“You’ve got great kids,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as nervous as she felt.
“Yeah, I’m kinda fond of ’em.” Michael hooked his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans and took a few steps closer to Jessy. She had to fight the instinct to move away, to put some safe space between them.
Michael said nothing for a moment, simply gazing at her for what felt like an eternity. Jessy could only imagine how she must look: no make-up, hair flapping wildly in the wind, a nose red enough to rival Rudolph’s. She caught a glimpse of her shadow against the snow, wincing at how short and round it was, and wished she could just disappear. Worst of all, she knew that Michael was seeing these things about her, that she couldn’t hide any of her flaws from him.
“What?” she finally asked, uncomfortable with his secretive smile. What flaw was he noticing now? she wondered.
“Just thinking,” he said airily.
“New experience for you?” Jessy asked and smiled, taking a few steps backward and trying her best to look casual about it.
“You wound me, Jessy. You really wound me.” Michael flattened a hand against his chest and managed to look pained for just a moment before his smile broke through again. He scooped up a huge handful of snow and began shaping it into a massive snowball. “You have until the count of three to arm yourself.
One—
”
Jessy laughed and took a few more stumbling steps backward. “And you’re
how
old?” she asked as she stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Thirty-nine going on twelve?”
“I’m not joking around, Jessy.” Michael tried his damnedest to look serious, but he couldn’t stop smiling long enough to be believable. “I am challenging you to a one-on-one snowball battle royale.”
“Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever you say.”
“I’m serious.” Michael threw the snowball up and caught it, taking a few steps closer to Jessy. “Folks ’round these parts call me the rootin’est, tootin’est snowslinger in town.”
“And you’re able to brag about that with a straight face,” Jessy said and smiled. “I’m impressed.”
“Okay—don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He hefted the snowball with mock menace. “
Two—
”
“Now, Michael—” Jessy took another step backward, still smiling as she thickened her Kentucky drawl. “Y’all wouldn’t throw a snowball at a defenseless woman, now, would you?”
Hesitating a moment, Michael lowered his arm as a playfully pensive frown creased his brow. His expressive eyebrows rose as he sighed. “You know, now that I think about it—”
Before Jessy could blink the loosely packed snowball was in the air and—a heartbeat later—square in her face. She half-laughed, half-yelped in surprise, wiping snow from her eyes as she lurched clumsily toward Michael, who was bent over double with laughter.
“I can’t believe you actually did that!” she shouted, laughing as she awkwardly made her way through the shin-deep drifts, pausing just long enough to gather an armful of snow. Michael, his hands planted on his knees as he kept laughing, never saw her coming. She dumped the snow on his head, making sure that some would spill down the back of his shirt, and jumped away as he shouted in surprise and blindly reached for her.
“Hail, oh mighty Snow King,” she said as she laughed.
Michael raised his snow-clumped head to look at her, his eyebrows arching almost devilishly as he smiled. “You will pay dearly for that one, my friend.”
Jessy batted her lashes, feeling more alive, more free, than she’d ever felt in her life. She could forget about Charlie, forget about her weight, forget about everything but the snow and the laughter and the wonderful smile on Michael’s face as he straightened to his full height again.
“I am insane,” she muttered. “Totally insane.”
“What’s that?” Michael shook his head and tilted it to the side. “I got snow in my ears.”
“I said I’m freezing.” Jessy tried a nonchalant smile, but now that she’d admitted her feelings to herself, she’d screwed everything up. No more acting casual for her. “We should go back in now.”
“Not yet. There’s something I want to show you first.” Michael brushed the last of the snow from his shoulders, but a few flakes still clung to his dark eyelashes. He picked up his black cowboy hat and fitted it on his head again. “Come on.” Michael grabbed her hand, his smile widening and crinkling his eyes, and Jessy was lost. Every cell in her body warned her to dig her heels in right now and resist him, but he was too damn charming for his own good. And hers.
They walked in silence, crossing the snowy fields as they headed towards one of the barns. Despite the fact that Michael still held her hand as they walked, despite the smiles he kept flashing in her direction, Jessy’s gloom deepened with every step. Why did she have to go and admit her feelings to herself? Now she’d never be able to act normal around him again. Now she would have to act like she only thought of him as a friend—and she’d have to bend over backwards to keep everything in perspective. She knew the drill, had gone through it more times than she liked to admit. She was the Queen of Casual, all-too-skilled at hiding her own emotions in order to keep a friendship intact.
And now she’d have to do it again.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Michael said and smiled, glancing over to her. “Anything wrong?”
Jessy managed a smile and shook her head. She didn’t trust her voice.
At the barn, Michael opened the door and allowed Jessy to enter first. The mingled smell of horses and dried hay was almost overwhelming, but not unpleasantly so. Electric lanterns hung from the walls, casting a warm, cozy light over the stalls. A half-dozen horses of varying sizes and colors placidly chewed straw and snorted at the presence of the humans. Jessy, whose experience with horses had been confined to merry-go-rounds as a kid, felt as if she were in the company of alien creatures. A gray gelding snorted and shook its head as Jessy passed.
“Funny looking cows,” she said.
Michael grinned as he headed towards the stalls. “Yeah, you don’t want to be here around milking time.”
Jessy laughed despite herself. As long as she remained cool, she’d be okay. She just had to stop and think before she spoke. She had to remember that she was only here temporarily, that Michael had a beautiful ex-wife and a family and a life that she would never be a part of. As long as she kept that in mind, she’d be fine.
She hoped.
“So what did you want to show me?”
she asked quietly. She kept her eyes averted, studying the horses instead of Michael.
Michael picked up a dried apple core and offered it to a mottled gray mare, who nibbled it delicately. “Before I take you up to the loft,” he said, and turned his attention back to her again, “you’ve got to promise me not to laugh.”
Jessy instantly smiled despite herself. “Why would I laugh?”
“C’mon—” Michael grabbed her hand again, leading her to a rickety wood ladder. Jessy immediately saw herself snapping the boards in two with her weight, falling and breaking her neck. If she was lucky.
“There’s climbing involved? Michael—”
“You’ll be fine. Just put one hand over the other and don’t look down.”
Jessy took a deep breath and balefully looked at the ladder, then over to Michael. She had such a bad feeling about this—but she didn’t want to seem like a wimp, even though she was the most craven, yellow-bellied coward in the world. Besides, the curiosity was killing her.
She steeled herself, said a little prayer, and started climbing up the ladder—which, she had to admit, felt a lot sturdier than it looked. Michael was right behind her, and for a moment she was mortified by the thought of her wide bottom jiggling just over his head. Thank God her coat was long enough to cover it.
Her head finally poked through the trap door on the hay-strewn floor of the loft. Sunlight flooded the small attic-like room, where an empty easel and a small, paint-splattered table stood waiting for use. Unframed canvases leaned against the walls, paintings ranging from abstracts to landscapes to portraits of Libby and Ben and Marie. Cartoons drawn on typing paper littered the floor and dotted the walls. For a moment Jessy wasn’t sure why he had made such a big deal about showing her his art, but then she understood. It took a lot of courage and even more trust to share something so personal.
Jessy climbed the last few rungs and smiled as she gazed around the room. He was good. Really good. Still smiling, she turned to Michael, who was trying his best not to look too proud or relieved by her reaction. “You did all of these?”
Michael shrugged and nodded, hands shoved into his pockets. “Yeah—it’s kinda my hobby.”
“A hobby—” Jessy repeated softly, looking around the loft. A half-finished canvas rested on an easel, surrounded by crumpled tubes of oil paint and a well-used palette. Jessy stepped closer for a better look. The painting was a view of the farm from the vantage point of the loft, a beautiful landscape of the land in the spring. It was just as Jessy had imagined it might look.
She looked back to Michael, who seemed to be anticipating her reaction. All she could do was shake her head and smile. “Why aren’t you a famous painter by now?”
Michael chuckled, and Jessy could hear the relief in his voice. It touched her that he thought so highly of her opinion. “Most famous painters don’t get famous until they’re dead. I’ll take a rain check on that, thank you.”
“This portrait of the kids is beautiful.” Jessy stood in front of the larger canvas, smiling almost sadly to herself. The painting had been done years ago, when Ben and Marie were toddlers and Libby was a little girl. The realization that she had missed seeing them grow up hit Jessy much harder than it should have. “You have a gift,” she finally whispered, looking back to him again. “Why don’t—”
“—I sell my paintings?” he finished for her, smiling as he shrugged. “I don’t know—I guess I’m not real sure anybody would actually want one.”
Jessy heard the note of uncertainty in his voice. How could he not have confidence in his ability? All anyone had to do was look at his work and see that he was staggeringly talented.
“Is this what you did before you came back to the farm?”
Michael nodded as he sat down on a bale of hay, patting the empty space beside him. Jessy hesitated a moment before sitting down. What if the whole bale collapsed beneath her weight? What if she plopped down and sent Michael flying?
>
“When I was a kid,” Michael said quietly, completely unaware of her hormonal meltdown beside him, “I thought I could move away from here and be this great artist or something. Not the starving, ‘I’m suffering for my art’ kind of artist. I just wanted to have a career doing something I loved to do. Cartoons, paintings, sketches, whatever I could get. I wasn’t a snob. I just wanted to paint.”
Jessy smiled, trying to imagine him standing at the canvas, wielding a brush with the mad intensity of a tortured artist. She couldn’t. But she
could
see him hunched over a drawing pad, sketching cartoony animals for Libby and Ben and Marie. Michael just wasn’t the tortured type.
“So what happened?” she asked quietly, leaning her elbows on her knees as she bent forward, head angled up to look at him.
Michael kept his gaze fixed on the floor, the wryest of smiles twitching across his expression. “What happened was—I got a big, heaping helping of reality. While I was in school I got a freelance gig illustrating children’s books. It didn’t pay much, but I liked doing it, and I could support myself. Then I met Ann and—well— everything changed.”
Jessy grimaced. She knew what was coming.
“Ann encouraged me to get a ‘real’ job,” Michael said with a faint smile, glancing over to Jessy. “And because I was in love with her, I thought she knew what was best for me. So I stopped painting and got a job with a construction company. I was fairly good with carpentry, so—that became my job. Not my career.”
“That’s unbelievable,” Jessy muttered, sitting up straight again. She couldn’t imagine not encouraging someone with Michael’s talent. She couldn’t imagine denying him something he loved to do just because it didn’t make truckloads of money.
“Well, I was young and foolish—and in love.” Michael smiled again, but couldn’t hide the faint pain in his eyes. “Ann knew exactly what she wanted for her own future, so I thought she knew what would be best for mine. Besides, I couldn’t believe somebody like her would ever be interested in somebody like me.”
“Excuse me?” Jessy blurted it out before she could catch herself. But what the hell? Might as well go on with it. “What do you mean, ‘somebody like me’?”
“Oh, well—I wasn’t always the stunning hunk of male perfection you see before you now.” Michael’s smile slanted sarcastically as he rolled his eyes at himself. “I was a big nerd in college.”
“That’s hard to believe.”
“It’s true. Thank God I wasn’t there when the whole computer thing hit or else I’d really have been a dork.” Michael’s smile relaxed slightly. “Ann—well, you’ve seen her. She was just as gorgeous in college. I couldn’t believe she could see anything to love about me.”
The wistful tone of his voice was not lost on Jessy. If anything, it sliced through her like a knife. Somehow it didn’t seem possible that he could still have feelings for Ann, but he just might. Ann was the mother of his children. They shared a bond that Jessy could not even begin to understand. Michael still loved Ann, despite everything. Just like Libby had hoped.
“I wouldn’t think it would be
that
hard,” Jessy said quietly. What she would have given to have met someone like Michael when she was in college, someone shy and nice and funny and sweet. Instead she’d spent her days in class and her nights either doing homework or working. Meanwhile someone like Ann was lucky enough to have Michael fall in love with her. Yeah, life was fair.
Her pseudo-confession didn’t sink in, and Michael let it pass without comment. Jessy wasn’t sure if she was relieved or disappointed. “I didn’t start painting again until a few years ago. Mom’s got ’em all over the house. I think she rotates them according to the season.”
Jessy smiled, remembering the gorgeous floral still life that hung in the guestroom. The painting was so lifelike that she swore she could almost smell the scent of roses and lilacs when she stood close to it. “You really do have a gift.”