Art-Crossed Love Read online

  “Come on.” He supported her slow progress to the bathroom with a gentle arm around the waist. When she finally sat on his toilet, he pressed a cold washcloth into her hands. “Lay this against your cheeks.”

  The disturbing memory disappeared with the plunk of first-aid supplies on the sink. Before she knew it, he was swabbing at the wound in soft but efficient swipes.

  “Why are you being so nice?”

  He tugged at the washcloth. When she released it, he traced the cool, wet material across her lips, then down and around to the back of her neck, stripping away the blood. “Why do you think I’m incapable of nice?”

  “I don’t—”

  A light grip settled on her chin, tipping her head back for a look that told her not to bother with the placating bullshit. Fine. “You haven’t seemed particularly taken with me.” Kind of like that blue-eyed boy.

  The cloth stilled against her skin. In her peripheral vision, she saw tension gather at his temples and in the set of his jaw. “You were hurt,” he said simply, as though her minor injury explained his about-face.

  He smoothed a breathable bandage over the cut and stepped back, staring down at her still-upturned face. “You’re not anymore.”

  A smile tugged at her lips. “Thanks to you.” Could this be the beginning of a truce?

  The warmth rebounded off the harsh planes of his expression. “Now what the hell were you doing in my room?”

  She closed her eyes to block him out. Guess not.

  ******

  Four strides took Cole to the bed, where he crouched down and reached blindly beneath, exactly where he’d found her wedged tight. “Let’s have a look. Maybe you found something good.”

  With a jerk, a painting slid free on a soft swish of frame against floor. He dusted his hands together. “Nope.” The “p” reverberated through the increasingly airless space.

  Not a print this time. An original—another of Lissa’s—lay flat at his knees.

  Two days ago, she’d seemed touched by the fact that her painting hung in the spare bedroom. Collecting dust under the bed didn’t have the same affect. The ivory sweep along her cheeks drained to an ashen white. “Did you take it down when she died, or was the removal for my benefit?”

  “Been under there for weeks.” Originally, he’d stored the painting in the hall closet. Then he’d moved it to the pile of junk stacked in the basement before experimenting with several other failed storage attempts. He should have known hiding the thing under the bed would only cause trouble.

  “I knew you owned two,” she said, “but that’s not supposed to be one of them.”

  Cole stroked his knuckles along the frame. “This one was a gift.” He looked up. “Everyone knew she liked your stuff. Kate only had it a short while before she died, but every day she lined treats along the top of the frame.” He glanced down the hall for the fur bandit that had roped Lissa into his game. “You can guess the rest.”

  She crouched next to him by the bed. “Sasha.”

  Nodding, he explained, “He’d sit underneath the frame until Kate found him and ran him through his repertoire of tricks. I guess the frame still smells like Beggin’ Strips. That, or the dog’s smarter than we think. Floor level obviously isn’t working.”

  She reached for the painting—only about the size of a cake pan—and pulled it into her arms. She had the palest limbs, as though her translucent skin was made of rice paper. He got the feeling she considered herself something of a blunt instrument, but from his vantage point, she was pure grace, long and supple and fluid. That’s why her mouth kept surprising him. Those delicate looks gave the impression of fragility, of being kind.

  But nice girls didn’t parade their goods in front of strangers or sneak through forbidden bedrooms.

  Earlier that morning he’d come upstairs on a quick errand and heard the running bathwater. Frankly, he’d stuck around to catch her unawares, wanting to lay some ground rules after her stunt on the front drive.

  The bathroom door had clicked open. Instead of a fight, he’d gotten a flash of snowy skin and dripping auburn locks. Panic had dragged a wild, shaky breath into his lungs before a blast of lust had nearly flattened him. Smooth skin. High breasts. The barest flare at slender hips.

  His wife had been petite and curvaceous, a va-va-voom body paired with the sweet mannerisms of a true southern lady—soft-spoken and cautious, considerate and well-mannered. Sometimes so, so sad.

  Pretty much Lissa’s antithesis.

  Yet one look at Lissa’s lithe form glistening from her bath, and he’d gotten harder than he’d been in recent memory. Make that long-term memory. He wondered if she’d be as aggressive in bed as she was out of it.

  For now, though, the hellion appeared stricken. Without a word, she stared at Kate and Sasha’s favorite Blanc, jaw slack and eyes dull. Even though he hated to admit it, the small piece packed an emotional punch. A vortex of black and red gave the impression of lost control amid drops of ice blue that fell like rain, either to mourn or to end the chaos. He couldn’t tell which.

  “I’ll take it,” she said quietly, “and hang it in my room.”

  He grabbed the painting and slid it beneath the bed with a smart flick of the wrist. “No.”

  For a moment, she studied him, probably plotting how to get her way. Then she shrugged, rising from the floor. The supposedly casual movement left her stiff, a marked tension creeping between her shoulder blades. The glimmer of humor she’d shown at hearing Sasha’s antics had drained away.

  “Why not?” Her question flew in a pointed verbal thrust.

  Don’t know. “Of all your paintings, that one intrigues me the most. The rest are either nonsensical or nauseating. Parks and sunshine and fireflies. Until I saw that”—he pointed to the gap where the painting had disappeared beneath the bed—“I doubted you had anything in you but kitsch. Manufactured squares of fun for everyone.”

  She smiled, but the expression reflected challenge, not joy.

  “That painting is all about pain. I see blood and tears, Lissa.” He traced a fingertip down her check. “I wonder why?”

  Her eyes flickered with an emotion he couldn’t name. He’d guess sorrow, but her increasingly defiant stance belied melancholy.

  She took a deep breath and eased her shoulders away from her ears. “I was young—”

  “Yet you still sell the thing, ship it out to people like my wife.”

  “—and young people do angst. Not to worry. As you’ve said, what did I have to be upset about?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure—”

  The cluck, cluck, cluck of her tongue paused the inquisition. Then, “Okay, and in the interest of full disclosure, we can discuss what exactly happened to your wife who’s buried in the backyard.”

  He flinched at the indelicate truth. The woman knows how to change the subject.

  “Too much emotion for you?” she asked. “Looks like you’re having another one of your elusive responses.”

  Long months had passed with him trying to shut people out. He’d gotten used to evading probing questions, not asking them. Lissa baffled him with her defensive attack when he’d actually sought to engage.

  So this is what it feels like.

  She held herself too still, completely detached, so different from the mocking wit she generally kept at the ready. How alike they were. But then, for the briefest instant, that same emotion he’d noted moments before flashed in her eyes. Looking closely, he noted her shallow pants and the way her pulse fluttered wildly at her throat.

  Not sadness, he mused. Fear.

  Not fear of him or of coming to any harm—she stared him down with the regalness of a queen ready to do battle, physical or otherwise—but fear of what he might learn with his probing.

  His little artist had a secret.

  He grabbed her arm in a gentle hold. “First, tell me about the nicks under your chin.”

  She yanked away, gritting out, “Dog bite.”

&nb
sp; “Mmmhmm. And the serrated line at the top of your spine?”

  A hand flew to the back of her neck. “What—”

  “Next time you play damsel in distress and need a patch-up, wear a tighter shirt.” At her shocked look, he went on. “You prod and dig and sneak around, but you expect privacy in return. Not gonna happen.”

  Her composure returned in a blink. Without so much as a shake of her head, she walked toward the door in a gliding stride that said his discovery didn’t bother her a bit. Three times now, she’d gotten a rise out of him. Months and months of numbness, and each time she lobbed a grenade in his direction, he blew up. When he turned the tables, she rebuffed him with ease.

  Cole might have resisted her sass, might never have given in to her brash demands for information about Kate, but knowing she used the questions as a shield to keep a painful past on lockdown? Maybe he’d have to give if he was going to get.

  Chew on this, little snoop. Steeling himself, he said, “Kate wanted to die.”

  Lissa’s retreating form jerked to a standstill. “Are you saying—?”

  “Yes. My wife flung herself from a cliff not ten miles away. She’s buried here because this house actually made her happy. You didn’t know the half of it when you painted this place. Everything about Melina, including me, is broken.”

  Chapter 6

  Shock thrummed along the insides of Lissa’s veins from her heart to her head, finally pulsing at her temple in a steady, painful beat.

  “Goddamn you.” Air eddied against the constricted walls of her throat, and she gasped, wanting to rail at him. Her instincts had warned that Cole wasn’t whole, and yet she’d ignored the message. As angry as she was with him for involving her in a farce, she was more disappointed in herself for the willful blindness.

  “When were you going to tell me?” I’m a naïve, gullible, desperate fool.

  Still facing away, she practically heard his shrug. “I wasn’t.”

  Groaning, she whispered, “Of course not. And still we’re to rely on each other, form two parts of a functioning whole. You lied to me.”

  Talent, not connections, had finally earned her a part in something meaningful. But not for long.

  Kate’s unexplained death had been one thing—a heart-wrenching tragedy that had understandably left Cole wounded and angry because loss sucked. But suicide? He might never overcome the grief, let alone the guilt.

  When he next spoke, he was standing right behind her. A finger found the mark at the base of her neck, a reminder, she supposed, that they both kept secrets. “How is my wife your business?”

  Because her ghost is standing between us as surely as her body would have. She stared at the floor. “Why haven’t we started work?”

  Silent moments dragged by, each longer than the last. When he didn’t answer, she spun to face him, chin to chest. “You said it yourself. Because she broke you, and Humpty Dumpty hasn’t been put back together again. Kate’s my business because your problem is now my problem.”

  “One amongst many, huh?” He stalked back to the bed and pulled the painting out, holding it in her direction. “Dark times you want to forget? Kind of like the marks under your chin and on your neck.”

  “Old,” she ground out. “Faded and forgotten, unlike your wife.”

  “Divulge, then, if it’s all so meaningless.” His voice dipped. “Otherwise, you’re hiding a past that has tainted your painting. And since you’re here to paint, we can talk about two in the fucked-up pool. Two who have put the project at risk. Two liars.”

  Her mind registered the rigid set of his shoulders and the slight tremor in the picture frame suspended from his hand. Tension poured off the muscle definition that had gone taut beneath his T-shirt, telling her to tread lightly… “I didn’t lie!” She’d omitted. “I was hurt.” Forever ago. “And I painted it out.”

  “You practically admit to using art as nothing more than an emotional conduit. You paint feelings, Lissa. You’re incapable of painting anything real.”

  Maybe. But the hang-ups were mutual. “I guess we’re in trouble because you’re incapable of seeing potential. Kate’s death tapped every ounce of creativity you’ve ever possessed. Your photographs only show what’s real, and they’re staid. Boring. Safe.”

  He moved fast. Before she could regret the indelicacy of her accusation, he’d crowded her into the doorframe with the length of his body. Then, softly, against the top of her head, he said, “Big words for a little girl.”

  The taunt was all wrong, but the tone was low, melodious. Cole’s voice wound an intricate pattern through Lissa’s insides, squeezing and loosening and preparing a clear path for entry.

  “No,” she whispered. “True ones.” Lissa had long finished fearing those bigger than her. She couldn’t back down now. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t want to. But for all the wrong reasons. He was so close and so angry and so gorgeous. Warm air fanned across her cheek with each of his measured breaths, a mental count to ten. With every thudding heartbeat, a hardness grew against the more pliant flesh of her stomach.

  “Hurt how?” he asked.

  The question barely penetrated. If he lifted her a few inches, that steely length would fall right where it could do some good.

  A light touch skated down one arm, and he actually clasped her fingers. Held. “You said you were hurt, Lissa. How?”

  Chest heaving with emotion, she answered the only way she could. “You’re not the only one who thinks I’ve had it easy.”

  Her painting sailed across the room, landing softly on his comforter and freeing his other hand. “That’s cryptic bullshit. At least I talk straight. You know my wife’s dead. She took her own life. I’m torn up about it.”

  “Pain is black-and-white for you.” Like art. “For me, it’s a table of colors. Every experience brings a new shade.”

  “Try me.”

  She struggled to haul oxygen into her lungs. Technically, years of yoga and beating the streets of New York City had left her physically capable of a little adrenaline-fueled sparring, but New York had something Colorado didn’t—oxygen.

  And forget the mile-and-a-half above sea level. She’d stopped breathing with Cole’s cringer about Kate. Every word since had made matters worse.

  Suddenly both of Cole’s arms were around her. A strong hand worked in large circles over her back. “Inhale, Liss.”

  She gulped down a breath.

  “Now push it out. Nice and slow.”

  Again, her body automatically responded to his smooth, velvety instructions.

  A sweep of his pelvis rubbed their lower bodies together in a rough grind. So fucking tantalizing. But when she heard his low, tortured groan before a guttural, “Talk,” she snatched herself away. All the “tell me” and “no, you tell me” was interfering with their bout of accidental foreplay.

  Ignoring the way her nipples stabbed into the backside of her bra, Lissa decided on a consolation prize. Obviously, he wouldn’t be forthcoming until she opened up. At least a little.

  “My parents underwent a rough patch when I was in high school. Money-wise, that is. The construction business is volatile. My brothers had made it through school, but I hadn’t, and private tuition was insane. I transferred to public school at sixteen, as a precaution mostly, but also because my parents had modest upbringings. They thought the experience would be good for my character, or at least a worthwhile experiment. Long story.” She cleared her throat, now unable to breathe out of a swimming, lightheaded need instead of panic. “But the first time a Bentley dropped me off at the curb—they were cautious about new spending but not offloading valuables—I became an instant aberration. My neck eventually had a run-in with the eyelet of a faux combat boot. I used to be torn up about it.”

  His hand clenched on her lower back. “Boot to spine?”

  So he believed her? Most didn’t believe a privileged girl could be a target. “That’s what I said.”

  The grind of his jaw rasped against her ear. “How
long?”

  “Cole”—she sighed into his shoulder—“it doesn’t take much time to kick a girl.” Or call her a rich cunt. Or cut off her ponytail with a pair of sewing scissors stolen from the home-ec room.

  “No,” he corrected, “how long did this go on?”

  “The three years leading to graduation.”

  Till now, Cole had given every impression of agreeing with those kids, had made it clear he saw Lissa as barely decorative and otherwise useless. Now outrage seeped from his pores along with a low curse he pushed out beneath his breath. “Your parents left you to deal, totally unprepared.”

  “They didn’t know. They’ll never know.” Kind of. Details remained unsaid, but after the company, and the checkbook, had undergone an obscene recovery, her parents had displayed a not-positive-but-pretty-sure kind of guilt. If they could, they’d bring her a charmed life on a flatbed truck, all because they thought their choices might have hurt their baby girl.

  Yet helping her only served to convince people she couldn’t help herself.

  Letting Robert and Karen Blanc assuage their guilt meant she’d never turn them down, not overtly at least, no matter how many Coles called her a talentless hack out of jealousy over the heavies in her corner. The perks of being Daughter Blanc would stop when she attained a level of success that made them unnecessary. The end.

  Enter Cole, who offered escape from her reputation but corrupted the plan with his unexpected drama.

  The hands bracketing her dropped, but Cole didn’t retreat, not an inch. “You were young and the bullying endless. That painting on the bed contemplates the injury.”

  “I’m not that nice.” She shook her head against the doorframe. “More like the Revenge.”

  Chapter 7

  Morning brought the dry, pungent scent of fall and a thread of gold through the aspens dotting the hills. Through bleary eyes, Cole watched Lissa tackle breakfast outside his bedroom window. She sat on a bench swinging from a tree behind the house, eating a bowl of Fruit Loops and looking like she’d lost the sleep lottery.