An Artist in Her Basement

Chapter ONE

CHAPTER ONE

.

Sarah looked through the peephole and stepped away from the door with her hand over her heart.

She had recently viewed the movie, Son of God. That Jesus looked nothing like what she had once heard a preacher describe as "plain and unassuming." The latest movie Jesus was anything but that.

Instead, he was a beautiful Portuguese actor with deep set, intelligent eyes, and a sand-colored mustache connected by a goatee that shrouded perfectly shaped lips and sparkling straight teeth.

This latest version of Jesus looked as though he'd be as comfortable reciting provocative poetry inside a dive coffee shop full of swooning women as he would be preaching the Sermon on the Mount.

What was he doing at her front door?

Sarah was reluctant to open it, but did so anyway. They sized one another up through the locked storm glass door. The glass provided her enough of a barrier to satisfy the awkwardness she felt as she studied the stranger. She hoped her expression hid the fact that she found him perfect. Like a man created directly by God's own hands. A specimen. A fine and perfect specimen of a man standing on her porch.

This didn't make any sense. Was someone making a movie in Mansfield? Was this hunky actor lost? Was he looking for the movie set? Sarah thought about this. The movie I've heard nothing about?

Or was he an out-of-towner up to no good? He didn't look like a killer. He didn't have wild or suspicious or calculating eyes. His eyes were beautiful, lovely even, like an oasis whose very presence made it impossible for a thirsty girl to not jump in and drink. Sarah felt herself gazing and blinked hard to stop her mind from racing. He could still be up to no good. She admitted that her ex-husband had proven that some scoundrels came looking good.

The man was wearing a brown bomber jacket. Thick hair landed in waves on the man's shoulders. Hair that would look just as lovely on a woman. But this man was a long ways away from any woman Sarah had ever met. First of all, he was tall. Well over six-feet tall. Sarah tried to look behind his broad shoulders to see if he was alone. His height and mass made it difficult to see that the only thing behind the man was a large brown pickup truck. Both equally as impressive as the other, but for obviously different reasons. The truck was made of metal and steel, top of the line. The man was made of flesh and blood-beautiful. Sarah's image of God's top of the line.

The man's eyes followed the direction to where Sarah looked. "Expecting someone?" he asked.

Sarah blinked. "Yes, I am. Who are you?"

"I'm Adrian, your new tenant."

Sarah stood still for a moment. This could not be her new tenant. She curled her toes. As if curling them could hide the fact that she was fat-that she thought she was fat. This was so unfair. "Adrian," she hummed. "Are you kidding me?"

"Nope."

Sarah's hand reached for the storm door and unlocked it before her mind could protest.

The man stepped inside and locked the glass door behind himself.

The gesture made her uncomfortable, and her eyes must have said as much.

"Just a habit of mine," he said.

If he was going to assault her, now would be a good time. Just as soon die at the hands of a pretty man than an ugly one. She would fight him. Trey hadn't stolen all of her fight. "I thought you were a woman."

"Apparently not." He grinned.

Was that sarcasm she heard? Sarah turned her back on the man and began walking towards the back of the house. Her head shaking the whole time at the turn of events. Better still, at the change of her tenant's gender.

He followed without invitation. "You didn't ask. Nor did you specify a gender when you posted the ad."

"I didn't?" The words tossed over her shoulder and fell flat against the broad-shouldered man walking behind her. She might have been hurt and had sworn off men since her divorce, but she wasn't blind or void of the involuntary impulses a woman feels when confronted with a good-looking man. Adrian had arrived earlier than she'd expected, but that would not have been a problem if Adrian had been a woman. Her self-consciousness directed her every thought and action. Her tight brown t-shirt, which a few minutes earlier had been perfectly fine, suddenly felt like the proverbial wife-beaters. Her underarm fat suddenly felt like it bled over the t-shirt's underarm.

Sarah turned towards Adrian, clasping her arms close to her sides. She then laced her fingers together, hoping to hide her belly. A non-medical person would not describe her as fat. However, medical charts placed her in the large category. At five-feet-nine, Sarah looked strong and solid. She had broad shoulders, a firm derriere, and a tummy she endured in continual battle. Like many women, she scuffled with poor self-body image. It hadn't been celebrated enough. But she'd been abundantly endowed in the area made for feeding babies, if she could have them. Her ex-husband told her that counted for something. Yet that didn't stop Trey from cheating on her with a far less endowed woman.

Sarah didn't know why she'd led Adrian into the kitchen instead of talking to him in the living room. It would have been so much easier to tell him close to the front door that a terrible mistake had been made and that he needed to find another place to stay. Instead, she led him into the kitchen which had a side door that led to the basement. He'd already paid and signed the six-month lease. She'd called his references and everything checked out; everything except discovering that he was a he instead of a she.

Sarah reflected on the conversations she had with several of Adrian's references. They had said things like, Adrian was one of the nicest people they had ever met, or Adrian was a very responsible person. Not once did any of them mention the fact that Adrian was a man. Where she was from, people were referred to as either a man or a woman. She felt herself getting perturbed.

Sarah grabbed the keys from the hook on the wall and handed them to Adrian. "We can enter the basement from this door. But there's a back entrance. I keep this door locked."

"And right you should," he said in a deep voice that pulsed beneath her skin. Adrian followed close behind Sarah down the steps. Unlike her ex-husband, he didn't smell like fancy store bought cologne. He smelled like leather mixed with the cool outdoors. Sarah had a keen sense of smell and swore she smelled mint flavored Listerine.

"Well, here it is," she said.

"Looks just like it did online. This is going to do fine."

Sarah ran her hands up and down her arms. "It's cold down here. The heat is off, but it works."

He smiled.

She stuttered for something more to say. Her eyes flashed to the door leading out to the driveway. She pointed, "Let me show you outside." Sarah led the way and stepped out onto the cold, concrete pad in her bare feet. Her toes curled. It wasn't cold, but too cold to be outside barefoot. She stepped back inside, but remained close to the open door letting Adrian pass her by. His jacket touched her so lightly that she wasn't sure it really happed. Nonetheless, she was affected.