We have more possibilities available in each moment than we realize.

Thích Nhất Hạnh

 
 
 
 
 
Tác giả: Linda Howard
Thể loại: Trinh Thám
Biên tập: Bach Ly Bang
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Language: English
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Cập nhật: 2015-09-09 21:02:18 +0700
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Chapter 5
he chill was worse. Sweeney sat huddled in the blanket, shivering continually. She felt as if she might die from the cold and had some fun imagining the medical examiner's perplexity at someone's dying of hypothermia in an eighty-degree apartment on a warm September day. She thought of going back to bed and getting under the electric blanket, but if she did that, she would have to admit she was sick, and she didn't want to do that. When the doorbell rang, she ignored it, because by staying huddled she could conserve what little heat she generated, and moving around made her even colder.
But it rang again, and again, and at last she struggled to her feet. "What!" she snapped as she neared the door.
There was a curiously muffled sound, and she stopped in her tracks, sufficiently city-smart not to go any closer. "Who is it?"
"Richard."
Stunned, she stared at the wood panels. "Richard?"
"Richard Worth," he added helpfully. She thought she could hear laughter in his voice.
She thought of not opening the door. She thought of simply walking away and pretending she hadn't said anything. The thing was, he owned the building, and even though it wasn't the ritziest place in the world, she suspected he could get a lot more in rent than what she had been paying. And right now, she couldn't afford to pay more, so it behooved her to be polite to the landlord. That was the excuse she gave herself as she fumbled with the locks, and of course it was the cold that made her fingers tremble.
He stood in the hallway with its dingy, worn carpeting. He would have looked totally out of place, in his expensive Italian suit, if it hadn't been for those stevedore shoulders and that hard, almost-craggy face. Her artist's eye noted every detail, almost hungrily drinking them in; if she had hoped yesterday had been an aberration, the sight of him disillusioned her. Her stomach fluttered, her mouth watered just as it did when she saw cheesecake. This couldn't be a good sign.
He was smiling, but the smile quickly faded at the sight of her standing there swaddled in a blanket. His dark gaze went swiftly down her, then returned to her face. "Are you sick?" he asked in a brusque tone, stepping forward so that he crowded her back, and that easily he was inside her apartment. He closed the door and reset the locks.
"No, just cold." She moved away from the dangerously close proximity to him, scowling. "What are you doing here?" She felt terribly off-balance; she wasn't prepared to see Richard at all, much less be alone with him in her apartment. This was her sanctuary, where she could let down the guard she always kept between herself and the rest of the world, where she could relax and paint and be herself. Closing the door behind her often felt as if she had left a ton of chains in the hallway. Here she was free, but she could be free only if she was alone.
"I came to take you to lunch."
"I told you no yesterday afternoon." She hugged the blanket around her, suddenly self-conscious about how she must look. She was still wearing sweats, and she hadn't brushed her hair, so she knew it was bushed around her head in a wild tangle. A long curl hung in her eyes; she pushed it back and blushed, then scowled. She didn't like the feeling of embarrassment. She couldn't remember the last time she had cared what someone thought of how she looked, but… but Richard was different. She didn't want him to be, but he was.
"That was for dinner." He eyed her critically, moving forward even more, frowning as he registered the heat in the apartment. "Why do you have it so hot in here?"
"I told you, I'm cold." Despite herself, her voice sounded querulous. He reached out and placed a warm hand on her forehead. She would have jerked back, but the warmth felt so good she felt herself lean a little into his hand.
A slight frown knit his forehead. "You don't seem to be feverish. "
"Of course I'm not. I just told you, I'm cold."
"Then something is wrong, because it's hot in here."
"Says the man wearing a jacket." She sniffed in disdain and moved away from him to reclaim her seat in the corner of the couch, curling into herself for warmth.
He wasn't the least put off by her snappishness. "It's called a suit," he said, sitting down beside her. "Do you feel ill in any other way?"
"I don't feel ill at all. I'm just cold."
He regarded her stubbornly set face for a moment. "You know that isn't normal."
"Maybe my internal thermostat's messed up," she muttered, though she didn't really think so. The coldness had begun with the change, so she had thought there was nothing she could do about it. On the other hand, the thought that she might actually be ill wasn't any more welcome. She didn't have time for illness, so she refused to be ill. It was that simple.
His dark eyes were sharp and probing as he continued to study her. "How long has this been going on?"
If she hadn't been so cold, she could have asserted herself, but it was difficult to sound assertive when anything she said was filtered through chattering teeth. Rather than appear ridiculous, she said, "I stay cold, most of the time, but this is the worst it's been."
"You need to see a doctor," he said decisively. "Come on, get dressed and I'll take you."
"Forget it." Pulling the blanket closer, Sweeney rested her head on her knees. Deciding to turn the pressure on him, she said, "You should have called before you came over."
"So you could tell me not to come? That's why I didn't call." He touched her hand and frowned at the iciness of her fingers. "Well, I can't go out, and you can bet your last penny I'm not going to cook for you. "
"I don't expect you to." He was still frowning as he watched her, half turned toward her with one arm resting along the back of the couch. She clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering, wishing he would go. He was too close, and she was too cold. A woman couldn't muster her defenses when she had to concentrate on shivering.
"Okay," he said, getting to his feet as if he had made a decision. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and shrugged out of it. "What are you doing?" Sweeney demanded, sitting up in alarm. Even as she said it, the question struck her as stupid, since obviously she could see what he was doing. It was the why that alarmed her.
"Getting you warm. " He plucked the blanket from her grasp and pulled it away. Before she could protest, he settled his jacket around her shoulders.
The warmth was almost shocking. She inhaled sharply in relief as the heat sank into her spine. My God, the man must be like a furnace, for his jacket to absorb that much of his body heat. The sensation was so delicious she didn't notice him sitting down again until he scooped her onto his lap.
She went rigid with a brief moment of panic, then pushed hard at him as she swung one foot to the floor so she could stand. To her astonishment, he simply wrapped his arms around her and gathered her in as if she were a child, lifting her feet onto the couch and holding her close. He tucked the blanket around both of them, making sure her feet were covered.
"Body heat," he said calmly. "That's one of the first things they taught us in army survival courses, to huddle together when we got cold."
Sweeney stilled, lured both by the incredible warmth wrapping around her and by the image his words brought up in her mind. She couldn't help smiling. "I can just see all you tough young soldiers cuddling together."
"Not cuddling, huddling. There's a difference." He laid his hand over her feet; she was struck by the fact that his hand was big enough to cover both of her feet. Heat began seeping through her socks to her icy toes.
Convulsive shivering suddenly shook her, despite the warmth of coat, blanket, and body, and Richard gathered her closer, tucking her head under his chin and pulling the blanket up so that her nose was covered, warming the air she breathed. "You're going to smother me," she protested.
"Not for a while yet." There was that note of laughter in his voice again, though when she rolled her head back to see, his mouth was perfectly straight. No, not straight; she paused, mesmerized by the clear cut of his lips. He had a good mouth, not too thin, not too full. Not so wide that a woman would feel as if she might fall in, and not so small it looked as if he'd just sucked a lemon like Ronald Trump's, or whatever his name was. All in all, Richard's lips looked just right.
"You're staring," he said.
Over the years she had been caught staring at people more times than she could remember, and usually it didn't bother her, but this time she blushed. "I do that," she mumbled. "Stare at people. I'm sorry."
"It doesn't bother me. Stare away."
There was a warm, soft, indulgent tone in his voice that gave her another one of those alarming, exciting stomach flutters It occurred to her that sitting in a man's lap was not a good way to discourage his attentions, or flatten her own interest. On the other hand, not only did she doubt he would let her get up, the warmth was so marvelous she didn't want to get up, at least not now. Though she still shivered, she could tell the body heat thing was working, because the shivers were lessening in intensity.
"When were you in the army?" She felt she had to say something, because just sitting there was awkward, and if you couldn't talk to a man when you were in his lap, then when could you?
"A long time ago, when I was young and macho."
"Why did you join? Or were you drafted?" She had no idea when the draft had been abolished.
"I joined. I didn't have any money for college, so that seemed like the best way to get an education. Turned out I had a knack for things military. I would probably still be in if I hadn't stumbled on a knack for the stock market, too. The stock market is a lot more lucrative, and I wanted money."
"Well, you have it now."
"Yes, I do."
His body heat was seductive, melting her bones, leaching strength from her muscles. She felt herself sinking into him, molding to him like soft gelatin. The departing chill left her limp and sleepy, utterly relaxed. Not even the hard ridge forming under her bottom could alarm her. She yawned and stuck her cold nose into the warm curve where jaw joined neck. She felt him give a little jump, but then his arms tightened.
She should get up. She knew she should. This was asking for trouble. She wasn't a child, and she knew how sexual this situation was, and how much more sexual it could become. But the warmth… ah, God, the warmth! She was comfortable for the first time since getting out of bed that morning, more comfortable, truly, than she had been in a long time, at least a year. An electric blanket didn't provide the same kind of heat as another body, didn't reach all the way down to the marrow of her bones. The army knew what it was about, making its young soldiers cuddle.
She yawned again and felt a chuckle rumble in his chest, his throat, though it never actually made it out. "Go to sleep," he murmured, deep voice soothing. "I'll take care of you."
Sweeney wasn't a trusting soul; a solitary woman couldn't afford to be. But she didn't have a moment's doubt that Richard was a man of his word. She could feel sleep coming, heavy and delicious, and she gave herself up to it with a little sigh. "Don't let me sleep past one o'clock," she said, the words slurred, and closed her eyes.
One o'clock? Richard stifled his laughter. A glance at his wristwatch told him the time wasn't yet eleven-thirty. Sweeney evidently saw nothing wrong in expecting him to hold her in his lap for an hour and a half and let her sleep, disregarding all concern for any cramps he might develop or appointments he might have. The thing was, she was right. He would rather be right where he was than any other place he could think of.
His cell phone was in his coat pocket. Using his free hand, he carefully reached inside the jacket without disturbing her, though the back of his hand brushed her breast, which disturbed him. He ignored his aching erection and flipped open the flat little phone, pressing the buttons with his thumb. "I won't be going out to lunch," he said quietly when Edward answered. "Pick me up at one-fifteen."
"Very good, sir."
Richard ended the call and folded the phone. Sweeney stirred and nudged her nose against his neck, but didn't open her eyes. She was truly, deeply, asleep.
He shifted into a more comfortable position, settling his shoulders and easing his head back against the couch. He was going to be here awhile, so he might as well relax and enjoy it. Holding Sweeney on his lap was definitely enjoyable. He had a sneaking idea she had no clue how appealing she was, with her big blue eyes and curly mass of hair, but he had always thought she was one of the most attractive women he'd ever met. Not beautiful—attractive. People liked to look at her, talk to her. Men would have been swarming all over her if she had ever given any indication she was aware of them as men, not just sexless acquaintances. She was an expert at keeping people at a distance, blocking any but the most superficial contact.
Until yesterday. He didn't know what had happened, but suddenly he had known her blinders were gone and she was aware of him personally, emotionally, sexually. God knows he had been aware of her, standing there with that red sweater molded to her breasts and those blue eyes getting wider and wider as she listened to the McMillans. He had almost been able to see some irrepressibly scathing comment welling up in her throat, because she was known for saying what was on her mind. In the world he moved in, such spontaneous honesty was so rare as to be almost nonexistent. People guarded their words and stuck to the polite, the politically correct, the inane. He knew Sweeney tried to be polite, but as she had said yesterday, her tolerance level for bullshit was really low.
She made him grin. Hell, she made him laugh. He had the feeling he could spend every day with her for twenty years and not know all of her quirks or exactly how her mind worked.
He liked her. He had dated other women since he and Candra had separated, but he had been careful to keep any relationships casual, and in fact hadn't really liked any of the women. Enjoyed them, yes, even been aroused by them, but he had never felt any of them could be a friend. Maybe that was why he hadn't slept with any of them, which Candra would never believe, and in fact he astonished himself with his reticence. He missed sex. He wanted sex. He was so horny he was going through the torments of the damned, holding Sweeney on his lap, but the truth was he had turned down a lot of opportunities.
Legally, he was still married. He couldn't forget that. The marriage was over—he could barely tolerate being in the same room with Candra—but until a judge ruled the marriage was dissolved, he wasn't a free man. It wouldn't be fair to any woman to start a sexual relationship with her knowing he wasn't able to offer more. Until yesterday, when he had met Sweeney's eyes and felt that zing of attraction, it hadn't mattered. Now it did.
Gently he touched one of her curls, picking it up and stretching it out, marveling at its length. Straightened, her hair would reach over halfway down her back. He released the tension on the strand and it wrapped around his finger like a loose spring.
The chill she'd had worried him. The apartment's heat, added to the warmth of both her and the blanket draped over him, had sweat running down his face. Her face had been pale, her skin clammy. She had looked shocky, as if she had lost a lot of blood. Since that obviously wasn't the case, something else was wrong. Glancing down at her now, though, he saw a tinge of delicate color in her cheeks, and her face had lost the drawn look of hypothermia.
One unrestrained breast pressed against his rib cage. She was definitely braless, a detail he had immediately noted, with her chill pinching her nipples into tight little points. They had plumped out now, though, because he couldn't feel them pushing at him.
Not today, but one day soon, he would hold her naked breasts in his hands and rub his thumbs over her nipples and watch them pucker. He closed his eyes as he let himself imagine how it would feel to hold her beneath him and push deep into her. Making love to Sweeney would be a challenge; despite the startled awareness in her eyes, she was resisting doing anything about it. Part of it was scruples, yes; he understood that. But part of it was sheer stubbornness, an unwillingness to open herself up to him. She wanted her life just the way it was, without a man around to distract her. She was good at keeping it that way, too, because judging from the comments Candra had dropped over the years, Sweeney was practically a nun.
Not for much longer, though.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to relax, but as he began to doze, he remembered her charge—he would demand time and sex and things like that, he thought was the way she'd put it. She was right on the money. He went to sleep with a slight smile on his face.
In the army, he had trained himself to sleep for a specified length of time, no matter how brief, and wake up when he wanted. Now they were called power naps, but then he had called it staying alive. He shut out of his mind the uncomfortable heat, ignored it as if it didn't exist, another trick he had learned in training. When he woke half an hour later, he felt rested despite the fact that his shirt was wet with sweat. Sweeney was warm, too; she had pushed the blanket down from around her face, and her fingertips were pink. As he had expected, she began stirring just a few moments later, rather than the hour and a half she had given herself; sleep was the body's reaction to cold, and once warmth was restored, the sleepiness was gone.
He was looking down at her, so he saw her eyes pop open. Like flashes of lightning, her expression was startled, then flickered to alarm. She sat up suddenly, catching his balls beneath her and pinning them. He barely restrained a yelp and swiftly shifted her weight in his lap.
"Oh, God, I can't believe I did that," she muttered, scrambling off his lap in a tangle of blanket and coat.
"I can." Wincing, he eased into a different position.
She looked down, and her eyes widened. "I didn't mean that," she blurted. "I was talking about going to sleep in your lap. I'm so sorry" She bit her lip. "Are you all right?"
A chuckle burst through his clenched teeth. Gingerly he moved again, and the pain began to fade. "I don't know," he said, deliberately pitching his voice high.
She threw herself back against the couch, shrieking with laughter.
Richard bent over her, framed her face with his hands, and kissed her laughing mouth.
She went still, like a small animal trying to hide from a predator. Her hands came up to clasp his wrists, clever hands, the skin soft and sensitive over delicate bones. He wanted to crush her mouth with his, but he gentled his kiss, treasuring rather than taking. Her lips trembled, just a little. He opened them and sought her tongue with his. Heat roared through him, white-hot and urgent. His entire body tightened with the need to cover and enter. Ruthlessly he restrained himself, knowing she was far from acceptance.
Then she kissed him back. The movement of her lips and tongue were tentative, almost shy at first, and then a low moan vibrated in her throat and her grip tightened on his wrists. He felt tension invade her body, felt her strain upward even though she never left her seat beside him. He deepened the kiss, his tongue slow and sure, both taking and inviting.
She tore away from him, launching herself to her feet and stomping several feet away. When she whirled to face him, her expression was tight with anger. "No," she said, voice clipped. "You're married."
He got to his feet, gaze locked on her face. "Not for much longer. "
She made an abrupt motion. "You're married now, and that's what counts. You're in the middle of an unfriendly divorce—"
"Is there any other kind?" he interrupted, tone as mild as if he were asking the time.
"You know what I mean. Candra's my business associate, and on top of that I like her."
"Most people do."
"Getting involved with you would be messy. It wouldn't be righ."
His dark eyes narrowed. "Okay."
Her eyebrows arched in surprise. "Okay?"
"For now. Until the divorce is final. Then… He shrugged, letting the word trail off, but from the way he still watched her, she could figure out what "then" entailed. "One question: What's your first name?"
She gaped at him. "What?"
"Your first name. What is it? I refuse to call a woman I've slept with by her last name."
"We didn't—" she began, then scowled, because sleeping together was exactly what they had done. "You have to call me by my last name," she snapped. "Because it's the only name I'll answer to."
"Maybe. You might as well tell me," he said maddeningly. "You had to fill out an application when you moved into the apartment. I can find out from that."
Her scowl deepened. "Paris," she said abruptly.
He didn't follow. "What about it?"
"That's my name," she growled. "Paris. With one r. Like the city, Like the dead Greek guy. Paris Samille, if you want the whole enchilada. And if you ever—ever—call me either one, I'll hurt you."
Richard checked the time as he stood and picked up his jacket. He wasn't an idiot, so he didn't so much as smile. "All right," he agreed. "I promise I'll never call you anything you don't like." Before she could evade him, he bent and kissed her again.
"I'll lay off," he said softly. "For now. But when this divorce is final, I'll be back."
Sweeney didn't say anything, just watched silently as he let himself out of the apartment. Was that a promise, or a threat? The decision was up to her, and she had no idea which it would be. The only thing she knew for certain was that when he kissed her, she had left safety far behind.
Sweeney picked up first one canvas and then another, trying to decide which she should take to the gallery. She didn't like any of them, and the thought of anyone else seeing them embarrassed her. The bright colors looked childish to her, garish. Twice she started to call Candra and tell her she wouldn't be bringing anything over after all, but both times she stopped herself. If what she was doing was crap, she needed to find out for certain now before she wasted any more time. She didn't know what she would do if it was crap; therapy, maybe? If writers could have writer's block, the equivalent had to be possible for artists.
She could just hear it now; a therapist would solemnly tell her she was trying to resolve her childhood issues by becoming a child again, seeing things through a child's eyes. Uh-huh. She had resolved her childhood issues a long time ago. She had resolved never to be like her parents, never to use her talent as an excuse for selfish, juvenile behavior, never to have children and then shunt them aside while she pursued her art. Her mother advocated free love and went through a period of trying to "free" Sweeney from her inhibitions by openly making love with her various lovers in front of her young daughter. These days, she would have been arrested. She should have been then, too.
The wonder, Sweeney thought grimly, was that she had had the courage to paint at all, that she hadn't gone into something like data processing or accounting, to get as far away from the art world as possible. But she had never considered not painting; it had been too much a part of her for as long as she could remember. As a little girl she had eschewed dolls, choosing colored pencils and sketch pads as her favorite toys. By the time she was six, she had been using oils, snitching the tubes from her mother whenever she could. She could lose herself in color for hours, stand enraptured staring not just at rainbows but at rain, seeing clouds as well as sky, individual blades of grass, the sheen of a ripe red apple.
No, there had never been any question about her talent, or her obsession. So she had tried to be the best artist she could, and at the same time to be normal. Okay, so she sometimes slipped and forgot to comb her hair, and sometimes when she was working, she forgot and shoved her hands through said hair, leaving bright streaks of paint behind. That was minor. She wasn't promiscuous; she paid her bills on time; she didn't do drugs even on a recreational basis; she didn't smoke; she didn't drink. There wasn't a swag of beads anywhere in her apartment, and she was a regular June Cleaver in her personal life.
The most abnormal thing about her was that she saw ghosts, which really wasn't so bad, was it? Like maybe a sixty-seven on a scale of one to ten.
Sweeney snorted. She could stand there and philosophize all day, or she could pack up some canvases and get them over to the gallery.
Because she had said she would, and because it didn't matter which she chose, finally she just picked three at random. She thought they were all equally bad, so what difference did it make?
As an afterthought, she picked up the sketch she had done of the hot dog vendor. She was pleased with that, at least. She had just guessed at how he would have looked at six years of age, as a teenager, as a young man, but she had kept that same sweetness of expression in all the sketches in the collage. She hoped he would like it.
Her mind made up, she left the apartment before she could talk herself into dithering further. The rain the day before had left the air fresh and sweet; after a moment, surprised, Sweeney had to admit the weather forecast had been accurate: it was a beautiful day. That weird chill was gone, chased away by Richard's body heat, and she felt warmer than she had in a long time. If it wasn't for the anxiety that kept gnawing at her, she would have felt great. She decided to enjoy being warm and forget about how she had gotten that way.
The hot dog vendor wasn't in his usual spot. Sweeney stopped, disappointed and unaccountably uneasy. As if she could will it into appearing, she stared at the location where the cart was usually parked. He must be sick, because she had never before walked down this street without seeing him.
Worried, she walked on to the gallery. Kai rose from his desk and came forward to take the wrapped canvases from her. "Great! Candra and I have been talking about you. I can't wait to see what you're doing now."
"Neither can I," Candra said, coming out of her office and smiling warmly at Sweeney. "Don't look so worried. I don't think you're capable of doing a bad painting."
"You'd be surprised what I can do," Sweeney muttered. "Oh, I don't know," drawled a thin, black-clad man with stringy blond hair, sauntering out of Candra's office. "I don't think you've surprised any of us in a long time, darling."
Sweeney stifled a disgusted groan. VanDern. Just the person she least wanted to see.
"Leo, behave yourself," Candra admonished, giving him a stern look.
At least, Sweeney thought, seeing VanDern chased away her anxiety. Hostility overrode anxiety any day of the week. Her eyes narrowed warningly as she looked at him.
Like her mother, he epitomized what she despised most, dramatizing himself by wearing black leather pants, black turtleneck, black Cossack boots. Instead of a belt, a hammered silver chain was draped around his skinny waist. He wore three studs in one ear and a hoop in the other. He was never clean-shaven, but cultivated the three-day-stubble look, expending more energy on appearing not to shave than he would have on shaving. She suspected he went months, certainly weeks, without washing his hair. He could go on for hours about symbolism and the hopelessness of modern society, about how man had raped the universe and how his single glob of paint on a canvas captured the pain and despair of all mankind. In his own opinion, he was as profound as the Dalai Lama. In hers, he was as profound as a turd.
Candra unwrapped the canvases and in silence set them on some empty easels. Sweeney deliberately didn't look at them, though her stomach knotted.
"Wow," Kai said softly. He had said the same thing about her red sweater the day before, but this time the tone was different.
Candra was silent, tilting her head a little as she studied the paintings.
VanDern stepped forward, glancing at the paintings and dismissing them with a sneer. "Trite," he pronounced. "Landscapes. How original. I've never seen trees and water before." He examined his nails. "I may faint from the excitement."
"Leo," Candra said in warning. She was still looking at the canvases.
"Don't tell me you like this stuff," he scoffed. "You can buy pitchers' like this in any discount store in the country Oh, I know there's a market for it, people who don't know anything about art and just want something that's 'purty' but let's be honest, shall we?"
"By all means," Sweeney said in a low, dangerous voice, stepping closer to him. Hearing that tone, Candra snapped her head around, but she was too late to preserve the peace. Sweeney poked VanDern in the middle of his sunken chest. "If we're being honest, any monkey can throw a glob of paint on a canvas, and any idiot can call it art, but the fact is, it doesn't take any talent to do either one. It takes talent and skill to reproduce an object so the observer actually recognizes it."
He rolled his eyes. "What it takes, darling, is a total lack of imagination and interpretive skills to do the same old thing over and over again."
He had underestimated his target. Sweeney had been raised in the art world and by the queen of sly, savage remarks. She gave him a sweet smile. "What it takes, darling"—her tone was an almost exact mimicry of his—"is a lot of gall to pass your kind of con off on the public. Of course, I guess you have to have something to offset your total lack of talent."
"There's no point in this," Candra interjected, trying to pour oil on the waters.
" Oh, let her talk," VanDern said, languidly waving a dismissive hand. "If she could do what I do, she would be doing it, making real money instead of peddling her stuff to the Wal-Mart crowd."
Candra stiffened. Her gallery was her pride, and she resented the implication that her clientele was anything but the crème de la crème.
"I can do what you do," Sweeney said, lifting her eyebrows in exaggerated surprise. "But I outgrew it somewhere around the age of three. Would you like to make a small bet? I bet I can duplicate any of your works you choose, but you can't duplicate any of mine, and the loser has to kiss the winner's ass."
A low rumble sounded in Kai's throat. He turned his head, pretending to cough.
VanDern gave him a furious look, then turned his attention back to Sweeney. "How childish," he sneered.
"Afraid to take the bet, huh?" she said. "Of course not!"
"Then do it. I tell you what: I won't limit you to just my work. Pick a classic; duplicate a Whistler, a Monet, a van Gogh. I'm sure they would be worthy of your great talent."
His cheeks turned a dull red. He glared at her, unable to win the argument and equally unable to think of a graceful way of getting out of the bet. He glanced at Candra. "I'll come back later," he said stiffly, "when you have more time."
"Do that," she said, her tone clipped. Her annoyance was obvious. When the doors closed behind him, she turned to Sweeney. "I'm sorry He can be an arrogant jerk sometimes."
"Without straining," Sweeney agreed.
Candra smiled. "You more than held your own. He'll think twice before he challenges you again. He's hot right now, but fads pass, and I'm sure he knows his day in the sun won't last very long."
In Sweeney's opinion, VanDern thought he was the center of the universe, but she shrugged and let the subject drop. Candra returned her attention to the paintings, tapping one elegant nail on her bottom lip as she considered them. Sweeney's stomach knotted again.
"They're almost surreal," Candra murmured, talking to herself. "Your use of color is striking. Several shades seem to glow, like light coming through stained glass. A river, a mountain, flowers, but not like any you've done before."
Sweeney was silent. She had spent hours, days, staring worriedly at those canvases; she knew every brushstroke on them. But she looked at them again, wondering what she had missed, and saw that nothing had changed. The colors still looked strangely intense, the composition was a little off in some way she couldn't explain, the brushstrokes were a touch blurred. She couldn't tell if it was surreal, as Candra said, or exuberant. Maybe both. Maybe neither.
"I want more," Candra said. "If this is an example of what you've been doing, I want every canvas you've completed. I'm doubling your prices. I may have to come down in price, but I think I'm judging it right."
Kai nodded in agreement. "There's energy here, a lot more than I've ever seen in your work. People will go nuts over these."
Sweeney dismissed the bit about energy; that was just a buzzword. His last statement was more honest, an assessment of their marketability. Relief swamped her. Maybe she hadn't lost her talent, just her ability to judge it.
"What's that?" Candra said, indicating the folder holding the sketch of the hot dog vendor.
"A sketch I made of a street vendor," Sweeney said. "I want to give it to him." She shivered suddenly, a chill roughening her skin. Damn it, she had been enjoying feeling warm, but the warmth hadn't lasted long.
"I'll have these framed immediately," Candra said, turning back to the paintings. "And bring the others. I'd like to make a full display of them, place them close to the front so the light is better and they're the first thing clients see when they come in. I promise, these are going to fly out the door."
Walking back home, Sweeney hugged herself against the cold. She was relieved at Candra's reaction to the paintings, but for some reason she couldn't enjoy her relief. The uneasy feeling was growing stronger.
She reached the corner where the old vendor had always been, but it was still empty. She stopped, a great sadness welling in her as she wondered if she would ever see him again. She wanted to give him the sketch, wanted to know if she had accurately deduced his childhood features from the facial structure of an old man. She wanted to see that sweet smile.
"Hi, Sweeney," said a soft voice at her elbow.
She looked around, and delight speared through her. "There you are," she said joyfully. "I thought you must be sick—" She halted, shock replacing delight. He was faintly translucent, oddly two-dimensional.
He shook his head. "I'm all right. Don't be worryin' about me." The sweet smile bloomed in his dark face. "You got it right, Sweeney. That's just how I used to look."
She didn't say anything else. She couldn't. She wanted to weep, she wanted to say she was sorry she hadn't gotten it right sooner, so she could have given him the sketch.
"Do me a favor," he said. "Send it to my boys. Daniel and Jacob Stokes. They're lawyers, my boys, both of them. Fine men. Send it to them."
"I will," she whispered, and he nodded.
"Go on now," he said. "I'll be fine. I just had some loose ends needed takin' care of."
"I'll miss you," she managed to say. She was aware of people giving her a wide berth, but they were New Yorkers; no one stopped, or even slowed.
"I'll miss you, too. You always brought the sunshine with you. Smile now, and let me see how pretty you are. My, my, your eyes are as blue as heaven. That's a mighty nice sight... "
His voice became gradually fainter, as if he were walking away from her. Sweeney watched him fade, becoming more and more transparent until there was nothing left except a faint glow where he had stood.
The chill was gone. She felt warm again, but frightened and sad. She wanted to be held the way Richard had held her that morning, but he wasn't here, and he wasn't hers. She didn't have him. She was alone, and for the first time in her life she didn't like it.
Now You See Her Now You See Her - Linda Howard Now You See Her