"You -- you would?" she stuttered. She could hardly believe her ears. "But I'm just an amateur."
"I am interested in art, not in resumes. Travis tells me you're good. I would like to judge for myself. Could you bring me some of your paintings one day next week?"
"Yes, of course."
He pulled out a card and handed it to her. "I make no promises, you understand, but I will give you a fair and unbiased opinion, if you like."
"I would like that. Thank you."
"Wow," Travis said as Roger walked away.
"Wow," she echoed. "You told me your friend who works for a radio station got you the tickets."
"I didn't want to get your hopes up in case Roger couldn't make it."
"You told him about my paintings," she said in wonder. Then it occurred to her that he'd had no right to tell anyone about her paintings. "How could you do that?"
"Don't even pretend to be angry." He shook a finger at her. "This could be the opportunity of your lifetime. You're ambitious and realistic enough to recognize it. So say thank you, Travis, and then kiss me."
"I'm not going to kiss you."
"Do I have to do everything?" he asked with a dramatic sigh. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, long and deep and filled with promise. "Now say thank you."
"For what?" she asked, completely befuddled. "For the kiss?"
"For the contact," he said with a laugh. "You don't need Antonio. You need me." And he kissed her again and again until someone laughed and said they'd better find a private room.
Carly broke away in embarrassment, still a small-town girl for all her pretense otherwise. She ran out of the gallery, not stopping until she hit the sidewalk. The cool air blew against her face in welcome relief. What had she been doing? What had she been thinking, kissing Travis like that? She didn't want him. She didn't. She wanted ... Why couldn't she remember his name? Antonio! That was it. She wanted Antonio.
But Travis's arms came around her waist and he nuzzled her neck with his lips, driving Antonio once again to the recesses of her mind.
"Don't," she protested.
"All right, I can wait."
She pulled away from him. "You'll be waiting a long time."
"You know what I love about you? Your stubbornness."
"Yeah, that's what you love."
"And your passion."
She swallowed nervously. "I'm not getting a room with you."
"I didn't ask you to."
"You seem to be full of surprises tonight."
"I was thinking the same thing about you, but not just tonight. I wish I'd known about your painting before. It explains a lot, the way you can't settle down with a college major or a job. Because you know what you want to do, only you can't bring yourself to say it out loud. So you go about it in a very peculiar way, like trying to seduce Antonio. What is that all about anyway?"
"It's about love."
"It's about everything but love. And what of the other guys?"
"What other guys?" she asked with a shiver, for it was a foggy night in San Francisco, and she was getting chilly.
Before she could protest, Travis had whipped off his suit jacket and placed it around her shoulders. It was a touching gesture for a man who was at that very moment questioning her about other guys.
"There was Karl and Maxwell and what was that other guy's name -- Steve?"
"Do you have a point?"
His expression turned serious. "My point is that you've been trying to grab onto every guy who passed through town, hoping he'd take you with him, only at the last second you don't go. Why is that?"
"Because those guys were wrong for me."
"They were, and so is Antonio." He rubbed his chin. "The one I can't figure out -- I shouldn't even say anything."
"Don't stop now. You seem to be on quite a roll."
"Gary."
"Gary?" she echoed, rocking back on her heels. "Rachel's Gary? What are you talking about?" Even as she asked the last question, her heart sank to her stomach. He couldn't possibly know.
"You tell me, Carly. Tell me what was going on between you and Gary."
Chapter Twenty-One
"You don't have to stay with me," Rachel told Dylan as she paced back and forth in her living room. It was almost midnight, and Carly still hadn't come home from her date with Travis.
"I want to stay with you." Dylan sat on the couch, his eyes worried as he watched her move restlessly around the room. He hadn't said much since he'd driven her home almost an hour earlier.
"This probably wasn't the evening you were hoping for."
"I wasn't hoping for anything. We were living in the moment, remember?"
"It seems like a long time ago that we made..." Her voice faltered. How was it possible that she could go from being completely fulfilled to being completely shattered in only a matter of hours? And it always came back to Gary. The man was dead, but in the past few weeks he'd been more alive in her life than he had been during the past two years.
"Sit down, Rachel."
"I'm too restless."
"What are you going to do? Jump on Carly as soon as she walks through the door?"
"Maybe."
"You should think about this."
"I have thought about it." She ran an impatient hand through her hair. "And it makes me sick."
"I don't think anything happened between Carly and Gary."
"How can you say that?"
"I believe it."
Reluctantly she sat down next to him. "You think I'm wrong?"
"I think you're scared. It's easier to feel anger than to feel pain."
A car door slammed, and Rachel stiffened. "She's home." She looked into Dylan's eyes. "Don't leave, okay?"
"Are you sure you want me to be here?"
"Positive. And that's the only thing I am sure of."
He squeezed her hand. "I'll stay."
She stood up as Carly came in through the front door and paused in the entry.
"What's up?" Carly asked.
She stared at her younger sister, wondering how she could appear so innocent, so beautiful, so much like the little girl she'd grown up with. Since she'd discovered the teddy in Dylan's drawer, she had begun to think of Carly as a stranger, an enemy. But here, in person, Carly just confused her.
And Carly did look guilty about something, her eyes darting from Dylan to Rachel, then back again. "Is someone going to tell me what's going on?"
Rachel drew in a deep, steadying breath. "I found your white lace teddy."
"So?"
"The white lace teddy you bought last year -- the one I said was beautiful but too sexy for me? I found it."
"Okay," Carly said slowly. "Is there a problem?"
"Don't you want to know where I found it?"
"If you want to tell me."
"In Dylan's drawer."
Carly's jaw dropped as her gaze swung to Dylan. "I was never with Dylan. What did you tell her?" she asked him accusingly.
"Dylan brought it with him," Rachel said quickly, realizing they were going down the wrong road. "Dylan found the teddy in Gary's apartment." She squared her shoulders. "Do you want to tell me how it got there? How your teddy got in Gary's apartment?"
Carly turned white. "Oh, God, Rachel. It's not what you think!"
"Did you stay at Gary's apartment in the city?" Rachel asked, trying to hang on to her last bit of sanity. It was difficult, because Carly looked stricken, like a deer caught in the headlights. "Did you?" she repeated forcefully "Dammit, Carly, answer me."
"Yes, I stayed there one night. But Gary wasn't there. He was on a business trip. I must have left the teddy behind."
"When did you go there? Why did you go there?" She still wasn't sure she believed Carly's innocent explanation, not the way Carly avoided her gaze.
"It was last year sometime. I don't remember."
"You don't remember going to the city and staying in my husband's apartment?" Was that her voice shrieking? It must be, be
cause Carly recoiled as if she'd been struck.
"Okay, it was a couple of weeks before Gary died. He offered me the apartment because I had a late date in the city and I didn't want to drive home that night. How could you think that Gary and I would... we wouldn't. That would be like incest." Carly turned to Dylan in desperation. "You believe me, don't you? Tell her it's crazy, Dylan. Gary was like my big brother. I never, ever ... I couldn't."
"You never told me you stayed there, and Gary didn't either. Why? What was the secret?" Rachel asked.
"All right," Carly said. "I should have told you before, but I've never been able to find the courage. Maybe I should just show you."
"Show me what?"
Carly hesitated, then said, "Follow me."
Rachel looked at Dylan, who shrugged. "I think we better follow her."
"Carly, what's this about? I just want a simple answer."
"There isn't a simple answer, but there is a complicated one. Do you want to know it or not?" She marched out of the room, leaving them to follow.
Rachel was surprised to find Carly leading her down to the basement. She was even more surprised to see Carly push a couple of boxes aside, turn on a light and motion her forward.
"This is my studio," Carly said.
Her studio?
Rachel walked around the wall of boxes and stopped abruptly. She couldn't believe the sight before her -- the painting on the easel, the sketches on the cardboard table, the boxes of art supplies, the other pictures lying against the wall. It was a strangely familiar sight, one she'd seen a long, long time ago. But that studio had belonged to her mother.
"What is all this?" Her throat was so tight she could barely get the words out.
"It's my art," Carly answered. "I'm a painter, Rachel. An artist -- like Mom."
Like Mom?
Rachel heard the words but couldn't process them. "I don't understand. You don't even like to draw."
"That's what I always told you, because that's what you wanted to hear, you and Dad."
"You lied?"
"Oh, yeah, I've lied, just about every day of my life for at least the last fifteen years."
Rachel put a hand to her temple. It was already throbbing from her earlier discovery. Now this! What was this? A studio hidden away in her basement? Her sister leading a secret life? Maybe her husband doing the same?
She'd always thought of herself as living a normal, uneventful life tucked away in the safety of an apple orchard where nothing ever changed but the seasons. But it was only a facade, a cover-up for lies and secrets and strangers. Who were these people in her life? She was looking at her sister, but she couldn't even see her. So she turned away.
"Don't do that, Rachel -- please don't turn away," Carly pleaded. "I didn't tell you because I was afraid you'd hate me the way you hate Mom."
Rachel turned back around. "She left us. She left us for her art. She broke up our family. How could you like it? How could you want to do it?"
"I don't know. It's just in me. It's in my blood. I found out a long time ago I was good at it. But I couldn't tell anyone. Daddy wouldn't even let us have crayons or watercolors in the house."
"So you did it in secret? All these years? But someone knew, didn't they?" Another piece of the puzzle fell into place. "Gary knew."
Carly nodded, her eyes begging for understanding. "He came down here one day to clean things out. He found the paintings and asked me about them. So I told him the truth."
"You told him the truth," she echoed tonelessly. "Which was what?"
"That my real ambition was to go to school at the San Francisco Art Institute. That's why I've never been able to finish college. Business doesn't interest me." Carly drew in a shaky breath. "Gary encouraged me to apply to the school and he let me use the apartment for my interview. That's the only reason I was there, Rachel. You have to believe me."
"I don't know what to believe!"
"Well, believe that. It's the truth."
"I have to go." She was having a hard time breathing in this place with no air and far too many paintings. "I can't do this right now." It was all she could do to climb the stairs instead of running up them. Once she'd slammed the basement door behind her, she ran as fast as she could down the hall and out of the house. When she hit the front yard she stopped, dazed, shocked, scared. Where could she go now? Her safe haven had just turned into a world she didn't recognize. Where the hell was she going to go now?
* * *
Dylan wanted to follow Rachel, but first he had a sobbing young woman to deal with. Carly had burst into tears the second the basement door had slammed shut.
"She'll come around," he said soothingly.
Carly shook her head, the tears running down her face. "I don't think she will. She hates me."
"She doesn't hate you. She loves you. You're her sister."
"She thinks I'm like Mom now," Carly said, sniffling. "And I am, you know. I'm just like her. That's why I don't fit in here. Why I should be leaving. Rachel wants me to love this place, but I don't. I mean, it's okay, it's home, but tending to the orchards is not my dream."
"It doesn't have to be. Once Rachel thinks about it, she'll realize that you have to live your own life and go wherever that life takes you."
Carly looked at him with a small glimmer of hope in her eyes. "Are you just being nice or do you really believe that?"
"I really believe it," he said firmly. "Don't underestimate your sister."
"I wish she could understand that I have to paint. It's in my blood. My relationship with our mother was different than hers. I missed having a mom, but I didn't really miss my mother as a person. I was three years old when she left. I didn't know her. Rachel was my surrogate mom. I had my dad and my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, to fill up my life. But Rachel remembers being with Mom. She remembers the way things were before she left."
Dylan nodded. He understood completely, because he'd had a family for a while, before everything had been torn and ripped and broken beyond repair. Maybe it was harder to go on when you knew what you were missing.
Carly turned to look at the portrait on her easel. "I don't even know if I'm any good. I'm probably cursed with a desire that doesn't match my talent."
"That one looks pretty good to me. What did the Art Institute say?"
"They said I could come if I could pay for it."
"Did Gary give you the money?"
"No. He said he was going to, but something came up. I don't know what. Maybe the house construction cost more than he thought. I didn't want to beg. And he was preoccupied. Then he died, and it was too late."
Dylan wondered again about Gary's preoccupation. What on earth had been going on in his life that had distracted him to such an extent?
"I asked Gary not to say anything to Rachel," Carly said. "That was probably a mistake. Because now Rachel feels like Gary kept something from her."
He nodded. "Yes."
"He urged me to tell her. I never found the right time."
"Did Gary ever say what was bothering him?" he asked her, more interested now in Gary's preoccupation than in Carly's big secret. She stiffened slightly, and he wondered why. "You stayed at his apartment. You didn't notice anything odd? Out of place?"
"Like what?"
"Like other women, phone calls, notes, clothes that didn't belong there. Let's cut to the chase, Carly. Rachel thinks Gary was having an affair. That's why she went nuts when she found your underwear. Obviously, it wasn't you. What do you think?"
"I already told Rachel about the phone call Gary got here from some woman named Laura."
"Was that it?"
"Well, no. The same woman left a message on Gary's answering machine the night I was there. I didn't answer the phone, just let the machine pick up."
"Do you remember the message?"
"I wish I didn't," she said.
Dylan didn't like the sound of that. "Will you tell me?"
"I don't want to. Maybe I heard it wrong. Mayb
e I misread the intent."
"Why don't you let me be the judge?"
"All right. She said she needed to speak to Gary immediately and that if he'd ever loved her, he'd call her back." Carly snapped her fingers. "Oh, and she said something in Italian, like amore something, and she mentioned Venice. I don't know exactly. I just remember that it sounded foreign and mysterious and kind of romantic. God, I shouldn't say that."
Dylan's mind began to whirl. Hadn't Gary spent a few weeks in Italy? Yes. The summer after their senior year in high school. His pulse accelerated as he recalled the postcards. Wish you were here. I met an incredible girl. I think I'm in love.
Dylan hadn't thought much of it. Gary had always been in love. But he'd acted differently when he came back, in a more somber, less joyful manner. He'd said things hadn't worked out. They'd broken up. What was her name? Was it Laura? Damn. Dylan wished he had a better memory.
"I should have told Rachel," Carly continued. "But I couldn't figure out how to tell her about the message without mentioning that I'd been in San Francisco."
"A tangled web, huh?" he asked with sympathy.
"It certainly turned out that way. One lie led to another. Even tonight I lied about going to dinner with Travis. We went to an art gallery in the city. It was incredible. I wish I could tell Rachel about it."
"You will. Just give her some time. I'll go find her."
Carly nodded, then reached for an afghan hanging over one of the boxes. "Take this; you may need it."
"Why, where am I going?"
She smiled. "Where do you think?"
The answer came to him immediately. He took the blanket out of her hand. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. And if you feel like putting in a good word for me, I'd appreciate it."
* * *
The grass was cool beneath her fingers. Rachel leaned back and stared up at the sky through the branches of Lady Elaine. She'd have a better view of the stars from somewhere else, but it was here, under this shadowy tree with its protective branches, that she felt the safest. Although she'd come to realize in the past few weeks that it wasn't always the obvious that could hurt. Sometimes pain came in subtle, unexpected, surprising ways.
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