Gracie rested her head against the glass, eyes closed. If she could have ended her life at that moment, she might have considered it. The yawning chasm of emptiness inside her chest threatened to swallow her whole.
Perhaps she dozed. Or perhaps the pain simply became too much to bear and she lapsed into a stupor of grief.
But when the plane touched down and the flight attendant insisted Gracie leave the plane, she managed to get to her feet and shuffle in the wake of the other passengers.
As she exited the concourse, a tall man with a deep artificial tan and a cautious smile waved at her. “Over here, Gracie.”
And just like that, it all came flooding back. Every bit of her lost memory. In an instant. He was her father.
Twenty-four hours ago such a development would have elated her. Now all she felt was a dull acceptance. If Gareth had been standing beside her, he would undoubtedly have been skeptical in the extreme.
Fortunately she didn’t have to explain herself to anyone. Her father thought she was pretending to have amnesia while on Wolff Mountain, so as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed.
He took her arm as they made their way outside. “I’m glad you’re home, baby girl. Those Wolff men are scary. I’ve had to hire a lawyer…can you believe it? They made all kinds of threats…just because I joked with some sleazy reporter.”
“I thought you were gone.”
He pulled out into traffic and glanced at her. “Came in on a flight half an hour ago. When I saw a woman holding a sign with your name on it, we had a little chat and I sent her on her way. You want to stop for lunch? My treat?”
Gracie turned away from him, too desolate to be indignant. Her father was shallow, ego-driven and about as thick-skinned as a rhino. If he picked up on her distress, he showed no sign.
Even with no response from her, he stopped at the restaurant anyway. While her father polished off a substantial meal, Gracie pushed around several bites of syrup-soaked pancake on her plate and waited for the interminable stop on her journey home to be over.
Suddenly she was struck by a revelation. “You never had any intention of letting me manage the gallery, did you?” Only now did she remember that he had promised the job as an incentive to get her to invade Wolff Mountain and coax Gareth Wolff into giving them his mother’s paintings for the gallery. “You knew I would fail,” she accused. “This was all nothing more than a futile goose chase. Why, Daddy? Why would you do that to me?”
He set down his coffee cup and sighed, his put-upon expression designed to make her feel guilty instead of the other way around. “Misty’s the new manager, sweetheart. And if you think about it, it makes perfect sense. She needs the job…you don’t.”
Misty was her father’s less than brilliant girlfriend. “And why don’t I need the job?” Gracie asked. She’d worked at the gallery in one capacity or another for years. Knew the business inside and out. Becoming manager was something she had wanted for a long time. So she had acceded to her father’s audacious request that she track down Gareth Wolff and ask about Laura’s paintings. Gracie had actually been the one to stumble across the mention of them in an old art journal she’d picked up at a flea market.
Edward took her hand in his, surprising her with the open affection. Her father rarely made the effort to play his parental role. “You’re a gifted artist, Gracie. You should be creating art…not selling it. Every penny of the money your mother left you is still sitting in the bank. Take some of it. Go away. Find your muse. And when you come home, I’ll be begging you to let me exhibit your work.”
She took the flattery with a grain of salt. Edward knew he had screwed up, and he knew she would not be easily appeased. What he didn’t know was that she was too heartsick to work up a head of steam over his transgressions. Fighting with him was simply more than she could endure right now.
An hour later, she was alone in her bedroom. The air was stale and musty, so she threw open the windows and curled up on one of the cushioned gable seats searching for solace.
Everything surrounding her was comfortable and familiar. And she had never felt so alone in all her life.
Two weeks of grieving were all she could tolerate. Nothing was going to change unless she took the reins and quit letting the days wash past her…unnoticed, unappreciated.
She wasn’t the first woman to lose a man she loved. And she wouldn’t be the last. Life moved on.
But what hurt the most—the regret that was hardest to shake—was that Gareth thought she had been willing to use his mother’s art for personal gain. And it was true. Not knowing Gareth or his personal history, she hadn’t thought the idea so terrible at its inception. In fact, Gracie had gone to the Blue Ridge sure she could persuade Gareth Wolff to share his mother’s talent with the world. Thinking of him alone and hurting in his mountain hideaway made her ill. Knowing that she had added to his pain was almost more than she could bear.
When she could stand it no more, she took her father’s advice. Loading up her yellow VW bug, the one that had been returned to her from a small town in Virginia with no note, no acknowledgment at all, she fled the city.
With her she had a month’s stash of food and several boxes of art supplies. She had rented a small, isolated cabin in the north Georgia mountains, and for the next thirty days, she planned to do nothing but paint, sleep and paint again.
Halfway up the state, she came close to a crisis. A huge part of her wanted to drive northward, not stopping until she reached a certain mountain in Virginia. She actually pulled over in a rest stop and folded out a map to see how long it would take her.
But at the last minute, she acknowledged the futility of such a plan. Not only would she face the very real possibility of being arrested, but even worse, the likelihood that Gareth might throw her out himself. The God’s honest truth was, she couldn’t bear to see hate in those beautiful, dark eyes that had shown her such tenderness and care.
She had cried enough tears to fill a small lake. There were none left. Only a dull acceptance of what could not be changed.
The sun was almost gone when she spotted a turnoff on the narrow two-lane road. Now she traversed a rough, hard-packed dirt lane. Forty-five minutes later, when it seemed as if she might drive off the end of the world, she found her lodging, a small, unimpressive house in the heart of the forest.
Peeling paint, a leaning porch and ill-kempt landscaping made her wonder if she had been scammed. Fortunately the inside was more prepossessing. Though had she not been so bone tired, she might have spared a moment’s amusement for the mental juxtaposition of Gareth’s incredible home with this dump.
The first night in the cabin was unsettling. She was a city girl, used to the sounds of sirens and traffic and quarreling neighbors. Here the solitude was oppressive, the deep, impenetrable night threatening.
On Wolff Mountain, the conditions were similar. But there she’d had Gareth to share her bed, to keep her safe and warm. Now she was on her own.
She slept little, choosing instead to curl up on the screened-in porch in a cushioned wicker chair and listen to the chirp of crickets and the rustle of nocturnal animals. Occasionally she dozed, but it was not until the faint light of morning dawned that she was finally able to crawl back into her bed and fall into a deep, exhausted slumber.
The pattern continued over the next week. Sleeping much of the day…eating a single meal in the evening, and working as the night hours waned. Sometimes she dragged a small lamp out onto the porch. At other moments she labored by candlelight.
Her water colors remained untouched. Instead she used pen and ink, filling page after page of heavy paper with black slashes, most of which translated into the same subject.
As her hands flew over the pages, her mind was unfortunately free to wander. Her world was topsy-turvy, changed beyond recognition. She couldn’t continue with the life she had known for so many years. The potential for a future with Gareth was obliterated. Where did she go from here?
; On the eighth day of her walkabout, it rained. Not a gentle sprinkle, but a raging, stormy deluge. In the wake of her usual nighttime insomnia, she slid into bed, pulled the covers over her head and fell asleep to the drumming of the storm on the tin roof overhead.
Dreams swirled in her subconscious, memories of Gareth making love to her. Vivid images of the two of them talking, laughing, wanting, taking. Hunger and heat.
She moaned, restless and aching. The dream was sweet at first, but then terrifying and wretched. Gareth turned his back on her, walking away until he was no more than a speck on the horizon.
Thunder rumbled again, but with an oddly insistent beat. It took her long minutes to shake off the vestiges of sleep and recognize that someone was beating on her door.
Heartsick…exhausted…she contemplated not answering the summons. But perhaps there was a neighbor with an emergency…someone who needed her help.
Cautiously she peeped around the edge of the front window draperies and felt her limbs go numb as her heart ceased to beat. It was Gareth. Wasn’t it? She hardly recognized him.
Swinging open the door with an unsteady hand, she stared at him. “Why are you here?” she demanded.
Eighteen
Gareth considered himself an intelligent man, but the lessons he had learned since Gracie left the mountain were hard-won. Giving up his grief and bitterness was no easy task. But in Gracie’s absence, he had seen a man in the mirror who was a ruthless bastard. A man who suffered.
He’d walked miles in the mountains, trying in vain to outrun his demons. And at night he’d tossed and turned in restless dreams, aching for Gracie as if he had lost a limb.
His current quest was half closure, half penance. First to Savannah for a heated conversation with Edward Darlington, then on north and west to track through an obscure area with few directional signs and many roads that didn’t show up on his GPS.
He was exhausted, frustrated and frankly, miserable. He drank in the sight of Gracie like a tonic. He felt dizzy, disoriented. None of his recollections of her came close to the real thing. Though she was thinner perhaps, and pale, too pale, she was so beautiful it hurt to look at her. He leaned against the door frame, his knees embarrassingly weak. “May I come in?”
She debated saying no. He saw the refusal form in her eyes, and yet at the last minute, he was granted a reprieve. But instead of answering him, she merely stepped back and allowed him to brush past her. He inhaled her familiar scent and his gut clenched. Another part of him tightened, as well, but he knew such a craving would not likely be appeased. Not when he had acted like a complete and total jackass.
“Nice cabin,” he said, running his hand over a questionable support beam. With an inward wince, he admitted to himself that sarcasm probably wasn’t the best approach.
“Why are you here?” She reiterated the question bluntly.
In her face he could see no sign of welcome. He had hoped… God, he had hoped that she would still feel at least an iota of the love she had professed. But he’d done a damned good job of riding roughshod over her tender heart, and he couldn’t blame her if she hated him.
He paced the small living room, noting the bunch of wildflowers in a milk-glass vase, the remnants of a snack on a rickety end table. “I had your father investigated,” he said bluntly.
Some strong reaction flashed in her eyes before she recovered and presented him with an impassive gaze. “And?”
“He’s not a criminal. I suppose you would say his worst sin is an overabundance of ego.”
“You’re hardly one to throw stones in the arena.”
“A fair point,” he acknowledged. “Do you have anything to drink? I’m parched.”
He followed her into the kitchen, waiting as she poured a cup of lukewarm coffee and handed it to him…black…the way he liked it. He downed half the cup and grimaced. The sludge tasted as if it had been brewed hours ago.
He set the unfinished drink on the scarred Formica counter and scowled. “Why didn’t you just ask to see my mother’s paintings?”
Her glare was incredulous. “I had amnesia.”
“So that part was true?” In the aftermath of her leaving, he’d had a hell of a time deciding which aspects of Gracie Darlington were gold and which were dross.
“Yes,” she muttered. “It was all true. Believe me, if I had remembered why I was there, I would have told you. You would have kicked me out and the two of us would have remained strangers.”
“But instead, you became my lover.”
She went white, her eyes agonized. And then just as quickly, the expression vanished. With a shrug, she nodded. “Apparently so.”
“Did you ever get your memory back?” He had vacillated between wondering if she had regained her past and doubting that she had ever lost it in the first place.
Gracie perched on a stool, dark smudges beneath her eyes. After a wide-mouthed yawn, she rubbed her hands on the knees of her flannel sleep pants. They were cotton-candy-pink with little bunnies hopping across the fabric. “As soon as I saw my father, I remembered everything. Not that it mattered at that point.”
“I’m glad.” He stopped short, the words he had come to say bottled up in his chest. “I had a serious girlfriend once.”
His abrupt change in topic left her visibly confused. “Okay…”
“She used me to get to my father and steal a priceless painting during a family dinner.”
Though he didn’t deserve it, her eyes softened. “I’m sorry.”
“I was afraid of making the same mistake with you.” The admission hurt his chest.
“What mistake?”
“Confusing lust with love. Opening my family to harm.”
Her pretty face, usually so open and easy to read, baffled him with its lack of expression. She shrugged. “I’m sorry my father was such an idiot. And I regret the fact that I let him coax me into doing something as stupid as infiltrating your privacy. I’ve apologized before. I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Why did you come to Wolff Mountain, especially knowing how unlikely it was that I would agree to your proposal?”
“My father promised me that if I could get you to place your mother’s work in the gallery, he would appoint me manager.”
“And he wouldn’t have done that anyway?”
“No. Not even if I had succeeded in my mission with you. When I got back, he had already installed his bimbo girlfriend as manager. Apparently she needs the job more than I do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“For once, he was probably right. I have an MFA degree. But I convinced myself that the percentage of artists who make a full-time career from painting was so small, there was no point in trying. As manager of the gallery, I would still be using my degree, but without the personal risk. Essentially I wanted my father to give me the job so I could settle down and move on with my life.”
“You’re awfully young to settle down. Are you any good?”
His blunt question dragged a laugh from her. “You be the judge.” She left him only long enough to retrieve a sketch pad from another room. “I’ve done all these since I’ve been here.”
Gareth flipped the pages slowly, at once impressed and humbled. She was damned good. The only real surprise was that in every one of the admittedly outstanding sketches, the subject was him. Gareth.
He studied each of them, noting how she had captured his expressions so succinctly. Arrogance. Humor. Anger. Hostility. It didn’t escape his notice that very few of the pages revealed any softer nuance in him. Perhaps if she had drawn his face during lovemaking, she could have seen what was in his eyes. As it was…no wonder she had greeted him today with such a marked lack of emotion. The man in the images was certainly not lovable as far as Gareth could see.
A blank page came next, and when he flicked at it, preparing to close the pad, he realized that here was another sketch still unseen. He turned the page. And his heart stopped. Dear God.
His mother’s eyes gazed
back at him with amusement and compassion.
Gareth looked up, shock flooding his belly. “How did you…”
Gracie moved past him and perched on the arm of the sofa, her feet tucked beneath her. “The photo in your workshop. I recreated it from memory…at least the portion that was your mother. The more I sketched, the more I realized how much you look like her. She must have loved you very much. Her first child. A precious boy.”
With a fingertip, he traced the features of a woman who had once meant the world to him. But in an instant, unbidden, another picture, a newspaper photo, momentarily threatened to replace his current nostalgic mood. With all his mental acuity, he forced it back.
He refused to let those old images hurt or define him. Not anymore. The likeness Gracie had created of his beloved mother warmed his heart and further cracked the shell he had built around himself. “It’s perfect,” he said, his throat tight and painful. “The spittin’ image…” He paused. “Is it for sale?”
Gracie nodded.
“How much?”
“Seventy-five thousand dollars. A check made out to my charity.”
He managed a grin, the first time he had really felt like smiling since he’d chased Gracie out of his life. “And what charity would that be?”
“I’ll think of one.”
He sobered, laying aside the collection of Gracie’s art. “I’ll never be able to make it up to you for the way I reacted that day. I’m ashamed, Gracie. And so damned sorry.”
She picked up a snack plate and carried it to the kitchen, ensuring that it was impossible for him to see her face, though the two rooms were connected. “I think we’ve both spent far too much time on apologies.”
He followed, taking her arm and forcing her to confront him. Without shoes, she was small, defenseless. Her big blue eyes looked up at him with wary calm.
She seemed cool as ice. He was the one whose hands trembled. He swallowed his pride along with the lump in his throat. “I understand loyalty to a parent, Gracie. Believe me. I’ve made decisions over the years, choices to please my father that anyone looking in would have questioned…and often did. I no longer fault you for coming to Wolff Mountain. You had to try.”
Into His Private Domain Page 16