‘Rooster is a Chesapeake Bay Retriever, not a hound,’ was the patient reply. ‘And your soft body, Ms Ferrar, was never in the slightest danger ... from him.’ Those incredible amber eyes flashed with laughter as he watched to be sure that she had caught the intent of his final words, then he said, ‘Now, come and I’ll give you a coffee while I get cleaned up, and then we’ll assess this wood you’ve brought. OK?’
Not OK, Colleen thought. Not one little bit OK, having seen the look in his eyes, having felt the touch of his lips on her wrist. But she meekly followed him into the house, albeit with a cautious look towards the huge red dog that followed them inside.
In the light, spacious and surprisingly tidy kitchen, Burns filled her a cup from a perpetual coffee-machine, plonked milk and sugar on the blackwood table before her and disappeared down the hall, muttering over his shoulder that he wouldn’t be long.
Nor was he. Colleen was still sipping her coffee and watching the dog watching her when he returned, hair crisply damp from the shower and that splendid body now clad in clean jeans and a white T-shirt that only served to display his muscles to best advantage.
Having poured his own coffee, he moved fluidly to perch himself across the table from her and lifted his cup in a salute that could have been either polite, mocking, or both.
‘I suppose I really should apologise for the rather unconventional welcome,’ he said, with a smile that told her that he really didn’t suppose any such thing. ‘If it’s any consolation, that’s the first time ever that Rooster has done a thing like that; I have no idea why he did it, but I applaud his taste.’
Mention of his name brought a moan of interest from the dog, who didn’t otherwise move except to swipe at those enormous fangs with that enormous tongue. Colleen didn’t dignify the charade with any reply at all.
‘You’re not impressed; I can tell,’ Burns said, after waiting patiently for Colleen to speak. ‘OK, let’s take that as read and get on with our business. Suppose you start from the beginning and tell me about this wondrous wood and this commission you have in mind?’
‘Fine,’ she replied, glad to be on a firmer footing at last. ‘The wood, as you know, is Huon pine, but it’s ... rather special. My father brought it back from somewhere in the south-west wilderness years and years ago, when I was just a child. His story is that he carried it out miles and miles and miles on an improvised backpack — he was doing some sort of survey work at the time, I think. He’s kept it ever since, or he did until it somehow devolved on me, and it’s very, very special to him.’
‘Why?’
‘Why is it special? Well, because he went to so much effort to get it, I suppose,’ she replied. ‘He had big plans to do ... what you do, I guess. I know he took a couple of adult-education courses in wood carving, sculpture, that sort of thing.’
‘But he never got stuck into these two enormous bits of wood?’
Colleen paused. Was there a definite look of sarcasm or even just plain disbelief on that rugged face? Whatever, it was gone as quickly as she saw or imagined it.
‘He told me once that he was afraid to touch it at first, and when he had learned enough to be able to, he said, he’d also learned enough to know that he wasn’t good enough and never would be, so he left it alone. Does that make sense?’
‘Your father sounds like an amazingly astute person,’ was the reply, and now the tone seemed totally genuine, even a little impressed. ‘There aren’t many people with the brains to recognise their own limitations and the integrity to do the right thing because of it.’
‘My father is a wonderful man,’ Colleen said.
‘I’m sure of it. But go on, please. Now we have you blessed with two chunks of rare wood, and you’ve brought them to mc; have you got big plans to be a wood sculptor too ... or...?’
‘Me? Not a chance,’ she laughed. ‘No, the situation is that, as I mentioned, his seventy-fifth birthday is coming up and he is one of your biggest fans — did I mention that? And since he is the original man who has everything I wanted to give him something truly special. So I thought if you could do a ... what do you call it? ... a bust of him ... from one of his special pieces of wood...’ She paused, forced herself to meet his eyes directly. ‘But I’ve changed my mind now.’
Those amber eyes Hashed a tiny flicker of surprise and he nodded his head expectantly.
‘Well, you’ve changed it since you got here, I presume. Do I dare ask why?’
‘Oh, it’s simple. I just realised two things I should have known all along: my father isn’t vain enough to ever want a bust of himself, for starters, and you don’t do carving or sculpture like that anyway. You’re famed for being able to bring out what’s already in the wood, or at least what you see in it. I’m not surprised, now, that you got stroppy when I mentioned the word “commission”.’
Colleen felt a fool — worse than a fool — at having to make such an admission, because she realised that she ought to have known better from the very beginning. She had got so wound up in the idea of giving her father a special, unique present that the realities had quite been ignored.
She looked at Devon Burns, knowing that if she were the type to blush she’d be blushing now. She was saddened by the way things had turned out, but accepting.
One dark eyebrow slowly elevated itself, and Colleen was certain that she saw a cloud of suspicion darken the amber of his eyes. But when he spoke Devon Burns’ voice gave no such message.
‘Certainly an interesting revelation,’ he said, rising to pour them fresh coffee without bothering to ask Colleen if she wanted more. ‘But not surprising, really, except maybe for the timing.’
‘I don’t think I understand,’ she replied, herself cautious now, even suspicious. His statement had been just a shade too complimentary, and too easily given.
He shrugged. ‘Going by your father’s reputation as I’ve heard it, he certainly isn’t noted for being vain. If he was, I suspect he’d have had one of those mighty land-development projects named after him, or one of his shopping centres or something. As for the rest...’ Another shrug, this one with a slight smile. ‘Now that I’ve finally twigged who you are, I’m a bit surprised it took you all this time to realise my attitude about working with other people’s ideas; you’re an artist yourself, after all.’
Colleen, who had instinctively tensed at being so easily recognised — and had expected a far different remark in the face of it — relaxed slightly. But there was bitterness in her own voice when she replied, and she made no attempt to hide it.
‘Thank you... I think. It’s nice to find somebody who still thinks so.’
Again that raised eyebrow, but this time his eyes flared with something besides suspicion. Dark amusement? Hostility? It might even have been contempt, she thought.
Whichever, it made it clear enough that Devon Burns might live somewhat isolated but he certainly kept abreast of current affairs. She hadn’t been aware that her case had made nearly the splash in the Tasmania media that it had on the mainland, but obviously it had. Unless, of course, he also maintained strong information sources throughout the arts network, which was also likely enough.
‘Is that what you’re doing in Tassie — licking your wounds?’
‘Or giving up? Why don’t you ask that too?’ she replied, fighting now to meet his eyes because she had asked herself both questions time and again during the past three months. And not liked the answers.
By the age of twenty-five, Colleen had created for herself a national and international reputation as a clothing designer. And she had done it purely on her own talent and her own money and her own work — hard work and plenty of it. Now, four years later, she considered herself a battle-scarred veteran; she had survived — barely — a vicious and lengthy legal battle over design rights, having been set up by a man she had trusted implicitly ... a man she had actually planned to marry.
She’d had her name, reputation and talent dragged through the mud, suffered the pain of betra
yal, won the court battle to emerge modestly rich, then sold her label to a multinational to make herself even richer and taken herself off to Tasmania — her father’s birthplace — to make a fresh start.
‘There’s no shame in retiring to regroup,’ he said, and his eyes seemed honest enough. ‘And it wasn’t me that mentioned quitting. As for the rest, well, you did win, after all.’
Win? That had been part of the problem all along for Colleen. She had won in court, had, she supposed, won in selling out for a mammoth price. But she had emerged from the fray so tattered and vulnerable that she didn’t feel as if she had won anything at all. Her reputation, to her, would always be in question, and half the industry regarded her selling out to the multinational as just that — a sell-out.
‘Did I win?’ she asked, as much of herself as of Devon Burns, not even realising that she had spoken aloud until she looked up to see the expression in his eyes. It was a question that she couldn’t answer and he didn’t attempt to.
‘Come and show me this damned wood,’ he said gruffly. ‘After all you’ve said about it I’m mightily intrigued.’ And before Colleen could object he had reached out to take her hand and lift her upright, and, still holding her hand, was moving towards the door.
‘But ... but there’s no sense bothering now,’ she said as they stepped outside, with the big red dog almost upsetting her as he shoved past them.
‘All the sense in the world,’ Burns replied, tugging her in the direction of her car. ‘I’ve heard your story of this wood, and your father’s story; I can hardly wait to see if the wood has a story of its own. Besides,’ he said with a slow grin as they finally halted by the car, ‘Ignatius would never forgive me if I didn’t look at it, considering all the effort that’s gone into our meeting.’
Colleen had to smile, though she wasn’t sure that his still holding her hand didn’t also have something to do with that.
Devon Burns hefted the two large Huon pine sections out of the sports car and carried them, one balanced on his shoulder and one under his arm, around to the outdoor workshop behind the house. Colleen followed, admiring the ease with which he managed the task. It had taken all her strength just to roll each piece around the garage floor of her rented Launceston townhouse; getting them into her sports car had been a gargantuan effort.
Burns tipped the section from his shoulder onto a pedestal affair that cranked up and down somewhat like a clothes hoist, and dropped the other piece casually into a nearby sawdust pile, where it landed with a great thud.
Ignoring Colleen now, along with, it seemed, everything else but the wood in front of him, he began a lengthy and involved process of inspecting the wood from every possible angle and vantage point. He circled the pedestal with the slow patience of some great hunting cat, moving sometimes so slowly that she could hardly discern it, other times with speed and thrust as he searched for … for what?
Whatever it was, the search seemed to provoke some atavistic, primitive element in the man. His movements became almost a dance, almost a ritual, and she realised suddenly that he was speaking or singing, either to himself or to the wood itself. There was something quite elemental about the performance; she could recognise no words, but somehow was quite convinced that he was actually communicating.
Ridiculous, she thought. Until he suddenly hefted the log down and replaced it with the other, larger piece of Huon pine, beginning a vaguely similar but somehow quite different performance.
Again it was as if only he and the wood existed in the universe; Burns looked at it with eyes that saw...? Whatever it was, Colleen knew that she could never see it, and nor would anyone else, until Devon Burns’ unique skills had brought it out of the wood in his special form of artistry.
As she watched, entranced, he placed the two huge pieces of wood side by side on a high bench nearby, turning them infinitesimally this way and that then stepping away to view from first one angle and then another.
Then he moved in close, inspecting each piece of wood by hand, and now Colleen was even more entranced. His lean, strong fingers moved over the surface of the wood with a strange intimacy, a caressing gentleness that went far beyond mere touch.
Colleen’s skin quivered as she imagined those fingers moving so delicately, so knowingly intimately upon the fabric of her own body. The concept was as exhilarating as it was faintly frightening. Just watching him gave her the shivers; it was as if he could see through those sensitive fingers and was viewing the soul of the wood as easily as she could see the outside of it.
And when he finally turned away, shaking himself slightly as if returning from some distant, foreign place, the eyes he turned upon Colleen were more than just amber in colour; they fairly glowed.
‘Your father was wiser than I suspect he knew,’ Burns said in a voice that was strangely subdued, almost reverent. ‘These are superb pieces of wood; I’m not even sure I can bring out the best in them, although I’d surely love to try. You will sell them to me, I hope?’
‘Sell them?’ Colleen was asking that question of herself, not Devon Burns. And somehow the answer didn’t fit. Even though she couldn’t see whatever it was that he saw in the wood, the Huon pine simply was not just a raw material in the sense of bricks or clay or dress fabric. It was that uniqueness that only Burns could see which gave the wood its value, and how to put a price on that?
‘I don’t know,’ she said, moving to where she could put her fingers where his had been, only to find them blind, insensitive. ‘I can’t see what makes them so special. I simply can’t touch this wood like you do and … and … see.’
‘Try.’
That husky voice was near her ear now, and those fingers had her own encased within them, guiding them to the wood, directing them.
‘Close your eyes for a minute and try to let your fingers see the grain, the convolutions in the wood,’ he whispered. ‘Then look again and see if it doesn’t make a difference.’
Colleen tried, but with her eyes closed she was aware only of his fingers upon her own, guiding her, his touch warm, insistent, his breath in her ear even more so. And when she opened her eyes the wood was all out of focus; what she saw was the incredible length of his fingers, the well-kept nails, and she was even more aware of his touch and the nearness of him.
She closed her eyes again, and this time she did become aware, but not of the wood. As if a light had been turned on in her mind, she became aware of Devon Burns becoming aware — of her.
The strong, creative fingers that had guided her own were now moving along her wrist, tracing her pulse along towards the softness of her inner elbow. His other hand, on her shoulder, was flexing, the fingers not roaming but gently exploring the texture of her skin beneath the silken blouse.
The sensation was ... exquisite. But dangerous — simply too dangerous. Colleen basked in it momentarily, then suddenly straightened up and shifted away from him, blinking rapidly as she found herself staring directly into the sun.
‘I’m ... I’m sorry,’ she found herself saying, not really knowing what she was apologising for, or why.
Burns might not even have noticed her abruptness; he wasn’t looking at her but seemed to be concentrating again on the two large chunks of wood. And yet he had been aware of her; she had felt it, knew it. But if he now chose to ignore that, well, all the better … because she also intended to.
‘You realise I wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to go about pricing this wood, assuming, of course, I decided to sell it to you?’ she asked.
He grinned, and she saw the devils in his eyes laughing with him.
‘I do, if you’d trust me," he said, and named a price that was low but that Colleen somehow knew was more than the real value as it sat. His grin only broadened when she told him exactly that.
‘You’re forgetting the delivery fee,’ he said. ‘Usually I have to spend days, sometimes weeks, searching out exactly the pieces I want; this is the first time ever I’ve had them brought right to my door.’
/>
Colleen was thinking quickly, hardly paying attention to the attempted gallantry. She hadn’t told him, and wouldn’t, that the price was really so low as to be irrelevant to her. She’d be as well just to give him the wood and be done with it, she thought, then changed her mind, wondering if...
‘What chance is there that you would have either piece sculpted in time for my father’s birthday?’ she asked.
He shrugged. ‘Depends.’
‘On what? Have you that much on the go that you couldn’t at least try?’
Oh, I could try. I would try, come to that.’
He reached out to the largest of the two pieces, saying, ‘The other one is just whispering to me so far, but this one ... shouts! But there’s a lot between that and producing a finished creation, as I’m sure you realise.’
Colleen nodded. She did realise that; the creative process might be greatly different for him from the way it was for her but there were also definite similarities.
‘Would you give me first option to buy it when it’s done — assuming that it’s finished in time?’
Now it was his turn to pause. She had struck some sort of chord, she realized, but couldn’t assess what it was. His eyes had changed, darkened, lost all expression to the point where she couldn’t tell if he was angry or just thinking it over.
‘Are you really talking about assuming.. .or is that just a backhanded way of putting a deadline on things?’
‘I said assuming and I meant assuming. We’re not talking about a commission here; I’m only asking for first option to buy if it gets finished in time.’
‘Not without it going on exhibition,’ he finally said. ‘I’ve got a major exhibition coming up, just before your father’s birthday, in fact. And another a few months later. It would have to go in one or the other.’
‘But if it’s already sold—’
‘The selling isn’t the whole point of the exercise.’ And now his voice took on a stern quality; this was Devon Burns the artist speaking out. ‘There’d be no sense doing it at all if only one or two people besides me would ever see the result.’
Beguiled and Bedazzled Page 3