Free That Magic Mischief by Susan Conley Page B

bicep, that clung so evocatively to a strong male shoulder?
    She cut her eyes up to the face that was smiling down at her. Green eyes, tousled auburn hair, and a dimple in the cheek greeted her discomfited gaze. Her apparent chagrin only increased the blinding quality of his grin.
    He shrugged. “Thought it might give you something more interesting to listen to.”
    Annabelle rewound, the screech of the tape covering her increasing … What? Her increasing what?
So what,
she thought,
cute guy, with an accent, nice shirt, dime a dozen — is my hand shaking?
    She played it back, and grimaced as his voice came on. “Your Liza Minelli needs work,” she … teased?
What? Am I teasing? What am I doing?
    “Ah, now, no need to pander to the ego,” he rejoined, and bumped her shoulder with his.
    Which she ignored, because she got a look at what was spread before
him
on the table. “Is that — ” she gasped for air. “What is that, that … mess?” She looked up at him —
Up? Was he
tall
on top of everything else? Wait, what
‘else’?
    And Jamie Flynn’s first good look at Annabelle Walsh involved two very wide, very outraged, and very, very blue eyes.
    “What, my gear?” He looked down at his pencils, colored and otherwise, the sheets of slightly crumpled paper, the pad that had long since lost its cover, the edges of the pages curling willy nilly, the squashed tubes of gouache, the battered brushes, and the large and a blackened wad of kneaded eraser.
    “It’s a mess!” Annabelle squeaked, and had to sit on her hands to resist smoothing the papers, lining up the brushes, and squeezing the bottom of each and every tube of paint until they were uniformly ready to dispense color evenly and manageably. “Is that how you treat your tools?”
    “Now that’s a kinda personal question.”
    Annabelle grimaced. “And was that supposed to be Mae West?”
    “Are you keeping your sense of humor packed away somewhere in that unimaginatively orderly rucksack?” He gestured with a chewed-up charcoal pencil, a look of equal distaste on his face.
    “This, if you must know, is the way a professional keeps on her toes when on location, when the number of variables that would impede a successful transcription of events naturally increase a thousand-fold.” Annabelle pretended to tend to her laptop, even though it was already well tended.
    “Calm yourself, missus, I’m only joking you.” He reached into a brown paper bag (Annabelle actually closed her eyes) and tossed some more arty implements down on the pile. “You really shouldn’t scold strange men about their tools.”
    Annabelle turned and tried to keep her eyes off the growing pile of disorganized stuff that was spreading all over the floor like a virus. “Hmmm,” she said, changing the subject. “Irish.”
    “Hmmm,” he said. “Indeed.”
    Kelli came meandering by, a bit breathless, as usual. “We’re just now about to start, ya’ll. So exciting. Oh, have you two met? Annabelle Walsh, Jamie Flynn. Jamie, Annabelle.”
    “Sort of,” said Annabelle, cutting her eyes at him.
    “She’s been criticizing my tools,” Jamie said, cutting his eyes right back.
    “Isn’t that
fiiiiine
,” Kelli murmured, absently, and meandered away again.
    Jamie looked at Annabelle and laughed, and she felt a weird little thrill, something that reminded her of something else that she couldn’t put her finger on. This thrill was located somewhere in her belly, and it rolled around as if she’d unexpectedly swallowed a goldfish. She immediately felt self-conscious, and began to move things around in front of her. Was she flustered, or something? She was definitely nervous all of a sudden, the gleam in Jamie’s eye triggering something kind of simple and kind of complicated at the same time. She grabbed her wine glass.
    “So, you’re the playwright?” Jamie shifted in his chair to fully face Annabelle. Maria Grazia, who had been meditating over a glass of truly fine