"I guess so. I'm going to paint now." Feeling awkward, Andrea paused in the doorway. She felt as if she ought to say or do something else in response to Aura Lee's kindness. "Do you need any help with dinner?"
Aura Lee glanced up from the dishcloth she was folding. "It's all under control. You run along and paint, dear."
Andrea's gaze traveled around the studio. Photographs from the attic hung like wet laundry from the rope strung across one end of the room. Several boxes were stacked in a corner. No matter. For the next year, this was the most important place in the world.
As she picked up a canvas, thoughts of organizing her supplies dropped out of her mind. She needed to pick up a brush, to feel the power waiting inside her since the invitation to Wisdom Court. She was charged with energy. If she could capture just a fragment of those feelings...
She unfolded an easel, set the canvas in place. In moments she began to apply the wash of liquid white that would lend to the look of the sky as she'd driven into Boulder. The clouds had billowed like celestial sails across sapphire seas. Could she capture it? The stab of doubt stopped her mid-motion. She forced herself to rummage for brushes, unwilling to let uncertainty take hold.
The familiar preparations, mixing pigments and setting up her palette, were like warm-up stretches for a ballerina. With the first daub of paint on canvas the dance began. Everything narrowed down to colors and shapes and their fascinating interaction.
A crash from overhead brought Andrea back. The light through the studio windows was the silvery gray of late afternoon. She went to the sink for water and gulped it down, not caring that half dripped down her chin. She hunted for the paint thinner under the sink and set to cleaning the brushes still clutched in one hand. Droplets of color were scattered across her pullover; she muttered to herself for having forgotten a smock.
Rolling her shoulders to loosen them she waited for the water to run hot from the faucet. She was so tired. Scrubbing at the paint on her hands, she then splashed her face with water, and dried it with a clean rag.
Her stomach growled and she realized she was starving. Aura Lee would probably give her a snack. And coffee, hot and sweet, enough to put a little zip back into her.
Andrea rubbed cream into her hands and was heading for the door when she glanced back at the painting. She stopped and her breath slid out of her. The ethereal sky she'd set out to portray was nothing like what was on the canvas. Ferocious dark clouds menaced a sharp sandstone embankment scarred by a ledge cut into rock. Naked branches of a dead tree clawed at the clouds overhead like a cadaver hand. Where had this come from?
The power of the work was undeniable. Caught between fear and an odd pride, Andrea went closer and leaned in to study the brushstrokes. Near the stark tree was the outline of a man, his head tilted up to the sky. No face, but the widow's peak formed by his hair was distinct.
Andrea made a wordless sound. Was it the man of the sketches? She forced herself to scrutinize every detail of the figure. What he looked toward she couldn't tell. She had no memory of painting any part of it.
Bile rose in her throat. If she let herself, she'd splinter into bits. By the time she got to the back door of the house, she was running. She heard a voice behind her yelling her name but didn't stop.
Instinctively she retraced the way she'd gone with Neal, striding along the street and crossing the parking area. The altitude finally slowed her down. She was gulping for air by the time she reached Gregory Creek. Bracing herself against the bridge rail, she gasped for oxygen, frightened by the thunder of her heartbeat and the black edging her eyesight.
Andrea blinked and felt a tear spill onto her cheek. She dashed it away with the back of her hand. Breathing deeply, she focused on control. She was alone with whatever was happening inside her.
From a distance she heard the crunching sound of footsteps on gravel.
"Excuse us."
Andrea jerked around, nearly bumping into the man and woman waiting for her to leave the bridge. "Sorry."
The thickset man consulted the Rolex at the cuff of his crisp white shirt, but the woman beside him ventured a smile, kindness warming her pale eyes. "Are you all right?" She paid no attention to the man's impatient gesture as he stepped off the bridge, but instead waited for Andrea's response.
"I'm okay." Andrea cleared her throat. "Thank you." She motioned toward the steep hillside. "I'm not used to the altitude."
The woman nodded in understanding. "It affects everyone at first. Where are you headed?"
"The trail to the Amphitheater."
"You'd better go slow. It takes a while to acclimate." She passed Andrea and strode to catch up with the man. The two of them scrambled up the trail veering off from the stream.
Andrea felt steadier for the woman's interest. People were frequently compassionate. Hadn't all of the women at Wisdom Court—except for Kerry—been considerate since she'd arrived? How long would that last if they knew she was delusional? She laughed grimly at the thought and the sound scared her.
She set off on the path and within minutes was at the wood sign marking the Amphitheater Trail. The ruggedness of the course gave her pause, but she was in no mood to go back.
Her leg muscles protested at the high stone steps set into the hill but she ignored the pain. She miscalculated a step and tripped, nearly falling to her knees. Grabbing at the nearest support, a shrub growing out of the hillside, she regained her balance. Frightened, she gazed down the steep rock fall to the sluggish rivulet in the fissure below.
This was the same place she'd been on Friday, but the sun was behind clouds and today the mountain offered no welcome. Her fingers brushed against the small red flowers that reminded her of poppies.
She talked herself up the trail, staying near the slope, away from the edge. Her feet slipped repeatedly and she vowed to buy hiking boots at the first opportunity. She would enjoy hiking. In time her lungs would increase in capacity and she wouldn't feel so much like throwing up. She would learn to know these mountains so she could paint them as they deserved to be painted. The image of the canvas back in her studio intruded, and she pushed it out of her mind. All she had to do was put one foot in front of the other. All she had to do was breathe.
* * *
From the peak roof Neal saw Andrea run across the backyard and up the hillside. He called to her but she didn't pause. He frowned. Had she not heard him or was she ignoring him? For the umpteenth time he wondered what had gone wrong when they'd hiked together. She'd been cool to him ever since, and downright closed-off yesterday when he asked her to dinner.
Behind him Denny Corbin said, "Hey, what'd you do, offend the lady?" He was on the ladder braced in the attic, his head and shoulders above the edge of the hole. He'd been ripping away damaged shingles with a pry bar in order to staple down the sheet plastic they'd brought that morning as a temporary cover. His curly blond hair waved in the breeze and he shoved it out of his eyes. "She's a looker. You forget yourself with that sweet thing?" he demanded, grin mocking.
It hit too close to the mark. "Get back to work, you slacker." Over the last two years Denny had become Neal's right hand man, but his idea of wit was to rib him on his social life. Twenty-five and single, Denny seemed amused by his employer's stops and starts in the world of dating.
Neal returned the one-finger salute Denny sent him. He caught another glimpse of Andrea's blue shirt past the bushes along Baseline and frowned again.
Sometime later thunder rumbled to the west and Neal surfaced from the problems of splintered rafters and a cracked floor joist. The sky was darkening, particularly over the mountains. "Shit," he muttered. He needed a few more minutes to finish tacking down the plastic. He didn't take time to measure the furring strip for the final section, just broke it over one knee and stapled it along the folded edge. "Here, Denny, put this in your tool box." He handed over the staple gun. When he saw lightning over Gregory Canyon, he remembered Andrea. "Did that woman come back? The one we saw leave earlier?"
Denny was winding the extension cord from hand to elbow. "I didn't see her, man." He jerked his chin toward the clouds piling up over the Front Range. "Looks like something's headed our way. Think we oughta bag it for a while?"
"Have you got that side fastened down?" When he nodded, Neal said, "Okay, you go ahead."
Denny eased across the expanse to the ladder at the side of the house and started down. The wind came up, whipping his hair around his head. He hesitated, looking back at Neal. "You coming?"
"In a minute." Neal scanned the area where he'd seen Andrea, alert to a glimpse of blue shirt or chestnut hair, but didn't see any sign of her. She'd probably come back already. He climbed down the ladder. No reason to worry. Odds were she was in the house.
The intermittent wind made taking down the ladder difficult. Neal and Denny lashed it to the pickup, then made sure the plywood panels stacked nearby were bound and under cover.
With each passing minute, the worry gnawing at Neal's gut grew stronger. "You finish up," he called to Denny. "I need to check something in the house."
Denny waved at him and Neal headed inside. The rooms were quiet and empty. He called Andrea's name, then Aura Lee's, but no one answered. The tension along the back of his neck intensified. She went for a walk, he told himself. She has enough sense to get out of the rain. The thought brought him no comfort. Filling his mind was how totally lost in her own thoughts she'd been the day they'd hiked together.
He slammed out the back door. "Denny," he called and got an answering shout. "I'm heading up to Chautauqua. I'll be back soon."
"Are you crazy?" Denny protested. "Man, that storm's gonna hit any minute."
Neal ignored him and strode across the yard.
Crossing Baseline, he dodged a car accelerating off the curve of Flagstaff Mountain Road. The wind had picked up speed and he could feel electricity building in the air. He told himself that all this worry was for nothing. She'd have come back hours ago. Maybe she was out on some errand. He picked up speed.
Neal was almost running by the time he reached the bridge over the creek. And then it struck him just how impossible his rescue mission was. He didn't know which direction she'd gone. He'd been assuming she'd go back where they'd hiked together. It was just as likely she'd started up Gregory Canyon, or headed south on the Bluebird-Baird Trail.
A gust of wind pushed him against the railing. He heard voices behind him. A man and woman were coming down the rocky byway from the Bluebird-Baird Trail. She was in front, picking her way over the rugged terrain. "Hurry up, Jess," the man bellowed. "We've got to get out of here before the storm hits."
She made it over the loose rock, flashing a relieved smile as she approached the bridge. "It's getting wild up there," she shouted to Neal over the wind. "I'd wait it out if I were you."
"Jess, we don't have time to stop." The sleeve of his white shirt was torn and graying hair blew into his eyes. He glared at Neal and roughly grabbed the woman's arm. "If you're stupid enough to go up there in weather like this, you deserve what you'll get."
"Don't worry about me." Neal started past them, then played a hunch and turned back. "Did you see a woman come this way? Reddish-brown hair, wore a blue shirt?"
The man tugged at her arm, but she'd already stopped. "We saw her here on the bridge. She said she was going up to the Amphitheater."
"Thanks. Thanks very much." Neal raced toward the trailhead, and rain began to fall.
Thunder crashed overhead. Neal bounded up the big blocks of stone, on the alert for any sign of Andrea. The wind rushed down the cleft created by the trail and more rain rode on it. The path was hard to see and he had to slow down to avoid falling when every instinct pushed him to hurry.
The rain slid off the stone slabs winding upward. The rubber soles of his boots slipped repeatedly. By the time he neared the jagged rocks of the Amphitheater, he was slowing down in spite of himself. He followed the bend in the path entering the area. Lightning flashed, and he saw her. She stood motionless, circled by the misshapen stones of the formation.
"Andrea!" He scrambled toward her. She didn't move and he grabbed her by the arm, swinging her around to face him. He yelled over the wind, "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"
"Neal?" Shaking with cold, she stared at him in confusion. "What are you doing here?"
"Come on." He pulled her upward toward cover. Time and erosion had created clefts in the rocks above them. Not deep enough to be called caves, they offered limited shelter.
He dragged Andrea behind him, thrusting her into a shallow fissure in the rocks. Her back scraped against the craggy interior as Neal pushed in beside her. The deluge had begun in earnest. He shifted his body, blocking the rain from hitting her. Between the thunder and the downpour, they could have been in the middle of a waterfall.
Andrea found she could breathe more easily. She was grateful for Neal's warmth, but she knew his back was exposed to the storm. "You're getting wet."
He lowered his mouth to her ear. "What did you say?"
"You're getting wet," she said more loudly. "Your back."
"I'll live." He pulled away from her a little and, in the flash of lightning, she could see his face. He was dripping rain, and his eyes were dark with worry. "What the hell were you thinking of, standing out in the middle of a thunderstorm?" His hands tightened on her shoulders. "You might've been electrocuted."
The rough rock was cold against the length of her spine. Andrea shivered. "I don't remember what happened. I saw somebody... something." She shook her head. "Then you were there yelling and you dragged me in here. That's all."
"Jesus, lady, you are something." He radiated heat from his hands, from his body pressed against her. "You can't go into mountains, even this close to home, and not watch out for yourself. You could've been hurt. You could have been killed."
Andrea began to tremble in a reaction that had nothing to do with cold. "I didn't mean to—"
His grip on her shoulders strengthened and he said something under his breath that she couldn't hear. Before she could ask him what it was, he bent his head and took her mouth. His lips moved against hers and she felt his tongue against her own. For a shocked moment she held herself still. Then she leaned into him. She kissed him back, greedy at the rush of pleasure. Her arms were at her sides and she struggled to get them free. He lifted his head. "Let me go."
Her voice was little more than a whisper but he loosened his grip on her and stepped back. Andrea closed the small gap. She ran her hands up his arms and grasped his shoulders, drawing him back to her. His lips skimmed over her face, finding her mouth once more. Everything else had left her mind. She knew only how vital it was to be close to him.
Lightning crackled, thunder crashing almost at once. They pulled apart in alarm. She looked up into his face as another bolt lit the sky. His brown hair was dark with rain. His gray-green eyes were feverish, his mouth taut. She pulled his head back down to hers.
Want became need. Andrea clutched his shoulders and kissed him with desperation she hadn't known before. Reality narrowed to the tension in his arms around her, and the power of his body moving against her own. She pulled back for air and in that instant lightning flared again.
At what she saw, time tilted on its axis. His hair was black, drenched, slicked back from a widow's peak. Rain slid down now-olive skin, and in the flash of light his eyes were black, were almond-shaped, were aglow with passion. He was not Neal.
When the recess went dark again he pulled her closer to his body. She screamed. Fighting insanely, she shoved him with all her strength. He stumbled back and she pushed out of the crevice.
The wind slammed against her, driving rain into her face, whipping her hair around her head.
"Andrea, Andrea!" The hoarse shout came from behind her, and in horror she wondered whose voice she heard. Tripping, nearly falling, she slipped over the tumbled rocks as lightning sizzled around them. "Andrea, wait!"
She found the trail and flung herself
down it, frantic to get away. At the sound of stones sliding against each other she turned and saw him lunge toward her.
Chapter 11
Andrea ran.
The wind forced rain into her eyes, making it nearly impossible to see the trail in the dimming light. She lost her footing on the slippery rocks, falling against rough granite, ripping the sleeve of her shirt and scraping the skin beneath. Pain spurred her on.
Lightning jolted shadows into motion and thunder shook the ground. Gravel all but pitched her onto the talus below. She ran into a tree, clinging to it until the sound of footsteps drove her forward.
As she reached the creek Andrea faltered, shivering convulsively, gasping for air. She started across the wooden footbridge, clutching the rail to keep herself upright. The adrenaline fueling her flight was ebbing fast. When she heard a noise behind her, she stumbled against the handrail.
"Either you're neurotic," Neal said with difficulty, breathing heavily, "or flat out crazy."
Andrea flashed on the image of his features shifting before her eyes. In spite of exhaustion she took a trembling step away from him.
"If you run now I swear to God I'll drag you down in the middle of the road." He stepped swiftly toward her across the bridge.
She had no doubt he would. He came up behind her, so close she felt the heat of his body. When he grabbed her arm she shrank from him.
"Dammit." His hand tightened as he swung her around toward him.
His face was in shadow.
At her sound of distress he stepped closer and she pulled back instinctively. He shook her by her arm. "Jesus, what's with you?" The words were forced out between deep breaths. "Up there you kissed me back. Why the hell did you run?"
He paused for her answer but by now the terror-fed strength carrying her down the mountain was at an end. Her teeth were chattering.
"Wait a minute," Neal growled. "Did you think I was going to force you—do you think I'm the kind of bastard who would attack you?" He let go of her but when she swayed he grabbed her arm again to brace her. "Let's get out of here."
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