Suddenly in Love (Lake Haven#1) (10 page)

Ten

Brennan read the script, “Out of the Desert,” in one night. His head had been filling with ideas for days now. He’d done some reading about Mexican drug cartels and deserts. He was working, filling in sheet after sheet of music notes and tempos. Ideas were turning, growing, feeding off an internal hum. He was finding his groove again.

It was a gorgeous, crystal-clear afternoon, the sky a cobalt blue, the air crisp. He walked out onto the terrace of his suite and turned his face up to the sun while he munched on some baby carrots. It was nice here by the lake. Personally, he couldn’t last an entire summer, but it was a good escape for a few weeks. He had to give his mother credit—she’d picked the perfect location for that.

He thought about going down to the lake. Maybe he’d arrange to rent a boat. When had he last been on a boat? Wasn’t it off the coast of Capri, with Dave Grohl? Yes, that was it—Dave’s daughters had been there, too.

Brennan turned to step back inside, but he happened to catch sight of a lavender bike with a big, wide seat and a handlebar basket leaning against the guardhouse. Through the windows of the guardhouse he could see Drago, his bulky form bent over his phone. Did the bike belong to his mother? It was hard to imagine her on a bike, but then again, it was hard to imagine a lot of what she did. He’d never known she was into karate until a couple of mornings ago.

He decided to walk down to the lake. He waved to Drago as he came outside and followed the brick path around to the back. The north wing of the house ended in a circular sitting room with windows that provided a panoramic view of the woods. The French doors were opened onto a terrace that Brennan had no doubt would be torn up and redone.

He walked in through the doors to have a look. The empty room smelled of paint; he supposed Magda had opened the doors to air out the room. Three cans of paint sat on the floor at a strangely angled brick wall, and on the wall, someone had painted four patches of blue, each one a little lighter than the last. But it wasn’t the patches that interested Brennan. It was the painting on the wall beside the patches. Someone had painted a body of water nestled between some hills, all of it different shades of blue. On the surface of the water was a small white boat.

It was a placid little painting that looked a little slapdash, as if someone had been bored and was playing with the paint. Of course Brennan knew who the “someone” was—the same girl who had chronicled her life in drawings in a sketchbook.

A scrape of something behind him caused him to turn. The artist was standing at the threshold, watching him.

“I didn’t expect to run into you,” he said, surprised to realize how pleased he was that he had.

“I wasn’t expecting you, either,” she said. “I’m waiting for someone to come up and look at this room so they can give my aunt an estimate for some work. They’re late.”

“Ah.” He looked at the wall again.

“That wall is coming down,” she said. “I mean, if you’re worried about the paint.”

“Nope. Not worried. It is a strange wall,” he said. He remembered his mother cornering him one evening when he was buzzed, talking about a wall that should come down, how a larger, open room would be ideal for summer. Brennan could remember thinking that three distinct living areas in one house seemed like at least one too many, and maybe even two.

“So you’re doing a little doodling, huh?”

“Doodling,”
she repeated. “I don’t think I’ve called it that since I was in the first grade, but yeah, something like that. Just seeing what I could do with blue.” Mia walked to where he was standing and squatted down, picking up a paintbrush lying across an open can.

He hadn’t meant anything by it; he was just making conversation, really. He felt strangely awkward, as if he’d never talked to a pretty girl before.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and smiled a little. “So what do you think?” she asked, gesturing to the wall.

“Umm . . .” It was obvious she had some talent, but this scene, dashed up onto a brick wall, was not talented. “Is it Lake Haven?” he asked uncertainly.

She cocked her head to one side and studied the wall, too, as if she wasn’t sure. She dabbed a bit of light blue onto darker blue. “I guess it could be.” She gave him another sidelong look. “So? What do you think?”

Was she really asking for his opinion? Brennan looked at the fleck of paint on her cheek. “It’s nice,” he said.

Her eyes suddenly danced with light and she giggled. “No, it’s not.”

“No?” he asked, feeling uneasy now. What was he supposed to say?

“You know what I think it looks like? A high school art project.
Lake in Blue
,” she said dramatically, as if announcing the painting at a show.

“I didn’t think that—”

“Well if you didn’t, you should have. It’s really amateurish. Boring. But, in my defense, I only had blue.” She smiled and held up the paintbrush.

“It may be amateurish, but I’ve never seen such a good use of one color. You obviously have talent.”

“Mmm. That’s debatable,” she said skeptically. She dipped down again, dabbed the brush into another small can of paint, and then stood up. She leaned to one side, intending to dab more paint on the wall. But she misjudged where she was in relation to the paint cans, and tried to hop over them to keep from stumbling. She was too late; she stumbled and Brennan caught her arm to keep her from falling, and her wet paintbrush connected with his belly.

“Oh my God!” She stared with horror at the smear of paint on his T-shirt. “I am so sorry!”

“Don’t be,” he said, looking down. “It’s just a T-shirt.”

“Yes, but it’s a
clean
T-shirt and I don’t think you have a lot of those. Take it off. I’ve got a little turpentine. I can get the paint off as long as it’s wet.”

“That’s not—”

“Take it off!”

“Okay, okay.” Brennan took it off. “This shirt is nothing special . . . other than clean, apparently.”

She wasn’t listening. She was down on her knees with the paint cans. She’d put the brush aside and was pouring a bit of turpentine onto a rag. She looked up, her hand outstretched for the shirt . . . but her gaze landed on his torso, and she faltered. He could practically feel her gaze sliding down his chest, lingering at his waistline. Her cheeks turned red.

“Hello?” he said.

She snatched his shirt and turned her full attention to it, although the red in her cheeks just seemed to get brighter. “I’m
so
sorry,” she said again, and quickly came to her feet. She bent over the shirt, dabbing at the bit of paint on his shirt with the corner of the towel. “Painting 101, don’t smear it on other people. I could die.”

“Don’t die. You have to finish this wall.”

She glanced up at him; Brennan merely smiled. Her blush deepened even more and she concentrated on the shirt again. “You are talented, Mia,” Brennan said. Hell, he didn’t know how talented she was, but from what he’d seen of her drawings, it looked like talent to him.

She shrugged. “Maybe a little.” She handed him his T-shirt. It stunk now.

“If Magda puts it in the wash right away, I hope the rest will come off,” she said, and eyed his chest again.

Brennan could feel her gaze on the inside, tingling through his veins. He could feel it on his skin, could feel the path her eyes took. For a man who had stood on a stage without a shirt and knew that women ogled him, he was unusually shy. But then again, in all those times, he couldn’t recall actually
feeling
a look quite as intimately as he was feeling this one.

“You know, Mia . . . if you believe you only have a little talent, that’s what you’ll have. You have to believe in yourself. No one else will if you don’t.”

Mia blinked. A smile suddenly lightened her face. “Oh
no
,” she said with mock gravity as he pulled the T-shirt on over his head. “A
pep
talk. Allow me to spare you the effort, because I’ve had quite a lot of them from well-meaning people lately. But here’s the thing—I’ve been at this a very long time. I know what my talent is. And you know what? I couldn’t cut it.”

“You won’t know if you don’t—”

“Try,” she finished for him. “I did. Hey, it’s the truth and I can say it,” she said to his look of surprise. “Not everyone is cut out to be a world-class artist. My work lacks vision, among other things. Trust me on this—I have a degree in fine art and I know what I’m talking about.”

She turned around and stooped down to put the lids back on the paint cans.

Putting aside, for the moment, that she wasn’t buying what he was selling—another new experience for Brennan outside the tiny realm of his mother—he wasn’t sure if she wanted him to argue or not. Quite unexpectedly, he understood this unusual woman, because he felt the same way about music. For every true musician he’d known in his life, he’d known ten more who worked hard at music but would never discover some innate talent for it.

On the other hand, he also knew that the song he was currently trying to find in him was nothing but a few chords right now, and it would probably sound very amateurish to Mia if he were to hum it. The difference was that he was older than she and probably more experienced. He’d been making music long enough to know that it would turn into something real. He’d learned to trust his talent. He’d learned to keep hammering away at it until it became something.

He looked again at the wall. “Tell me, what do you see in your painting?” he asked curiously.

She snorted. “I know what I don’t see.”

“What?”

“There’s no movement to it. No story. Not that I would expect that, given that I have four cans of paint and nothing to help create the movement. But that world? It looks like it is stuck in molasses. Without movement, it lacks soul.”

“Maybe your true talent is art criticism,” he said solemnly.

She giggled, her gaze still on the wall.

Brennan couldn’t help himself. He put his hand on her shoulder. Mia flinched, but she didn’t move away. “Relax,” he said, and let his hand slip away from her shoulder. It didn’t belong there. “Let the work come. Don’t worry over it, just relax.”

“Maybe your talent is art instruction,” she said with a saucy sidelong look.

“Smartass,” he said with a grin. “I’m only trying to help. You always seem so keyed up when it comes to your work.”

“Are you kidding? How do
you
know?” she asked with a disbelieving laugh. “What do you know about my work?”

“Only that every time I look at something you’ve done, you tense up. Look, I’m just offering a piece of advice from experience. If the vibe is missing, it will come to you.”

“An art instructor
and
a philosopher,” she said cheerfully. “Who knew?” She used the back of her hand to push her hair back, managing to smear another dash of paint across her cheek.

“Laugh if you will, but I really am both of those things. I’m a musician. So I guess I know a little something about the artistic journey.”

Mia suddenly burst out laughing. “You’re a
what
?”
she cried, and laughed again. Her face transformed with her amusement—she was beautiful when she laughed.

“What?” he asked, unable to suppress his laugh, too. “What’s so damn funny?”

“Nothing, nothing.” She held up her hand as she tried to quell her laughter. “Far be it from me to—oh come on,
really
? You’re a
musician
?” She tried to contain another laugh but it came out as a snort.

“Is that so hard to believe?” he asked, smiling, infected by her mirth. “Why not a musician? I write songs.”

“Ooh, okay, a songwriter,” she said gaily. “Now it’s totally believable.”

Brennan didn’t know what to say.

“What kind of songs, anyway?”

He shrugged. “Love songs. Songs about people and emotions.”

“
Nice.
So
that’s
what you’ve been doing upstairs all this time. And here I thought you were watching endless loops of
Jeopardy.
”

“Give me a break,” he said, grinning. Brennan sort of liked that she didn’t believe him, and he didn’t correct her. “I’ve been drinking and sleeping.”

“Aha! I like a man with priorities,” she said with happy skepticism.

“You like music, right?”

“Sure,” she said. “Mostly classical. Give me Bach over the radio any day.”

Well that explained it. No wonder he didn’t look even vaguely familiar to her.

“So tell me, Music Man . . . do you relax and let the vibe come to you?” She laughed again at her ribbing.

“I try.”

“Maybe you can play some of your songs for me sometime. Do you play an instrument?”

“How do you think music is made?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Computer?”

“I play a little guitar, a little piano.”

“Good for you!”

She said it in a tone one would use to encourage a small child. He knew she believed him to be a slacker with grandiose visions of himself. He would have said as much, but Mia’s sparkling gaze was locked on his, and Brennan lost his train of thought. He seemed to forget everything but those eyes shining up at him. He realized what he was doing and abruptly looked down at the wet spot of turpentine. “I better leave you to find your vibe while I find mine.”

“Good luck with that,” she said merrily.

“You too,” he said, and pointed at the wall as he started for the door. “Because that wall is going to need it.”

She laughed, the sound of it light and amused. It was the sound of happiness, which was something Brennan hadn’t heard in a while now. He liked it. It made him feel warm.

He paused at the open French door to look back at her. She was staring at the wall, her head cocked to one side, a finger tapping against her bottom lip. He looked at her bare, shapely legs that ended inside a pair of Converse high tops. He looked at the snug fit of her skirt, and how the hem swung around her knees. At the flowing silk top she wore with it. His gaze moved to the skirt again, because he was a guy, and he couldn’t help himself . . . and that was when he realized the fabric was familiar to him.