Every
memory leaves its mark.
All Sophie wants is a tattoo to commemorate her battle with cancer. What she gets is celebrity tattoo artist Declan Ross, the same sexy bad-boy who, once-upon-a-time, used to rock her world.
With his hit television show on hiatus, Declan is back in the Big Easy. A charity event at Midnight Ink, the shop where he got his start, seems like the perfect opportunity to use his celebrity status to publicize a good cause…and just maybe improve his own image in the process. The last thing he’s expecting, or thinks he needs, is a chance meeting with the girl he left behind.
Last time they were together, Declan was the one who was damaged. This time, they’ve both got scars; and those you can’t see are the hardest to cover.
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* * * *
“Okay. You’re all
set.” Declan smoothed a final piece of tape into place, securing a layer of
plastic wrap over the tattoo he’d just finished—his last of the day.
The pretty blonde
who was his latest client slowly sat up on the padded table, her T-shirt
clasped against her chest. “Thank you,” she said as she gingerly slipped the shirt
over her head and then tugged her clothes back into place. “It’s beautiful.”
Declan nodded. “I
told you it would be.” He’d designed the tattoo—an abstract, deconstructed
peacock—to follow the lines of her body. It flowed along her curves, from
shoulder to hip, in a sinuous cascade of perfect, paisley-shaped feathers. “I’m
glad you like it.”
It bore only the
slightest resemblance to the tattoo she’d thought she was getting when she’d
come in today—and a damn good thing too. The pictures she’d sent in as examples
of what she was looking to get had been boring and uninteresting and didn’t
really work with his style. They were too simple, too small, and would have
required entirely too much line work. Plus, she wanted it across her lower back,
which was totally the wrong placement for something like this.
Declan took his
craft seriously. The watercolor-style tattoos for which he was becoming well known
always looked better on a larger canvas. It hadn’t taken much to convince her
of that and to make her see the wisdom of letting him give her what he wanted.
Plenty of artists
would have been all too happy to give her just another, generic-looking tattoo,
but she’d come to him. It would be
nice to think she’d come for his eye, his talent, his artistry, for all the
experience he brought to the table. In all likelihood, however, what she’d come
for the Declan Ross she thought she knew from TV.
Luckily for him, that Declan didn’t do run-of-the-mill ho
tags either.
“Now be sure and read
over this sheet,” Declan instructed as he handed her the page he’d had printed
detailing his personal aftercare suggestions. “It’s got a lot of important
information. You’ll want to keep it covered for the first couple of hours, but
that’s all. After that, you’ll want to
rinse it off, pat it dry and leave it uncovered as much as possible while it’s
healing. You’ll also want to stop on your way home and pick up some calendula
cream. I know you’ll hear otherwise, but trust me; you really want to steer
clear of petroleum-based products, scented-lotions and especially sunscreen.”
“Calendula cream,”
she repeated dutifully, as though she had no idea what he was talking about. She
probably didn’t.
“Or coconut oil.
That’s good too, but I don’t know if you can find organic around here. If not,
you’re really better off sticking with the calendula.”
“Okay.” She nodded
for a moment, still seated on the edge of the table, gazing at him expectantly,
making no move to leave.
Declan clapped his
hands together. “Okay. Good. So. Any last questions for me?”
“Yes.” Immediately,
she thrust the paper back at him. “Can I get your autograph?”
Declan pretended not
to notice the rolled eyes, the faked coughs, the snorts of derisive laughter
the other artists tried to muffle. Bastards. They were just jealous because no
one was asking for theirs. “Sure thing,” he said as he forced a smile. He
grabbed a marker off the closest counter and then paused. “Who should I make it
out to?”
“Oh, it’s for me.”
Declan waited.
“Make it out to
Chrissy.”
“Chrissy. Right.”
He hurriedly scrawled his name, added a couple of platitudes, and then handed
the paper back to her. “But, seriously, Chrissy, I need you to follow the
instructions on this. All right? They’re important.” It really annoyed him when
clients failed to care for their tattoos. He did good work, but once someone
left his chair, he had no control over what happened. He hated when a good tat
got messed up because some dumbass didn’t follow directions. “C’mon.” He held
out his hand to help the girl down from the table. “Let me walk you out.”
He hadn’t taken
more than a few steps before Shep Montgomery looked up from the sleeve he was
working on and called out to him, “Hey, Ross.”
“Yeah?” Declan
turned his head and warily eyed his former mentor. It’s not like he wasn’t used
to it by now, but it was rarely a good sign when someone addressed him by his
last name.
“I don’t know what you’ve gotten used to out
there in Hollywood, but around here, we still have to clean up after
ourselves.”
“Really?” The
words were out before Declan could stop himself. “’Cause that’s not how I
remember it.”
He cast an
involuntary glance around the shop, taking it all in; the brick walls, the
stainless steel, the sinks, the counters, the padded black vinyl, the red and
black paint, the gaudy gold trim. He loved tattoo shops. He loved everything
about them—the smells, the sounds, the artwork on the walls, the funky, edgy
vibe they invariably gave off. But he did not especially love cleaning them.
And, the way he recalled it, back when he’d first come to work at Midnight
Ink—back when the legendary Henry Lee Cairn still owned the shop and Declan was
just a fiery-eyed, tattoo artist wannabe and Shep’s lowly apprentice—that’s
mostly what he’d done.
Even after he’d
progressed to the point where he was allowed to set up his own station and tattoo
on his own, without supervision, as low man on the totem pole, he’d still had
to clean up after himself and everyone
else. Not to mention cover for the receptionist on her days off. Good
times—not.
One thing he had
absolutely not come back to New
Orleans to do was to pick up where he’d left off. He was here to help publicize
a good cause. One of the charities that would benefit from the New Year’s Eve
tattoo-a-palooza was his own pet cause, the Wounded Warriors Project. His
father had been in the military. He’d come back from the first Gulf War with
PTSD and killed himself when Declan was just a kid. Whatever Declan could do to
help other kids from having to go through what he’d gone through, he’d do it.
No questions. Not even when it meant having to put up with a certain amount of
crap from his co-workers. His former
co-workers.
“Anyway, it’s
Oakland, all right? Not Hollywood. And relax. I’m not gone for the day. I’ll
take care of it before I leave.”
Shep nodded. “A’ight.
See that you do. And don’t leave it too long either.”
On the other hand,
there was a limit to how much crap
Declan was willing to take. “Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Montgomery. I will jump on that right away.” He flipped him off with a
muttered, “And you can jump on this.”
An excited giggle
at his shoulder recalled Declan’s attention.
Chrissy looked
fascinated. No. Worse. She looked freaking turned on. So this was what she’d come here for, bratty Declan, the artist
everyone loved to hate—especially the other artists. Fan-fucking-tastic. He
could just imagine her hauling out her cell phone the minute she hit the
banquette, getting her girlfriends on the line so she could tell them all how, it was so awesome! Omigod, you guys, it was just like being on an
episode of Inked in O-Town!
All the thoughts
he’d been entertaining while he’d tattooed her, of asking her if she wanted to
meet up with him later for a drink, of inviting her back to his hotel room
after that, were forgotten. There was no way he was tapping that.
Still, as his
agent never tired of reminding him, giving the audience what they wanted was as
big a part of his job now as the actual tattoos. So he flashed her a wink and
his trademark smirk, then guided her as quickly as possible toward the front of
the shop. Celebrity Declan would just have to suck it up; he’d have to live
with not getting laid for one more night.
He supposed he shouldn’t
really resent all the crap that came along with his success. He’d known what he
was letting himself in for when he signed on to play a jerkified version of
himself on television. Or, as his last girlfriend had preferred to put it,
someone who was maybe just a little bit more of a jerk on camera than he was
in real life. But who cared what she thought? He made good money doing what he
did and she sure hadn’t complained when he was spending most of it on her.
Last he heard,
Tonya had moved to LA and was dating some kind of football player. So how much sensitivity
and self-awareness could she really have been looking for in a guy anyway?
As long as it
continued to bring in the Benjamins, he guessed he’d just keep playing himself for
as many seasons as they’d let him. Being loud, rude, and obnoxious sure hadn’t
hurt his reputation as an artist any—or his bank account, for that matter.
These days, he was busier than he’d ever been.
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