Free Abiding Ink (Inked in the Steel City #4) by Ranae Rose Page B

attempts at deduction raced around and crashed inside his head, presenting him with one bizarre but obvious conclusion: she wanted to be tattooed at Hot Ink – maybe she already had been tattooed – but not by him. And she didn’t want him to know about it.
    The thought made him feel vaguely sick. But maybe he was wrong. Somehow, for some reason, maybe Mallory hadn’t been avoiding him on purpose. As she strode down the sidewalk, he climbed back out of his car, his heart weighing somewhere deep in his chest like an anchor. No matter what he told himself, preparing to approach her made him want to brace himself, as if a blow was coming.
    Standing on the blacktop, beside his car, his breath fogged the air in front of his face. Snowflakes pelted through the cloud that obscured his vision, allowing him to entertain hope that he’d somehow gotten things wrong, that the woman who looked like Mallory was in fact only a beautiful stranger.
    He crossed most of the distance between them in just a few strides, a consequence of being tall. Before he knew it he was close enough to speak, not shout. “Mallory?”
    She jumped like she’d been shocked, turning and nearly slipping in the fine powder of snow that had swirled across the sidewalk.
    He reached out instinctively, catching her by her upper arm, feeling the solidness of her limb beneath the downy softness of her coat sleeve. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Her eyes were wide and reflected the blue neon glow of Hot Ink’s sign, along with obvious surprise.
    “It’s okay,” she said after a moment. “I just wasn’t expecting to run into you here.”
    “Where I work?” She must’ve known he wasn’t scheduled to be in the shop that evening. The look in her eyes drove that truth home. Another nail in the coffin.
    “Yeah. I… I came here to see Abby.” She met his eyes, but her full lips turned down in a nervous little frown.
    Tyler swept his gaze over her, taking in the black yoga pants she wore beneath her coat. Stretchy and soft, they’d be gentle against freshly-tattooed skin – much better than jeans. The thin fabric wouldn’t guard much against winter’s chill, either. Certainty swept through his chest like an avalanche – she’d gone in for a tattoo. “Abby did some work for you?”
    Mallory nodded.
    Tyler tried to ignore the shard of envy that lanced through him. Choosing an artist was a personal decision, and he had no right to expect Mallory to skew her judgment or desires for his sake. Besides, all the Hot Ink artists had different styles, different specialties.
    Though he was versatile, Tyler considered black and grey work a specialty of his. Abby, on the other hand, embraced intricate color and definitely leant her work a graceful feminine touch. Mallory wouldn’t be the first female client to feel more comfortable being tattooed by another woman. He knew all this, and still…
    His inner five year old was tempted to go off and pout somewhere in a dark corner of his mind. He tried not to let that show on his face as he studied Mallory’s. “How did it go – did you finish up in one session, or will you be back?”
    “It only took one session. I’m a little sore, but the tattoo turned out even better than I expected.”
    It wasn’t the fact that Mallory hadn’t chosen to trust him to do her tattoo – it was the fact that she hadn’t mentioned it to him. “Did you not want me to know about it?” He hated playing guessing games, so he just asked. She looked so uncomfortable – it was obvious she hadn’t wanted to be caught.
    She breathed a long sigh, and her breath clouded in front of her lips, forming a misty fog. “No, to be honest I didn’t. I knew you wouldn’t be working today, and I wasn’t planning to tell you about my appointment. Not any time soon, anyway. This must seem so weird… I’m sorry if it seems like I was avoiding you. Believe me, it was nothing personal.”
    Nothing personal? His mind reeled as he tried to