Brush Strokes (3 page)

“
Anything in
particular?”

He pressed his lips together before
releasing them. A quick glance into the owner's face proved just
how desperate the poor man was for a sale. He shouldn't begrudge
the guy for trying to provide customer service in an age when most
businesses lacked that nicety. “I, uh...” Joe blew out a breath,
shaking his head. “I don’t know. Something nice, but not too nice.
Something that’ll make someone notice me, you know?”

“
What kind of jewelry does
she like?” His eyes twinkled.

“
I don’t know, even. I
guess something unique. Something that no one else would be
wearing.” He swiped a streak through the dust and leaned closer.
“Do you have anything like that in here?”

“
Come with me, down to this
part.”

He paralleled the vendor toward the
other end of the counter where Joe hadn't yet ventured. While
seemingly impossible, the dirt of ages covered the glass, making it
seem in even worse repair than where they’d just left. Dear God,
had the man never heard of Windex?

Thanking his lucky stars for small
mercies, his eyebrows did a slow rise when the man reached into the
counter and pulled out a small velvet-lined tray. Nestled against
the wine-colored material, a dozen or so necklaces and matching
bracelets rested. These weren’t gold-plated, guaranteed to turn her
neck green, atrocities. What lay before him were well-crafted,
genuine works of art. The result of someone’s labor, someone’s
fevered creativity brought to life. And they were
perfect.

Without thinking, he reached for one
in particular. He ignored the soft brown twist of material holding
a dangling pendant. The artistry caught his eye. Copper wire
braided in intricate knots, subtly infused with some other type of
wire, some silver, some red, reflected the sunlight. When he let
the design dangle, the pendant rotated and each subtle movement
caught the light just right, changing the pendant’s initial
appearance. In one motion, it looked orange. In another, silver.
And in another, almost rainbow-like. Magical.

“
I’ll take this,” he said,
his eyes still fixated on the little bauble. Its minimalism drew
him in. He knew without a second thought it was something Tanya
would wear. He could already see its beauty around her
neck.

“
Good taste,” the man said.
He gently withdrew the necklace from Joe’s grasp and headed back to
where they’d first started. The sound of an old-fashioned cash
register rang out immediately, as if he wanted to ring up the sale
before Joe had a chance to change his mind. In any other
circumstance, it might have been laughable.

It couldn’t have taken him more than
three minutes to wrap the little thing in crepe paper that had seen
better days and call out the total purchase price, but those few
minutes were enough to make Joe doubt himself. Not so much himself,
but how Tanya would view the gift. She paid him more in an hour
than the item cost, so the amount had little to do with the growing
pit in his stomach when he thought about handing it over to
her.

What was he after really? The thought
haunted him while withdrawing cash out of his wallet to pay for it
and during the walk to her apartment. He kept his hand in his
pocket, thumbing the bundle, almost as if stroking it for
luck.

Before the massive wood
door of her place, he straightened, blew out a breath and rang the
bell.
Time to up the ante.
By hook or by crook, she’d know one way or the
other how he felt about her before the day was done.

Still, his fingers grazed
the crepe paper. He realized he’d failed to come up with a proper
presentation. He couldn’t just hold it out, say
“
here
” and hope
that would suffice. If he’d wanted to do things appropriately, he
would have asked her out to dinner and maybe…

His thoughts abruptly halted when the
door opened. As always, a cool breeze brought the odd aromatic
mixture of paint, mineral spirits and strangely, cotton, wafting
from the apartment. While he couldn’t exactly call it a comforting
smell, it never failed to remind him of her the moment it hit his
senses. This time though, some scent he didn’t recognize drifted
with it.

When she appeared in the widening
crack, he swallowed hard, his throat tightening in a rush of want
so brazen, he had to force himself to remain still. Dressed in a
wife-beater and overalls, she epitomized simple living with a trace
of bohemia. Hair pulled back in a bushy ponytail stretched her
features into something even that much more exotic. Tanya’s eyes
widened in a flash of surprise, but almost as quickly took on a
distracted quality. “Wasn’t ‘specting you today,” she said, turning
away and leaving him stupefied in her wake. All he could do was
follow her lead as she ventured further inside.

“
I should have called,” he
replied, starting to make his excuses. Three steps into the small
apartment he noticed she had a visitor. The elegant black man
dressed in a suit that must have cost more than Joe made in a month
sat cross-legged in one corner. His posh clothing and air of
superiority sent Joe’s hackles bristling almost immediately. “I’m
sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.”

“
Uh, Joe, this is Mr.
Killian.”

It bothered him like all hell that she
referred to her visitor as “mister” while Joe’s name sounded like
something she’d scraped off the bottom of her shoe. Mr. Killian
didn’t offer his hand and neither did Joe. What Mr. Killian did do,
however, was study Joe’s face with enough intensity to almost
compel him into taking a step or two back. “Joe, is it?”

“
Joe Boyd.”

“
The model.”

That he posed it as a statement rather
than a question caught Joe’s attention. He narrowed his eyes.
“Yeah.”

Mr. Killian looked toward Tanya. “Your
talent never fails to amaze me, young lady. I would have known him
for your model anywhere. The life you bring into your paintings is
astounding. All the more reason to be ready in a few
days.”

For the first time, he noticed she
stood stock-still, as if she said one word or made the tiniest
movement, she would explode into a frenzy of untamable energy. He’d
seen it happen before. A day of mania that wound through her and
refused to let go, forcing him to model for an unprecedented five
hours straight before he’d threatened to leave a yellow puddle
beneath his feet if she didn’t allow him a bathroom break. She’d
allotted him three minutes before pleading he return to his
previous position. It went on like that for almost eighteen hours
before she permitted herself to stop altogether.

“
I can’t—”

“
This is an opportunity
you’ll not want to miss,” Mr. Killian interrupted. “I need
something to show for all of the money I’ve poured into you. This
show will help me recoup some of the costs.”

“
But four days?” she
whispered.

Mr. Killian glanced around the room,
pointedly staring at a stack of paintings leaning against the wall.
“I’m sure you have something suitable in here that’s show-worthy.
Six pieces or so. I think I can ask for a substantive amount for
each one.” Without another glance at Joe, he started moving toward
the door. “Just bring by shots of which ones for my approval first,
okay?”

Tanya nodded mutely, while Mr. Killian
lowered his mouth to graze her cheek in a parting kiss. She looked
shell-shocked. Mr. Killian looked triumphant. “It’ll be fine,
Tanya. You won’t disappoint me.”

The slow way she dragged her attention
toward the auspicious paintings made clear she didn’t think it
would be fine at all. Joe studied the blanket of helplessness
shadowing her face. Mr. Killian didn’t offer any further words of
encouragement, but showed himself out, the lazy glide of his
cologne—the scent Joe hadn’t recognized before—lingering
behind.

“
Your patron, I assume?”
Joe asked softly.

“
Patron. Agent. Family
friend…It’s a complex relationship. The paintings I create while
under his philanthropy he pretty much owns. I keep twenty percent
of any sales. If it’s enough to live off of or go off on my own, I
can. He can decide to extend our contract another year if he wants
or not. He doesn’t ask much of me except for a few pieces worth
selling every once in a while.”

Despite every instinct screaming at
him to pull her into his embrace for the comfort she so obviously
needed, Joe moved to the sofa and settled himself into it, making a
concerted effort to avoid the chair Mr. Killian previously assumed.
“So he’s ready for you to show?”

Tanya scrunched her fingers
into the crown of her hair. She blew out a breath before joining
him. “
He’s
ready.
Yeah.”

“
But you’re
not.”

She turned to regard him. “Have you
ever looked at what I’ve done? The paintings of you, I
mean?”

The realization that in fact, he had
not, surprised him. “I guess not.”

She pointed toward the stack. “Go look
now. With the exception of the one on the easel now, those are of
you.”

Joe knew she had talent to spare. He’d
seen her work around the apartment, had almost memorized one small
piece of hers hanging in a small café down the block. She’d never
before displayed reticence about her craft, so the way she watched
him get up, the heat of her gaze covering him as he walked to the
stack, unnerved him.

He pulled back the closest painting,
certain to keep his fingers along the frame’s edge. The last thing
he needed to do was mar one of them with his fingerprints or some
smudge of dirt he didn’t realize he harbored.

If any doubt existed before, it wiped
clean away now. Damn, she was good. He remembered this pose. She’d
captured rays of light across his back with such precision, it made
him look almost angelic. All that was missing were a pair of lush,
down feathered wings cascading on either side of his spine. A smile
pushed up the corners of his mouth as he studied it. “What do you
call…”

Wait a minute.

He angled the painting further,
separating it from the remainder of the stack. When the view didn’t
improve, his fingers moved over the next painting in line, pulling
it away for his review. But again, almost the same sight greeted
him. He flipped through another and then another, going through the
layers of paintings with more speed, less careful about damaging
the surfaces.

Joe looked up to meet her resigned
expression. “Tanya?”

“
I know. I know. I…” She
blew out a breath, dropping her face toward the carpeted floor.
“It’s…I have good intentions.”

“
But none of these are
finished!”

She raised her eyes to his. “And
therein lies the problem with being ready for a show in four days
that could make or break my career.”

Chapter Three

One minute she stood there, the world
around her spinning out of control and in the next, dear God, in
the next, she’d been enfolded into Joe’s embrace. She had no idea
when he’d crossed the room, when her arms wrapped around his waist,
when her head settled against his chest. His heart beat a steady
rhythm beneath her ear and she had the vague thought staying right
here for the next week would be so very, very nice.

“
There’s time,” he
murmured.

Sure. For anyone else, four
days might as well have been a year, but that just wasn’t how she
rolled. And lately with her talent eluding her strokes, the
vitality she sought not appearing on canvas, she’d been stymied. By
starting a painting anew, each one had been a vague hope she’d find
that
je ne c’est quoi
just beyond her fingertips.

“
How did this happen?” he
questioned gently. “Was it really a surprise?”

She dislodged the lump in her throat.
“It’s my fault. I kept putting him off, telling him my work was
going well. When he asked to look at something, I always convinced
him it was the piece in progress and that the one I’d just finished
was off being framed. He never questioned it.” She lifted a
shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know why he always believed me,
but he did.”

Jesus and now was it ever coming back
to bite her in the ass. She tightened her arms around Joe, needing
for a few minutes more a solid foundation to hold onto. Something
stable to focus on. If she tried to think about how much shit she
was in, she’d fall apart.

He leaned back and caught her chin. As
tender as always, he tilted her face toward his. “So, we’ll get to
work today and get these finished. Right?”

“
Joe, I can’t just pick up
and finish something I’ve already started.”

“
You want to start
fresh?”

“
I have to.”

This time he blew out a defeated
breath. “Would you have time for that?”

“
No.” Her laugh immediately
afterward sounded bitter to her own ears.

He studied her face and she had the
sudden notion that she was about to have a nervous breakdown. There
was so much concern in his pretty blues that he must have been
afraid for her sanity. She knew she had some concerns of her
own.