The Art Lover

By Maggie Wells

Starving artist Kelsey Tecato takes being The Templeton Museum's artist in residence a little too literally. By day, she puts on a show of painting for the crowds that shuffle through the galleries, but at night, her muse runs wild.

Mitch Jameson is a guy's guy. A cop moonlighting as a security guard, he has little use for the artsy-fartsy stuff, but the mysterious Ms. Tecato's sexy portraits call to him.

So does an interior alarm.

When Officer Jameson goes to investigate, he finds a paint-splattered goddess working on a self-portrait--in the nude.

A couple tubes of paint and a roll in the drop cloths later, free-spirited Kelsey helps Officer Jameson discover his passion for art.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maggie Wells
• Release date: Nov 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311366313

Maggie Wells

Maggie Wells is a deep-down dirty girl with a weakness for hot heroes and happy endings. By day she is buried in spreadsheets, but at night she pens tales of people tangling up the sheets. The product of a charming rogue and a shameless flirt, this mild-mannered married lady has a naughty streak a mile wide.

Book preview

The Art Lover

By

Maggie Wells

http://Maggie-Wells.com

The Art Lover

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2012, Maggie Wells / Margaret Ethridge

Edited by The.Write.Stuff and Renèe Phillips

Cover Art Design by Covers by Ramona

Originally released as Portrait of Passion, October 2012

Re-released as The Art Lover, January 2014

http://maggie-wells.com/

All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form is illegal without written permission of the author, Margaret Ethridge.

This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author's imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

The Art Lover

To My Readers

The Art Lover

Starving artist Kelsey Tecato takes being The Templeton Museum’s artist in residence a little too literally. By day, she puts on a show of painting for the crowds that shuffle through the galleries, but at night, her muse runs wild.

Mitch Jameson is a guy’s guy. A cop moonlighting as a security guard, he has little use for the artsy-fartsy stuff, but the mysterious Ms. Tecato’s sexy portraits call to him.

So does an interior alarm.

When Officer Jameson goes to investigate, he finds a paint-splattered goddess working on a self-portrait—in the nude.

A couple tubes of paint and a roll in the drop cloths later, free-spirited Kelsey helps Officer Jameson discover his passion for art.

Leonard Melman, full-time actuary and part-time sadistic serial killer, had just strapped Misty Kensington, the beautiful, feisty underwriter he’d snatched from the company parking garage, to a stainless steel table in the basement of his mother’s Victorian home when the red light started flashing.

Mitch Jameson dropped his feet to the floor and planted the paperback he was reading face-down on the desk. The abrupt movement knocked the bag of Red Hots he’d been systematically decimating and sent candies flying under the console. An annoyed frown tugged at his brow, but worry quickly overrode it. This was his third weekend moonlighting as overnight security for the Templeton Museum and the first time anything other than his own snoring had interrupted his reading.

He stared at the building layout displayed on the screen. The beacon looked to be a secondary alarm, which was a relief. Only the primary alarms paired to the actual artwork, windows, and exterior entrances triggered an automatic call to the police. Mitch didn’t want any of his fellow officers to know that he’d been picking up an extra paycheck at a museum.

Bouncing people out of bars or working security at local sporting events were more socially acceptable side jobs for a cop under thirty-five. They generally left the quiet desk jobs to the guys closer to retirement age. But when his godfather and mentor suffered a mild heart attack a month ago, Mitch offered to cover the museum gig until Bert was back on his feet.

The truth was, flashing red light or not, he was