On the way, Mack quizzed Jenna. He found out that Lacey painted in oils and in watercolors, as well. He grabbed a clerk the minute they got to the store and drilled the man on what kinds of equipment Lacey might need.
Besides the items Lacey had asked for, Mack ended up buying an easel, a number of blank canvases already stretched across wood frames and a set each of oil and watercolor paints. He also chose a worktable that could be folded up into an easy-to-carry suitcase, as well as several high-quality brushes.
As he strolled the aisles of the art supply store, grabbing things the clerk had suggested and throwing them into the cart, Jenna tried to explain to him that Lacey would probably be upset when she saw all he'd bought. He'd spent so much more than she could afford.
"I'm not letting her pay for it," Mack said. "So don't worry about that."
"But Mack. Her self-esteem right now is at an all-time low. And she has a lot of pride. She'll insist on paying for it."
"So? She can insist all she wants. As far as I'm concerned, she needs to be doing something she loves, something worthwhile. I'm just making sure she has the materials for it."
"But—"
"Save the buts, Jenna. I'm doing this."
When they returned to Meadow Valley and Mack and Jenna began lugging all their purchases into the back parlor, Lacey didn't say a word. At first. She sat in the easy chair, watching them troop in and out, her lips a thin line and her arms crossed under her breasts.
"Is that all of it?" she asked at last with pained civility.
"You bet." Mack set the folded easel against the fireplace. He was grinning. "I talked to the clerk at that store where you sent us. He told me the kinds of things you might need, so I bought 'em."
"I asked for some sketch pads, and something to draw with. Period."
"Yeah, well. You need all this other stuff if you're going to really get some work done."
"Who said I planned to 'really get some work done'?" She quoted him directly, with a sneer twisting her lips. "You can just pack all this stuff up and take it back where you got it. I didn't ask for it and I don't want it."
Mack wasn't grinning anymore. "Oh. Sorry. I guess I misunderstood. Your sister told me that you were an artist."
Lacey's white skin had flushed a deep red. "I am an artist, thank you very much."
"Well, then. If you're an artist, you need all this stuff."
"I cannot afford all this stuff." Lacey cast an outraged glance at Jenna, who was standing near the doors to the hall, wondering if she should say something or just let the two of them duke it out. "Jenna, tell him he has no right to—"
"Leave Jenna out of this," Mack commanded. "She already told me not to buy what you need. I did it anyway. So she's in the clear here."
"She is not. She brought you into this house and—"
He let out a groan. "Oh, come on. Let's get back to the real issue. I can afford all this stuff. Believe me. It's less than nothing to me. And you need it. You need it very badly."
"You have no idea what I need."
"Sure I do. You need to paint. Right? Because you're an artist and that's what you do. And you also have several weeks where you won't be able to do much else. If you look at it that way, this could be the perfect opportunity for you."
Lacey actually rolled her eyes—but the hot color was fading from her cheeks. "'The perfect opportunity.' Oh, brother."
"Think about it," Mack said. "Give it twenty-four hours. I'll just leave all this equipment right where it is until then. If you decide that maybe you can use it, then it stays. Otherwise, Jenna and I will take it all back."
Lacey looked more pensive now than furious. "I suppose it would be pretty inconvenient for you, to have to drive all the way back down to the valley just to return everything."
"Yeah," Mack said. "It would."
Jenna hid a smile. The inconvenience would be minimal, and they all knew it. She and Mack had driven down to Sacramento and back three times already. They'd probably go again, for dinner and a show. They could easily cart all the art supplies along with them.
But she had a feeling that wouldn't be necessary. She had a feeling Lacey was going to give in and let Mack provide what she needed.
And she felt such pride—pride and the tender sweetness of her love. Yes, pride and love. The two emotions mingled together, making her chest tight and her eyes a little bit misty.
She wondered if Mack even knew how much he had changed in the past seven years. The old Mack would never have done such a thing for her sister—not from any smallness of spirit, but because it never would have occurred to him.
The old Mack had no time for other people's needs. He'd been too busy trying to fill the bottomless need inside himself.
Mack added, "I mean it. We'll take it all back tomorrow. That is, if you decide you're not going to use it…"
* * *
The next morning, when Jenna and Mack were tiptoeing around the kitchen trying to get themselves some breakfast without waking the night owl, Lacey called to them from the other side of the louvered doors.
"You can stop whispering and giggling in there. I'm awake."
Mack called back, "Real men don't giggle."
"Sorry. Whispering and laughing, then."
"That's better. Want coffee?"
"Yes. Black."
Jenna carried it in to her.
Lacey was sitting up against the backrest of the sofa bed, and smiling sleepily. "Thanks. I can use that." Jenna handed over the hot drink and Lacey sipped. "Mmm." She wrapped both hands around the mug. "I had an idea…"
Jenna slipped off her shoes and sat down on the bed, scooting up against the backrest so that she and her sister sat shoulder-to-shoulder. "Tell me."
"You know those old floor screens up in the attic, the ones with the teak frames and the rice paper botanical prints down the center of each panel?"
"What about them?"
Lacey sipped more coffee. "Do you think you and Mack could bring them down here for me?"
"What are you planning to do with those old things?"
Lacey glanced at the northeast corner of the room, where sunlight streamed in the double-hung window next to the fireplace. "The light's not too bad in that corner. I want to set up a sort of studio over there. Put up that easel Mack bought me, and get a couple of straight chairs, one for me to sit on, one for my foot. I'll use the screens to divide off the space." Lacey fiddled with the hem of the melon-colored T-shirt she'd worn to sleep in, the T-shirt Jenna had brought her from Seal Beach. "You know how I am when I'm working on something. I don't like anyone peeking over my shoulder."
Jenna laid her hand on her sister's. "We'll get those screens down here right after breakfast."
Lacey set the mug on the little table to the left of the bed and leaned her head on Jenna's shoulder. "Mack's right. I have all this time. I should put it to good use."
"Yes. That was good advice."
"He's changed," Lacey said softly. "When he was here all those years ago, I don't think he said more than two words to me. Hello. Goodbye. That was it. He wasn't … interested in some messed-up kid with a chip on her shoulder, even if that kid was your little sister. But now, well, he's just not the same S.O.B. I remember so fondly."
Jenna chuckled. "Yes. He has changed."
Lacey lifted her head. "So. Will you get married—or stay married … or whatever?"
"I don't know yet."
"When will you know?"
"Sunday or Monday. We're going to talk it all over then. And until then, we're just going to be together and love every minute of it."
"People should do that more often—just be together and love every minute of it." Lacey looked away. Then she sighed and rested her head on Jenna's shoulder again. "You smell good." She pulled back, lifted a lock of her own limp hair off her shoulder and looked at it critically. "Haven't washed this in a couple of days, have I?"
"Has it really been that long?" Jenna made her voice light.
&nb
sp; Lacey pulled a face. "You are disgustingly tactful."
"Was that a compliment?"
"Yeah. I guess it was."
After breakfast, Lacey disappeared into the bathroom under the stairs. When she came out, she smelled of bath powder and her hair had regained its old luster. Meanwhile Jenna and Mack brought down the screens. They dusted them off and set them up to divide off the area Lacey would use as her studio.
Once the screens were in place, Lacey told them where to put the chairs she needed as well as her new worktable, the easel, the various supplies and the stack of blank canvases. Then she told them to get lost.
"And no peeking behind these screens." She spoke to both of them, but she was looking at Mack. She knew that Jenna already understood how she felt about privacy when she worked. "I want to feel confident that no one will see what I'm doing until I'm ready to let them see."
Mack grunted. "What do you want, an oath signed in blood?"
Lacey let out a groan. "Go on, get out of here, both of you. Give me some peace and quiet."
Jenna and Mack were only too happy to oblige.
* * *
Friday went by way too fast. Lacey sat in the easy chair and sketched—and then disappeared behind her screens for hours at a time. Mack and Jenna painted the ceiling of the room upstairs. By the time they were finished, Jenna said it was impossible to tell there had ever been a hole in it.
Saturday dawned warm and bright. It almost might have been summer again, the day was so mild.
Jenna packed a picnic lunch. She and Mack put on jeans and sturdy shoes and drove up into the mountains again. They found a side road and followed it until the pavement gave out and the ruts got too deep to make it safe to go on. Then they took their lunch and a big old blue-and-red quilt and they started walking through the tall pines. The trail they chose wound up the side of a hill.
They found what they sought when they crested the hill: a small glen, with a grassy plot of ground, trees all around and a stream bubbling cheerfully over a rocky outcropping a few feet away.
They spread their blanket and ate their lunch. Jenna had packed sugar cookies for dessert.
"You've got sugar on your mouth," Mack said when she had finished her cookie and brushed the crumbs from her hands.
She gave him a teasing smile, one that had him scooting close and guiding her down onto the blanket.
He kissed her, running his tongue over her lips first, licking the sugar away.
He chuckled. "Sweetest kiss I ever had."
She lay looking up at him, into those eyes that were like a cloudy sky. Overhead, the pine branches moved and sighed together in the warm autumn wind.
He kissed her again and she closed her eyes. She felt as if she floated, so much like the way it had been in her dream of him. The two of them, floating in this little glen on the faded blue-and-red squares of the quilt.
If only they could float like this forever…
After a time, he pulled back. He put his hand on the side of her face. His skin was warm, slightly rough. She turned her head, pressed her lips against his palm.
"One more day," he whispered.
She sighed, and the sound seemed to come not only from inside her, but from the wind in the trees, from all around. "Yes. Just one more…" She touched his face, as he was touching hers, and she wondered why she felt so sad at the thought that their two weeks were almost past.
After all, they knew now that they had love. And for the past few glorious days, love had been enough.
And they had both changed over the years. They'd changed in positive ways. Surely they could make it work now.
Mack kissed her some more. She lifted her arms and wrapped them around him. He sank down upon her, on the blue-and-red quilt, in the private little glen at the crest of the hill with the warm wind sighing around them. She pulled Mack tighter, kissed him harder, to make her silly doubts go away.
Not much later, the wind turned cooler. Clouds began to gather. They straightened their clothing and packed away what was left of the lunch they had shared. Then they rolled up the quilt and started down the hill.
The rain began just as they reached the car—and ended right after they got to the house. They found Lacey's doors closed, which meant she was probably working and didn't want to be disturbed. They retreated to Jenna's bedroom, kicked off their shoes and lay down on the bed to continue what the short storm had interrupted.
Mack kissed her and she kissed him back and wished that tomorrow would never have to come. That this could go on forever, the two of them, spending long, lazy days just being together, talking and laughing and making slow, tender love.
When the doorbell rang, they still had most of their clothes on.
Mack lifted his head. "Who's that?"
"I don't know. Maybe Lacey's expecting someone."
Jenna sat up and reached for her shirt, which Mack had tossed to the foot of the bed. She stuck her arms in the sleeves and began buttoning up. Mack rolled to his back and lay there, watching her in that special way that spread warmth in her belly and made her fingers awkward and slow.
He raised his arms and laced them behind his head. She stared dreamily at his bare chest, at the powerful muscles of his flexed arms.
He grinned. "Hurry back."
"You know I will." She managed to button that last button, then tucked the shirt into the waistband of her jeans. She bent close to give him one more kiss before she rose and padded on bare feet to the front door.
* * *
The visitor was a boy. A boy she'd never seen before.
He looked about ten and he carried a battered skateboard tucked under one scrawny arm. He wore a grimy baseball cap turned sideways and pants five sizes too big, chopped off at the knees. His dingy white T-shirt, also way too big for him, had a rip at the shoulder and the name of some rock-and-roll band emblazoned on the front. His sockless feet were stuck into a pair of unlaced and totally disreputable black sneakers.
Jenna glanced past him, out to the street. No one else waited there. The boy appeared to be alone.
"Yes?" she asked cautiously.
He was clutching a sheet of paper in his free hand. He held it up and Jenna saw that it was one of the flyers she and Mack had plastered all over the neighborhood.
The boy said, "It says here that there's a reward for this cat."
* * *
Chapter 15
« ^ »
Hope made Jenna's heart beat faster. "You have my cat?"
"First I wanna know. How much is the reward?"
"But do you have him?"
"Maybe."
Jenna sucked in a calming breath and told her heart to slow down. She didn't know this boy. He hardly looked reliable. "Either you have him, or you don't. Which is it?"
"It depends." The boy was folding up the flyer. "How much is the reward?"
"What's going on?" It was Mack. He'd pulled his shirt on, but his feet, like Jenna's, were still bare. "You have the cat?" He pinned the boy with an accusing glare.
The boy slid the flyer into a pocket and started backing up.
Jenna said, "Wait. We just want to know—" But the sight of Mack had spooked him. The boy whirled and raced down the walk.
"Stop him!" Jenna cried. "He's got Byron!"
Mack didn't hesitate. He sprinted around her and down the front steps. Jenna took off right behind him. The boy had already leapt the low front gate.
Mack jumped the fence just as the boy was scrambling onto his skateboard. Before the boy could roll out of reach, Mack managed to catch hold of his too-big T-shirt. He gave a hard tug and the boy lost his footing. The skateboard went flying and the boy dropped backward, right into Mack's arms.
"Hey, leggo! Lemmego!" The skateboard shot away down the steep sidewalk, "You better lemmego right now!"
Mack tucked the boy under his arm and started to turn for the gate as the skateboard veered off into the grass several houses away.
"My skateboard!" the boy shout
ed, flailing wildly with his skinny arms and legs. "Leggo. I've gotta get my skateboard!"
By then, Jenna had begun to reconsider the wisdom of sending Mack after the child. "Mack. Maybe you'd better let him go. I don't think—"
"Help!" The boy shouted. "Kidnappers! Rapers! Somebody help!"
Jenna winced. "Mack, I think you'd better—"
"They've got me! They're killin' me!" Mack muttered a curse. But he did lower the boy to the ground. The second his feet touched the sidewalk, the kid took off.
Mack called after him. "About the reward? It's ten thousand dollars!"
Jenna gasped. It was a lot of money. Even for a cat as wonderful as Byron.
The dirty tennis shoes skidded to a stop. Slowly the boy turned.
"The reward," Mack said again. "For the cat. Ten thousand dollars."
The boy stared for a full count of five. Then he turned again and trotted down to where his skateboard had veered off the sidewalk.
Once he had the skateboard tucked safely under his arm, he faced Mack once more. "Nobody pays that much money for an old black cat."
"I do," Mack said.
"Why?"
"Because I can afford it. And I want the cat back."
"You rich?"
"Yeah. I'm rich."
The boy looked down at his dirty sneakers, then back up at Mack. "Listen. I didn't steal him or anything. He just showed up. He wanted to hang around. Okay, yeah, I fed him. But I didn't feed him much. He stayed anyway. It's not like he's a prisoner. He could go any time he wanted to."
"Ten thousand," Mack said again. "Where is the cat?"
The boy took off his hat, looked into it, and then plunked it back on his head. "This better be for real."
"It's for real," Mack said. "But tell me. Is this cat a talker? Meows all the time?"
The kid looked down again, shifted his skateboard from one hand to the other, and shook his head. "Naw. He does nothin' but purr all the time. He purrs real loud." The boy reached into his back pocket and pulled out the folded flyer. "But he's got on a blue collar and a tag with the number you gave on this paper."
THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED Page 15