Country Roads (10 page)

Julia was glad he couldn’t see her blush. “You know what I meant. Whisper horses.” Even though her comment had been innocent, it wasn’t far from the truth. She would meet him halfway if he decided to lean across the gearshift and kiss her.

“The owner of Healing Springs Stables, Sharon Sydenstricker…” His voice held a husky rasp, and he paused to clear it. “Sharon, who is the most grounded human being in most ways, has this strange idea that every person has a special horse. Once you find this special horse, you will be overwhelmed by the desire to whisper all your troubles in its ear. Said whisper horse will then help you solve all your problems. And everyone lives happily ever after. In Claire and Tim’s case, anyway.”

“I don’t think that’s such a strange idea. Horses are very good listeners. You can tell what the horse is feeling just by the angle of its ears.”

“I don’t discount the effectiveness of talking out your problems. That’s part of the reason why people love their dogs and their cats and their birds, and even their lawyers.” His tone was wry on the last phrase. “However, Sharon thinks there’s one particular horse for each person, and the horse actually helps fix things.”

“I’m still willing to go along with the concept because I think it might work psychologically. What about Claire’s whisper horse?”

“Claire decided her whisper horse was Willow, a very sick, abused mare who Sharon rescued from a racetrack. Tim was the horse’s vet. When Claire was about to leave Sanctuary for good, Willow took a turn for the worse. That forced Claire to stay long enough for Tim to realize what a fool he was to let her go.”

“And after that you still don’t believe in whisper horses?”

He took his eyes off the road long enough to throw her a sharp look. “Tim would have come to his senses and gone after her.”

She sensed a tension in Paul’s mood, so she shifted away from the subject of Claire and Tim’s love story. “So I guess you don’t have a whisper horse?”

He shook his head emphatically.

“Do you know how to ride?”

“I can walk, trot, and canter, but I prefer mechanical horsepower.” He patted the car’s dashboard. “Sorry we all overreacted when you mentioned you couldn’t ride.”

“It’s not a big deal.” That was true, as long as she knew they liked her paintings. She figured they would overlook her other shortcomings, especially if she didn’t tell them about the biggest one. “I started drawing horses because I couldn’t ride them, as sort of a compensation for disappointing Papi. He’s a great horseman.”

“I’d say you’d overcompensated,” Paul said.

She didn’t understand why, but his appreciation of her work meant even more to her than Claire’s. Maybe it was because he claimed not to like art, yet his desire to own one of her
Night Mares
had been genuine. She felt like her pictures had changed him in a small way. “You know, I was about to stop painting.”

“What!” The car jolted onto the shoulder before he pulled it back onto the asphalt.

“I didn’t want to.” That was an understatement since art was the only thing she knew how to do. “But I couldn’t go back to my old style, and my uncle was telling me not to go forward. So I was stuck.”

She felt again the cold, damp suck of the abyss she had stared down into when she thought she would have to give up her work. It was worse than any seizure she’d had.

“Don’t ever let another person stop you from doing what you love!” Paul said. “Ever!”

“Okay.” Julia didn’t know what else to say in the face of such vehemence. “I won’t. Ever.”

“Sorry for the outburst,” Paul said.

“Don’t apologize. It’s good advice,” she said, as she tried to read his face. The country road had no streetlights, and the dashboard’s glow was too muted to illuminate his features. Still she got the sense his reaction came from his own experience, not in response to hers. Who had stopped him from doing what he loved?

Julia was drifting in a hazily pleasant dream when a deep male voice came from just beside her ear. “Julia, we’re here. Wake up.” She didn’t quite recognize it, but she liked the sound.

“I don’t want to wake up. This is too nice a dream.”

Something warm and with an intriguing texture of smooth over hard brushed her cheek as the voice came again. “Julia, we’re at the inn.”

The inn?
Surprise made her open her eyes to see the square white columns of the Traveller Inn. Memory flooded back, and she turned her head to find Paul leaning across the gearshift, his hand poised in the air. He must have run the back of it over her cheek.

The porch light spilled down across the lawn, throwing shadows into all the hollows of his face. She couldn’t take her eyes off his lips. They were so close and so perfectly masculine. She wanted to shift her head far enough to touch them with her own mouth, but nerves froze her in her seat.

She forced herself to lift her gaze to his and nearly gasped. His eyes were locked on
her
lips and his intent was crystal clear.

She waited, hoping he would close the distance between them.

He touched her hair, threading his fingers into the strands over her ear, as he leaned closer. She let her eyelids close.

She heard a strangled sound before her hair was released. Stunned, she opened her eyes to watch him leap out of the car and walk around the long hood.

He sidestepped as she shoved the door open. “I guess you’re awake now,” he said as she got out on her own. “I was going to give you an arm to lean on.”

She’d blown it again. If she’d sat still, she’d have his arm wrapped around her, and maybe that would have led to other things. She thought fast. “I’ll take the arm anyway. I’m not used to drinking that much wine.” She wobbled slightly as she stood.

His arm came around her waist like a warm band of steel. She savored the scent of starch and citrus and man as they climbed the steps to the front porch in slow unison.

He used his free hand to swing the screen door wide and walk her through into the lobby. When she saw a woman sitting behind the reception desk, she reluctantly straightened and stepped out of Paul’s encircling arm. She didn’t want to start any gossip. A lot of people thought artists had shaky morals.

The clerk, a middle-aged woman with permed brown hair, looked up. “Evening, Ms. Castillo. Paul, good to see you. I hope you had a nice time out.”

“Can’t complain, Irene,” Paul said.

Julia started toward the staircase, expecting Paul to follow.

“I’ll pick you up at one tomorrow and take you to the stable,” he said, still standing by the desk. “Good night.”

Disappointment flooded her. There would be no good-night kiss at her door. “I…thank you. For driving me. And everything else.”

He lifted a hand in acknowledgment and walked toward the door.

Julia trudged up the first four steps before she remembered there was a window in the second-floor corridor that looked out onto the front parking lot. She bolted up the rest of the steps and across the hallway. Sidling up to the curtains hanging on the side of the arched casement, she peered downward.

Paul had just reached the edge of the parking lot, ambling along with his hands thrust in his pockets and his head down. The yellowish light made his shirt glow cream and his hair pick up glints of amber. He arrived beside the Corvette and stopped, then pivoted to look back at the inn. Even though he didn’t look up, she found herself shrinking back behind the curtain.

He pulled one hand out of his pocket and ran it through his hair in a gesture of indecision. She held her breath. Then he shook his head, and the ’Vette’s headlights flashed on as he unlocked the door. He inserted himself into the car and left the lot with a brief squeal of tires.

Back in her room, she paced around the living area, too keyed up to even think about sleeping. If she was at home, she’d go to her studio and work off her pent-up frustration with brushes and paint.

“My sketchpad!” She snatched it up from the table. Even though it was a warm night, she flipped on the switch that lit the gas fire and kicked her boots off before she sank down cross-legged on the couch.

An hour later, she dropped her pencil and flipped through the drawings she’d just finished. One page was a series of faces, all Paul’s: one smiling as she remembered him the first time he shook her hand at the roadside; one laughing as he had at dinner; one in proud profile as he surveyed his town from the terrace of the Library Café; and one shadowed as it had been in the car.

Turning the page, she grinned. She had made good on her threat to draw him nude, wading out of a river. Of course, she had to use her imagination about what he looked like without his clothes on, but that wasn’t hard. She’d drawn dozens of unclothed male models in her years as an art student. For fun, she had strategically positioned a large trout in his hands to cover his private parts, since she had chosen not to speculate on the size of those.

She turned to the next page, to the single drawing of him with the look in his eyes that said he wanted to kiss her. She had reproduced it as photographically as possible, breaking down her memory into single components: eyes, eyebrows, top lip, bottom lip, sketching each one separately to avoid injecting any emotional interpretation. As she examined it again, she decided she had not misread his intention. For some reason, he had changed his mind.

It had been a long time since she had been kissed by a man…other than Paul’s earlier kiss, meant to comfort her, which didn’t count. Her current life didn’t offer many opportunities, and she was darned if she was going to let such an attractive one slip by.

W
HEN
P
AUL WALKED
into the lobby the next afternoon, Julia felt intimidated. He was dressed in a pale-gray suit with a blue shirt and yellow tie, and looked powerful and out of her reach. Now that they were in his car and he had taken his jacket off and laid it in the backseat, he seemed more approachable. But she decided she wanted to get this particular issue out of the way immediately.

“I ran into Mrs. Bostic downtown this morning,” Julia said, as Paul started the car. She smoothed her hands down her new short denim skirt. Claire had given her the rundown on the best clothing stores, and Julia had gone on a shopping spree partly aimed at changing Paul’s mind about kissing her. Unfortunately, she’d also run into the chatty waitress. “She, um, has decided we’re an item because her sister-in-law is the receptionist and saw us together last night.” She took a quick glance sideways to gauge his reaction.

A muscle in his face twitched, but she couldn’t read his expression. Was he angry?

“That’s what I get for being chivalrous.” He twisted around to check behind him before he backed up, and his glance skimmed her face. He burst out laughing. “Don’t look so worried. I’m a single man with a decent job and all my hair. The ladies of the town have been trying to marry me off for years.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” She slumped in the seat and blew out a breath. “I couldn’t believe how fast the gossip started. It’s kind of ridiculous.”

“Gossip is the lifeblood of a small town. Sometimes it can be useful and sometimes it can be hurtful, but you can’t stop it. Does it bother you?”