Country Roads (33 page)

“New favorite word?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Paul punched the in-car telephone on. “You want to say it?”

“Yes, please!”

“The name is Julia.”

“Ju-li-a!” Eric shouted. “Dialing Julia,” he recited along with the car’s electronic voice.

The phone rang repeatedly before a distracted voice said, “Hello? Paul?”

“Eric and I are in the neighborhood and thought we’d come see you. Are you in your studio?”

“Um, yes. Come on over. I’d love to see Eric…and you too, of course.”

Paul hit the disconnect button. “No stealing my girlfriend, okay?”

“I can’t help it if girls like me. They just do.”

“It’s the curse of the Taggart men.”

Eric sighed. “Yeah, it’s kind of a pain, especially when two of ’em like you at the same time. They can get mean.”

“A life lesson you’re lucky you’ve learned young, my boy.”

He pulled up in front of Julia’s temporary studio and turned off the engine. “Take it easy on her. She might get overwhelmed by all this Taggart charm in one room.”

Paul raced Eric to the front door, catching him before he barged through the unlatched screen door. Paul peered into the interior. “Julia?”

She appeared from the dimness, her flaming red hair piled into a messy bun with two paintbrushes speared through it, a huge man’s shirt splattered with paint hanging off her shoulders. She looked good enough to eat. He managed to restrain himself sufficiently to give her a chaste kiss on the lips and an only mildly lascivious squeeze of her nicely rounded behind. She smirked up at him and stepped in close to give his groin a return squeeze under cover of her billowing shirt.

“Nice way to say hello,” he said, as every nerve in his body surged on a spike of lust.

“I’d do better if we didn’t have a chaperone,” she said, cutting her gaze over to the counter where they’d made love before.

He cleared his throat and introduced his nephew. “So Eric wants to see an artist like his father at work.”

“Your dad’s an artist?”

“He painted really cool pictures on my bedroom walls with stencils. Do you use stencils?” Eric wandered toward the easel in the glass room.

“No, I’m more of a freestyle type myself,” Julia said without a tremor in her voice.

“Yeah, me too,” Eric said. He stopped in front of the partially finished painting of Darkside. “It’s the big mean horse from Ms. Sydenstricker’s.”

Paul strolled up to look more closely at the painting. He draped his arm around Julia’s shoulders, just because he couldn’t stop himself from touching her. He gave Eric credit for recognizing the horse; he wasn’t sure he would have, given how close the perspective was and how little was painted. In fact, he didn’t notice a whole lot of progress since the last time he’d seen the picture. Maybe Julia had artist’s block again.

“Is the work going all right?” he asked.

Her green eyes went wide as she looked up at him. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I know you were struggling a couple of days ago.”

He felt her shoulders relax. “I seem to be past that now, thank God. This just requires a lot of small, careful brushstrokes, so it doesn’t go so quickly. Which is a problem since the auction’s in three days.”

“You could always offer it as it is and promise to finish it later. That might intrigue prospective bidders, sort of like buying a surprise package.”

“I like surprises,” Eric said, his voice coming from the front room. “Hey, Miss Julia, could you draw a picture of me too? Except I want to be driving the ’Vette, not a motorcycle.”

Julia’s shoulders went rigid under his arm. “Oh no,” she said under her breath.

“What is it?” he asked, lowering his head in an effort to read her expression.

She averted her face. “Um, just a quick painting I did for myself. Not for anyone to see.” She raised her voice for Eric’s benefit. “Sure, I can draw you. Come over here in the light, and I’ll grab a fresh sheet of paper.”

“Uncle Paul, you look really good in her picture,” Eric said, as he trotted up to them. “Like you’re having fun.”

Julia blew out a breath and slid from under his arm. “You might as well see it.”

She went to the front room and came back with a square canvas in her hands, its back to him. “Close your eyes,” she said.

“Bend down and I’ll cover them,” Eric said gleefully.

Paul squatted obediently while his nephew came around behind him to put his palms over his eyes. “When was the last time you washed those grubby paws?” Paul asked.

“This morning after I peed.”

Paul groaned and heard a chuckle from Julia.

“Okay, Eric, let him look.”

His nephew removed his hands, and Paul straightened before taking in the painting now displayed on the easel in front of him.

It was himself, only not the way he was anymore. This was his old self, the one who felt free to go off on any adventure that beckoned. The one who flirted with women for the sheer fun of it. The one who bought a motorcycle because no one was relying on him to keep their life out of the crapper.

This was how Julia saw him. Either he had fooled her or she wanted to believe this was her lover. A lover and an adventurer rather than the embittered ex-mayor of a small town in the sticks.

Julia waited for Paul to say something, but he stood frozen, his expression blank. He must hate it, and he was stalling so he could
think of something polite to say. “It’s just for me,” she repeated. “You don’t have to worry I’ll show it to anyone else.”

“Christ,” he said hoarsely. “I want you to show it to the world.”

She swung back to look at the painting. It was a pale, flat version of the man standing in front of it. “It’s just a quick study. The motorcycle needs a lot of filling in and the shoulders are not quite in proportion.”

“You’ve made me look”—he made a frustrated gesture as though he couldn’t come up with the right words—“ready to roar off into the sunset at a moment’s notice.”

“Aren’t you?” she asked, turning back to him to catch the flash of torment that contorted his mouth. She glanced down to see Eric watching his uncle with a question in his clear blue eyes. “He’s a swashbuckler, isn’t he, Eric?”

Paul’s gaze dropped to his nephew. She saw the effort it took him to turn his grimace into the semblance of a smile. “That’s me. King of the road.”

Relief washed over the child’s face. “Will you leave your hog to me in your will?”

Julia gasped, but Paul chuckled and ruffled Eric’s hair. “Motorcycles are dangerous. You can have my ’Vette. Now sit down and get your picture painted.”

“I’m going to just draw it for now,” Julia said, grabbing a pad and a pencil before she sat on a rickety wooden chair.

Eric dragged a stool over from the counter and climbed up on it.

“Can you scoot around so you’re sideways?” Julia asked. “Now look at me.” She did a quick scan of the child’s face, working out proportions and angles, before her pencil began to move across the paper. In her peripheral vision, she saw Paul walk to the rear of the building to stand with his back to them as he stared out through the dirty glass to the weedy garden behind.

As she sketched, she tried to unravel his reaction. She’d expected amusement or a little smug preening, maybe even annoyance that she’d presumed to take his likeness without his permission. She had not anticipated the raw pain she’d seen in his eyes.

The last thing she wanted to do was stir up trouble since she knew she would be in hot water for riding Darkside. Not to mention what revelations her uncle might make.

She sighed as she blocked in the Corvette’s sleek lines and drew Eric’s elbow hanging out the open window. “You can move now. I’m just going to add some shading.”

Eric leaped off the stool and came around to peer over her shoulder. “Cool! Uncle Paul, look! She made me the driver.”

The little boy raced over to grab his uncle’s hand and pull him back to Julia. As they approached, she looked up to gauge Paul’s emotional barometer. The pain was gone, but he moved as though it took every ounce of his will to make the effort. She reversed the sketchpad and held it up for him to see.

“That’s the mighty power of the artist,” Paul said. “She can make dreams look real.”

“Eric will be in the driver’s seat before you know it.”

She decided this might be a good time to bring up her afternoon’s adventure. Paul couldn’t yell at her too much in front of Eric, and he might get over some of his anger before they were alone. Of course, he might be angrier at her for setting a bad example for his nephew. She was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. “Speaking of being in the driver’s seat, I have some great news.”

Two expectant male faces turned toward her and she was struck by the sense that she was seeing the same person at two different ages.

“I went riding this afternoon.”

Eric was unimpressed since he didn’t know about her past, but he said a polite, “Cool.”

Paul, however, shed his listlessness as his eyes lit with genuine triumph. He leaned down to kiss her cheek and remained at her eye level as he said, “Congratulations! How’d it go?”

“Pretty well, all things considered.” Julia took a deep breath. “I rode Darkside.”

Paul straightened abruptly, his face tight with anger. “Between you and Sharon, you haven’t got the sense God gave a squirrel when it comes to that horse.”

Eric’s eyes went round. “You rode the devil horse?” He slapped his hand over his mouth as his gaze shifted to his uncle.

“You just have to know how to handle him,” she said, her gaze on Paul.

Paul didn’t care about his nephew’s brush with blasphemy. His fingers were drumming at high speed against his leg, and fury was rolling off him like the heat from asphalt on an August afternoon. “Don’t get any ideas, Eric,” he snapped. “Darkside is off-limits.”

“Yes, sir.” Eric knew better than to argue with his uncle in this state.

“There’s a reason I rode Darkside. Carlos is coming here tomorrow. It was now or never.”

“Never would be good.”

“Paul, he’s my Night Mare and my whisper horse. He’s the one I was meant to ride. Once Carlos arrives…” Julia shrugged. It was impossible to explain how her uncle could control her with a word or a look. Even she didn’t understand how she had allowed him to become so powerful. She supposed it was a combination of love and a desire to please him, a habit that went back to her younger days, one she’d never been able to break free of before.

Paul made a wordless sound of frustration. Julia understood he was holding back what he really wanted to say and mentally thanked Eric for acting as a buffer.

A cell phone beeped and Paul pulled his out of his pocket, tapping the screen to read the text message. “Change of plans. Your dad is going to pick you up at my office,” he said to Eric. “We’d better get going.”

Julia opened her mouth to point out Eric’s father could just as easily come to her studio, but Paul’s expression was too forbidding. She closed her mouth and carefully tore the drawing of Eric off her pad. “Maybe you can hang this up alongside your dad’s stenciling.”

Eric took the paper, looked at it, and handed it back to her. “Since you’re famous, would you please sign it?”

Julia wrote her name carefully and legibly before she scrawled a flourish under it. “I keep forgetting I’m famous.”

“Really?” Eric said, his brow wrinkled. “Isn’t that kind of opposite? I mean, if you’re famous, everyone knows about you so you should too.”

“You’re a smart kid,” Julia said, holding out the drawing again.

“Smarter than some adults,” Paul muttered.

“Cool,” Eric said. “Are you going to give Uncle Paul his picture?”

“No, that one’s for me to take home.”

“You’re leaving?” Eric asked.

“In a few days.” And Carlos was coming tomorrow. Regret clogged her throat as she realized how little time she had in Sanctuary.

“Wow, I’m glad I got this before you left,” Eric said.

Julia stood up and shook hands with the boy before she looked at Paul uncertainly. Should she kiss him good-bye? It seemed ridiculous not to, but he didn’t look like he’d welcome it.
“I’ll see you later?” she said, shoving her hands in her jeans pockets because she didn’t know what else to do with them.

“Count on it.” He took her shoulders in a less than gentle grip and kissed her on the lips. As he pulled away, she got a good look at the temper still burning in his eyes.

At least she had gotten the truth out before he heard it from someone else. He ought to give her credit for that. However, as she noted the way he stalked out the door, she decided she should just be grateful she hadn’t added that particular fuel to the flames.

As soon as the screen door slammed behind them, she walked back to the painting of Paul, stopping to look at it as she recalled his reaction. No matter how she tilted her head, she still couldn’t see what had upset him so much. Shrugging, she took it off the easel and propped it against the counter. In its place she put the Darkside canvas and felt her spirits soar again.

She had ridden a horse.