Art-Crossed Love

by Libby Rice

  Blood deserted her brain, pooling lower and screaming for attention. Lissa fought the wave of want. “Did you even think about a different option?”

  He answered with a dry, “You underestimate your appeal.”

  “You underestimate the value of my paintings.”

  “Really?” he drawled darkly. “What would you have done, Lissa?” His palm fanned out from the center of her chest, roving in a wide circle down her side, then pausing on her quivering stomach. “If you had seen your easel fall while your sweet ass nuzzled my cock, my hand on your zipper, would you have bailed?”

  Lissa’s jaw wouldn’t work. She wanted to tell him of course she would have. “I… of…”

  “I didn’t catch that.” His thumb stroked her abdomen in small circles.

  Not fair. Thought vaporized on the way to her mouth, again. He had her.

  “Precisely,” he whispered with a perceptive nod. That wandering thumb made its way to her bottom lip, tracing the curve. “Glad I’m not the only one susceptible to… distraction. But your painting? The Pink Cliffs of Boulder? If you wanted to convey, to make me feel, that hope is possible in the midst of glacial desolation, you succeeded.”

  Not an insult. A compliment. The kind of compliment she lived for.

  “Maybe too well,” Cole amended with a grin.

  A real smile. Flashing white teeth that erased his shadows and made him look happy and carefree. Another rare occurrence that spun her world on its axis.

  What the hell is going on?

  Cole abandoned her lips and split the folded palette he held in his other hand. “Your style may never be my ideal, but your talent is as obvious as it is indisputable. Lissa, you’re—”

  Brian burst through the door with Scarlet tripping over his heels and juggling two bottles of Veuve Clicquot, one nearly empty.

  Arms wide, Brian yelled, “Surprise! Thank Christ Mr. Dark and Ruminating got it right this time.” He shrugged. “Sorry, we had to listen at the wall to get the timing right.” Brian looked about as apologetic as an Olympian climbing the podium. “For a while I considered sliding a napkin under the door with a speech written in purple crayon to help our boy.”

  Heart clamoring to bang out of her chest, Lissa considered this new, alternate universe. Glancing down, she saw a piece of paper, unfolded and neatly stretched over the clean palette in Cole’s hand—a printout from Qatar Airways.

  Tunnel vision took over, blocking out everything but the fine print on the page. Denver to Delhi, leaving in five days. She choked on a gasp that was too big for her lungs.

  “You’re ready,” Cole finished quietly, catching her chin so she’d see his confirming nod.

  “No going home now, Lissa.” Scarlet veered off her ladylike rails and swigged straight from the bottle. “We’re the going away party.”

  Peeking again at Cole, Lissa saw an apology lurking behind the belief that he wouldn’t be, maybe even shouldn’t be, forgiven. That hesitance mingled with a host of other emotions—fear, embarrassment, desire, even hope.

  Lissa would have taken a blunt, “I’m sorry,” had it come with the plane ticket quivering in her hand. But now? Now she knew she hadn’t been crazy to harbor a little hope of her own.

  Chapter 26

  January—New Delhi, Rajasthan State, Northern India

  India hit Lissa like a sixth tequila sunrise, a roaring good time tinged with the promise of pain. Most international flights, including theirs, arrived in Delhi around three in the morning. After blearily slogging through immigration, baggage claim, customs, money exchange, and locating an ATM, Lissa found herself seated at a fully westernized Costa Coffee in the international arrivals hall. Cole fell in line behind a suit-wearing business type and a tiny, gray-haired grandmother wrapped in a cobalt sari, promising to return with espresso shots and a chicken curry sandwich.

  Grandma’s salt-and-pepper braid fell to her waist, and she wore a confused look, as though she didn’t often do the job of ordering. She looked pleadingly to a beautiful woman seated with two children. The younger woman had skin like warm, polished toffee and wore a less-traditional outfit—an emerald tunic over a pair of loose-fitting black trousers. She spoke in crisp, rapid-fire English. “A coffee and two yogurts.” When the older woman made a meek gesture, she added, “Just make the order and give them the money. These two are hungry.”

  Nice to see that mother-daughter relations never changed.

  Soon Cole juggled two cups and one cellophane-wrapped baguette. The shrunken plastic table between them creaked when he folded his long frame beneath it, seeming to laugh at his attempt. “Train to town opens at 5:15,” he said with relish, “so settle in.”

  Cole appeared eager to transition his reign of terror from the deserted mountains to the teaming city. Despite the fact that their twenty-three hour flight would stretch to a twenty-eight hour trip, including curb-side check-in at Denver and train hopping in Delhi, he’d developed a decided jaunt in his step.

  “No cabs?” she muttered, remembering the throngs of people she’d seen waiting outside the double-doors that exited the airport. Even now, frenzied cries echoed off the high, barren ceiling every time the doors slipped apart. “Cab, cab?” “Ride, ride, cheap ride?” “Here, with me!” “Good price!”

  Cole took a sip. “Exactly the opposite, actually.”

  “Holy shit, I’m stuck on the losing team of The Amazing Race.”

  “Five times I’ve flown into this airport. You don’t want to mess with getting a cab outside those doors. You’ll be eaten alive unless I break you in gently.”

  Five times? At least she accompanied a true enthusiast. “Leave out the ‘in’ and the ‘gently’ from that last part, and you’re not such a liar. Maybe.”

  They finished their snack and tried to mill around, but the arrivals hall, with its smattering of processed food and faintly stale air, didn’t encourage weary travelers to linger. “It’s 5:17,” Lissa announced. “Time for this to get real.”

  “You sure?” He glanced out the doors to the waiting masses of humanity. “The sun’s not up.”

  “Good thing much of the trip is underground.” Even she could read Lonely Planet.

  At that she won a smile, a more frequently recurring phenomenon since they’d set a departure date. Cole picked up her heavy pack and waited for her to slip it over her arms. Once she’d strapped in, he gestured to the sliding doors with a mocking bow. “Your chariot awaits.”

  Outside the doors, heavy air slapped her in the face like the blow of a cold palm. Her exhales, each one a smattering of crystalized water droplets, joined the sickly pallor that lingered in the air, smelling of oil and plastic and wood. “Is there a fire?”

  “There are thousands, maybe millions, of fires.”

  Lissa coughed against the smoke that bit into her throat. “What?”

  Cole sighed. “It’s worse in the winter. Most people think ‘heat’ when they think ‘India,’ but the Himalayas rise up about three hundred miles due northeast. New Delhi in January can be colder than Nederland during Frozen Dead Guy Days.”

  Lissa groaned, thinking of the billboard that had welcomed her to Cole’s home. “What is that anyway?”

  With a straight face, he said, “We keep a dead guy on dry ice in a shed. Once a year, there’s a festival of sorts to celebrate his continued presence. We drink beer… jump naked into the thawing reservoir… that sort of thing.”

  There weren’t words. “You do this?”

  “I’m wearing the T-shirt right now.”

  Lissa considered Cole’s wool sweater and heavy jacket. She might never know. “What do you mean by millions of fires?”

  “Dung fires,” he answered. “I’m sure you know cows are sacred to Hindus. That means cows sort of have free reign. An efficient way to utilize all the waste—if you can get over the pollution and the stench—is to dry it and burn it. Generally for heat. Sometimes for cooking.

  Eyes already stinging and starting to water, she sput
tered, “That gives new meaning to the term ‘eat shit.’”

  He took her hand and squeezed, a comforting gesture in a sea of unfamiliar. Then he ruined the effect. “Outrageous,” he said, “how the majority of a population—now over 1.2 billion—has managed to survive without the help of stainless-steel Viking stoves.”

  As he talked, he led her away from the doors and down a long, sloping concrete ramp. Before they could reach the end, a group of cab drivers—at least she assumed they were hawking rides since she heard, “Five hundred rupees to town!” and “Nice car!” over and over—pressed them toward one of the banked concrete walls. Beyond the crush of bodies, a woman wailed, holding the hand of a grubby child with an even dirtier patch over his right eye. His exposed left eye wandered beneath a yellowing film, blind and searching, while his mother thrust her free hand forward, sobbing inconsolably.

  Hotel runners darted between unsuspecting backpackers, asking if the newly landed had a place to stay and invariably bemoaning the fact that the chosen haven was “full” or “closed” and offering up a better option. A man meekly approached Lissa’s side. He made it all the way to her shoulder, suddenly occupying the space vacated by a cabbie who’d given up for easier prey.

  The man silently held out a handful of stone necklaces. They were stunning, each a different color. “Handmade,” he said, showing a mouthful of teeth that shined bright white against his darker skin. When Lissa reared back, his hand followed, keeping the dangling rocks inches from her face.

  “Don’t ask how much,” Cole instructed under his breath, “of anyone.” Then he spoke in a firm yet friendly tone to the crowd, “Nahin! No!” before pulling her through the bodies blocking their way.

  Further down the ramp, women had laid out blankets to display their wares. Voices rose in a cacophony of pleas as Lissa and Cole passed. “Table mats,” one woman yelled, “made of banana leaf!” Another, this one weather-lined and shrunken to the point she could pass for the Mother of Time, rose from her perch on the concrete and limped forward. She carried a bright scarf with fringed edges. Before Lissa could react, the woman had wrapped her in the length of vibrant cloth. “All pashmina,” said the woman. “All. See, you feel.”

  Cole jerked to a halt and speared Lissa with a look. “Don’t ask.” He threw the woman a respectful smile but still unwound the scarf from around Lissa’s neck. Once free, he lifted it to the woman, patience in every move. “No,” he chided her softly. “Take it back.”

  The woman stepped away, and Lissa sensed that half the power struggle had been lost the second the “pashmina” had touched her skin. “Very cheap,” the woman hedged. This smile was toothless and rimmed with bleeding, discolored gums. “You buy for wife. Pretty wife.”

  Lissa couldn’t take her plea. How expensive could the damn thing be? “Cole—”

  He stopped her with a violent shake of his head. With another firm, “No,” toward the woman, he dropped the scarf to the ground.

  The second they entered the underground train terminal, Lissa bent at the waist. Hands splayed over knees, she sucked at thick, rancid air and tried to wipe the blind child from her mind. Intellectually, Lissa knew life wasn’t fair. Emotionally, she balked at a world in which a tiny blind boy could be on the streets begging before sunrise.

  “I know you’ve traveled.” Cole’s insolent decree cut through her valiant attempt to assimilate. “Don’t tell me you’re surprised.”

  “To France,” she snapped, “and England and Monaco and Hawaii.” And the Virgin Islands, Norway, Japan, and just about every other first-world destination deemed appropriate by wealthy parents, protective older brothers, and shopaholic friends.

  When he didn’t answer, just looked at her with the full force of judgment that said she must not care a thing for the world or the problems of its inhabitants, she put her head in her hands. “I do care.” A truth she put mildly, considering how her mind couldn’t navigate away from the hungry child with the eye patch or the woman with blackened gums. She might see those initial images forever. “I’m just momentarily surprised. Tomorrow I won’t be surprised anymore.”

  But, Jesus, tonight I need a get-out-of-jail-free pass.

  Studying her, Cole pressed a thousand-rupee bill into her hand. “Go over there to the counter”—he motioned to a glass-encased ticket stand—“and buy two tickets to New Delhi Station.”

  When she came back, he counted the change, jaw hardening with the flick of each bill. “Go ask where your other two-hundred rupees are.”

  Lissa grudgingly counted the change Cole handed back, tempted let him remedy the problem himself. Sure enough, she was short.

  To think they’d trained for art when they should have trained for India.

  Lissa spun on her heel, finally feeling angry rather than fascinated or heartbroken or afraid. She marched back to the man behind the glass. “I gave you a thousand. You owe me seven hundred in change.” She slammed the five hundred he’d given her onto the counter and lifted two fingers. “Two hundred more.”

  Without so much a twitching a brow, the clerk reached down, not into the cash drawer, but somewhere below. Soon several additional coins slid through the slot in the window—four fifty-rupee pieces.

  “Thank—” The words cramped on her tongue. Never would she thank a man for grudgingly amending his attempt at train-way robbery.

  Stepping away from the counter, her anger drained away as exhaustion tugged her limbs downward. “Let’s go, Inspector Rathlen,” she said, heading for the waiting train.

  A soft tap on her shoulder halted her progress. From behind, Cole spoke with the conviction of long-held belief. “Lissa, some of India will be dirty, some even monstrous. More will be interesting. A little will hold the most amazing things you have ever, or will ever, see. All will be hard.”

  Lissa nodded. Cole had brought her to a place as provocative and unpredictable as him. “If only a country could be a kindred spirit.”

  Yellow markings divided the train platform into sections, the first marked “women only.” Matching arrows on the pavement pointed to a first car that held three women, all covered from neck to toe in swaths of bright cloth. Men packed the second car. Most faced forward, staring through the glass separating them from the women, open and unabashed. Too many of the stares went beyond curiosity or boredom. These men looked on with a gleam of ownership, as though the women were on display for their enjoyment.

  Her feet refused another step. “Am I safe here?”

  Cole had her by the shoulders and facing him in a single, painless move. “Yes,” he promised, gritty and intense. “Absolutely and unequivocally, yes.”

  ******

  Cole herded Lissa into the second car. Before the train eased away from the platform, he had her pressed against the far wall, legs bracketing her hips, an arm on either side of her wary face. Vile oaths pinged around inside his head. He’d mangled Lissa’s first moments. Wanting to immerse her in beauty, he’d forgotten that beauty is sometimes difficult to see.

  How many times had she taught him that? Pushing his Town-Car girl onto a Chester-the-molester-van train hadn’t been the right start.

  Beneath him, Lissa’s delicate features had washed white. Her eyes darted from side to side, and when he tore his gaze away from her face, he noted what she obviously saw—their fellow travelers were looking their fill.

  “The papers,” she whispered, and he barely heard over the chug of the train. “There’ve been attacks. On tourists, even. I guess I assumed those happened in rough areas. You know, back alleys and dark wharfs. Jesus, Cole, this is the train from the airport. In the capital.”

  “Hush.” He tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “They’re only looking because we’re different.”

  If possible, her voice grew more strained, rising to the loose edge of panic. “I don’t like being different.”

  Of course not. Being different to Lissa meant being ostracized. Hurt. Punished. “Baby, you were born that way. You’ll
never spend a day in your life cloaked in normality.” Perfection stands out.

  “I have to be normal here. Cole, I have to.”

  God, the whole scene was taking her back. His fault. He stroked a thumb in slow, comforting circles over the side of her cheek. “All you have to do is paint. And look at the world like you naturally do, with an eye toward the truth as you, Lissa Blanc, see it. Make me feel India, Lissa.” Like I used to. “Bring me pink mountains.”

  She stilled, and he trailed his hand over her clammy skin, down to her heart, feeling the heavy thump against his palm.

  He went on, speaking low and steady. “I’ll show the world what we see. Exactly what we see. You’ll show them what’s actually there.”

  She closed her eyes on a hesitant nod, and he sensed a Herculean battle for strength taking place behind those whisper-thin lids.

  One that, before he knew it, she won. Opening her eyes, she said, “Cole Rathlen sounds like he trusts me, almost like he needs me.”

  “That’s because,” Cole answered gravely, “he does.”

  Chapter 27

  They changed trains at two more underground stations. To Lissa’s relief, Cole purchased their new tickets. Long, frenetic security lines separated the airport train from the day-to-day metro, as in bag scanners and a full frisk with separate lines for men and women. Lissa stood dazed on a rickety box tucked behind a half-closed curtain while a young woman patted between her breasts. The guard slowed, poking again and again at the rigid underwire in Lissa’s bra, and Lissa wondered why? Was courthouse security really necessary?

  What were these people afraid of?

  “A precaution,” Cole explained on the other side. “After the ‘08 terror attacks in Mumbai, security tightened all over the country. Some fair, like here in the metro, where every schmuck gets the same treatment. Some not, like at high-end hotels where you’ll waltz right in because that porcelain skin of yours screams safe.” Cole grabbed her hand. “Do you want to ride in the women’s car?”

  “With you?”