — was brief, ardently attended by the dancer types, who were painfully sincere, and somewhat less zealously heeded by those who felt shanghaied. Annabelle snuck a look at her watch, energy flagging, that dragging feeling of sadness and emptiness threatening to swell —
    “Sorry?” Annabelle looked up as Jamie’s elbow nudged her side. “Yes?”
    Kelli smiled brightly, a sure sign she was peeved. “I was just sayin’, sugar, that this was where you come in! We need words, words that encapsulate the essence of the work. Beautiful words. Unique words. Nouns. Verbs. Adjectives.”
    They all looked expectantly at Annabelle, Jamie managing to mug at her with only half his face.
    “Uh. Sure. Can you give me an idea of what you’re looking for?”
Good bluff.
    “Nice one,” Jamie whispered, finding himself having to resist reaching out to flick her blushing cheek playfully.
    Kelli took a deep breath. The dancers joined her as one, with hands clasped at their hearts. “Scallop. Waft. Bedazzle.”
    Jesus
. Annabelle dutifully typed them into the blank document as the dancers cooed. “Got it,” she said, and stifled a sigh.
    “Wonderful!” Kelli enthused, and called a halt to the proceedings.
    “Need some help?” Jamie leaned in again as Annabelle shut everything down. “Let’s see. Gallop. Shoelace. Noodle — ” As she laughed up at him, the first true smile he’d seen on her face, he added a few to himself:
Gorgeous. Bright. Sexy …
    Annabelle tidily returned everything to its place in her bag, and tried to keep her itching fingers away from Jamie’s brushes. Surely she had some zip-close plastic bags on her; she rarely went anywhere without them, and she could casually offer to show him how easy it would be to scoop up the tubes of paint and put them in the —
    “I see I was a bit too hard on ya.”
    Annabelle broke out of her reverie. “Huh?”
    Jamie pointed at her bag. “That. It’s a nice touch.”
    Annabelle glanced down at her bag. Tucked into a corner as if it was meant to be there was one of the blossoms off the mystery