Ann had taken the kids to a nearby library on Monday, and Leslie had been reading about art ever since. Motherly intuition told Kenzie they were on the cusp of Leslie’s Next Big Phase.
The knock at their front door sent Drew scampering off for his sandals.
“I can answer it,” Leslie told her mom, “if you want to finish getting ready.”
Kenzie secured her hair in a simple twist and fastened the barrette clasp. “I am ready.”
Still, she let Leslie hurry down the hall in front of her and open the door. Kenzie heard JT exchange greetings with the kids before she rounded the corner. Once she did, she froze in surprise.
The man smiling down at Leslie looked like a stranger, or at least an “after” JT, as if he’d participated in one of those makeover shows Leslie loved. JT had shaved since the last time Kenzie had seen him, and at first she thought he’d cut his hair, too. Upon closer inspection, she decided he’d simply tamed it into submission somehow. Gel, maybe? It wasn’t slick or stiff. On the contrary, it looked entirely touchable. So much so that her fingertips tingled.
His clothes were notably different—wrinkle-free khaki slacks and a short-sleeved cranberry shirt with buttons down the front that were a shade or two brighter. It was conservative enough that he wouldn’t have looked out of place in the bank, but different enough from his other clothes to make her realize that, for an artist, he didn’t wear much color.
At that moment, he glanced up, his gaze colliding with hers. Her heartbeat stuttered, speeding up like an erratic recording before resuming its rhythm.
“Hi,” she said, quickly breaking eye contact. “So…everyone ready to go? Shoes on the right feet, no one needs to hit the bathroom first?”
“Mother!” Leslie’s face was a mask of mortification.
With a teasing glint in his silvery eyes, JT made a show of checking his shoes. “I think we’re good.”
Once they reached the parking garage, Drew asked if they could go in JT’s car.
“Whatever you drive has to be cooler than Mom’s minivan,” he told the tall man. “Which one’s yours?”
“That one.” JT pointed toward a blue station wagon. It was in desperate need of being washed and didn’t look much newer than Kenzie’s van.
“A wagon?” Funny, she would have imagined him as the owner of a motorcycle or something.
“Got a good deal from its previous owner. It gets surprisingly good mileage and provided plenty of space for…my artwork,” he said flatly.
The tension in his tone might be due to his lack of inspiration lately, but she suspected it was more than that. Not sure what to say, she simply offered, “I’ll drive, you can navigate.” Behind the wheel, she’d have a specific activity to accomplish and would feel less tongue-tied. She hoped.
Inside the van, Kenzie just barely refrained from reminding everyone to buckle their seat belts. She sighed inwardly, knowing that the twins wouldn’t appreciate being mothered in front of JT, and that the man himself would probably be amused. I was interesting once, she thought wryly. Surely she’d held conversations that didn’t involve reminding people to tie their laces before they tripped, or to take smaller bites so they didn’t choke.
Yes, and where did being interesting get you? chided a voice that sounded a little like her sister’s. Kenzie wouldn’t trade her kids for the world, but she hadn’t set out to be a single mom. It was a lot to shoulder alone, and at times she felt a twinge of guilt that maybe she wasn’t providing everything they needed emotionally. Everything they’d get in a two-parent family that included a reliable father.
“Kenzie?” JT’s husky voice captured her attention, sending shivers along her spine. “You heard what I said about turning left, didn’t you?”
“Oh.” She’d pulled up to the exit of the parking garage, then stalled out in her own thoughts. “Right. I mean left. I’m turning left now and heading toward Harris.”
Kenzie didn’t know why she’d been worried about any awkward silences. Leslie didn’t allow any.
“I’ve been studying art all week,” the girl told JT enthusiastically. “I didn’t realize there were so many types! Just in painting there’s impressionism, pointillism, abstract—”
“He knows,” Drew interrupted. “He’s an artist.”
Though Kenzie glimpsed the resulting glare in the rearview mirror, Leslie continued as though her brother hadn’t spoken. “So what kind of painting do you do, JT?”
“Mostly I work with oil, but also hot wax. Have you ever heard of encaustic painting?”
“No. It sounds fascinating.”
Drew snorted.
JT swiveled around, his tone sympathetic. “Art isn’t your cup of tea?”
Understatement of the year, Kenzie thought. Her son would probably just as soon throw himself from the moving automobile into oncoming traffic as sit trapped in the van for another half hour while his sister breathlessly peppered JT with painting questions.
“I like sports,” Drew said, a note of challenge in his tone. He wasn’t as easily won over as his sister.
“Sports are cool,” JT agreed. “To watch, anyway. I was too uncoordinated to succeed in playing them.”
“Hmm.” Kenzie hadn’t meant to make the small, puzzled sound. But truthfully, with his build and unthinking, almost negligent, grace she was surprised JT didn’t have a more athletic background.
Not that she planned on saying exactly that, but given the quizzical way he was regarding her, she should say something. “I was just thinking you can’t be any less coordinated than me. After all, you do remember how we met?”
In her peripheral vision, she saw his lips twitch.
“I’m great at sports,” Drew said with all the modesty of a nine-year-old boy. “I play soccer and baseball. Too bad you didn’t paint something useful like Turner Field, or we could be spending the day—”
“Andrew Green!” Kenzie was appalled at her son’s rudeness. “Apologize immediately. And then I suggest that you sit quietly for the rest of the ride and think about how to be more respectful of other people and their varying interests.”
“Sorry,” Drew mumbled.
Great. They’d barely made it five blocks, and JT probably already regretted his invitation. This did not bode well for the rest of their day.
The museum was doing steady weekend business, but didn’t seem jam-packed. There were a dozen or so people lined up in the gleaming lobby to purchase tickets. JT bypassed the main booth, crossing the hardwood floor toward the white counter on their left. The sign hanging above the counter read Members and VIP Parties.
A young woman with a blond ponytail and navy blazer glanced up with a smile. “Welcome to the Wilkes Fine Arts Youth Museum.”
“Jonathan! Is that you?” A redhead in her thirties hurried to the end of the counter, flipping up a hinged section to join them on the other side. She stopped just shy of hugging JT, squeezing his arm instead. “It’s great to see you.”
“You, too, Beth.”
“Been too long,” she reprimanded him good-naturedly. “You know we’ll issue you passes for any time you want to use them. Dare I hope you’ve been hidden away because you’re working on a new series?”
“Beth, I’d like you to meet Kenzie Green and her kids, Drew and Leslie.”
The redhead paused, then turned to include them in her bright smile. “Nice to meet you!”
Drew grunted a perfunctory hello. Leslie excitedly explained that this was their first visit and that she’d already mapped out online the exhibits she was most interested in. Meanwhile, Kenzie considered the other woman’s body language. It was obvious Beth and JT shared some sort of history and that she cared about him. Was she attracted to him?
What woman wouldn’t be?
Dangerous
thought. Kenzie herself couldn’t afford to be attracted. While the broody, mysterious loner type might cut a romantic figure in books or movies, in real life they didn’t make good partners. In real life—if Kenzie ever risked depending on someone else again—she’d need someone staid who would patiently help Drew with math homework and remember to take the trash to the curb on the appropriate pickup day.
Of their own volition, her eyes stole toward JT again. As he talked to Beth, he allowed himself one of his rare smiles, and Kenzie’s breath caught.
“Would you guys like to get started and investigate on your own,” Beth asked, “or do you want me to personally give you the grand tour?”
“Thanks, but I’m going to play tour guide today,” JT said.
Kenzie wouldn’t have read anything into the refusal, but there was something just a bit too quick about the way he declined. Beth’s first reaction was naked disappointment.
But she masked that and raised a quizzical brow instead. “Have fun,” she told them all, sending JT one more searching look before ducking back behind the counter.
“What do you want to see first?” he asked the kids after handing them each a brochure with descriptions of the different areas and a rough map.
“Your mural,” Leslie said loyally.
He chuckled, the sound rusty but endearing. “Suits me. Then I don’t have to worry about following some particularly brilliant piece of art. You guys want to take the elevator up a floor, or the stairs?”
“Stairs are good exercise,” Kenzie blurted, thinking back to when they’d shared the elevator down to the parking garage, and her heightened awareness of him. He was just such a big man, he dominated any space he occupied. When a man that size embraced a woman, she must feel incomparably secure in his arms.
The kids, not quite but almost running, took the steps faster than the adults.
Lagging behind with JT, Kenzie heard herself comment, “Beth seems lovely—former flame?” What are you doing? It’s none of your business! You’re supposed to be saving yourself for math-and-trash guy.
“Actually, no. Former friend of my wife’s.”
“W-wife?” The unexpected word hit her in the midsection like a physical blow. It was a wonder she didn’t tumble down the cement stairs in a reenacted parody of their first meeting.
“Late wife,” he said softly.
“Oh.” Her heart constricted.
The natural inclination when hearing about a person’s loss was to apologize, yet Kenzie bit her tongue; he’d stiffened…almost as if bracing himself against the automatic response. Besides, Kenzie was still so stymied by the news that JT was a widower that she wasn’t sure she could string together an intelligible sentence. Dozens of unanchored words roiled around her brain, colliding into one another and spinning into new questions and speculations. Had she just discovered the reason JT rarely smiled?
After a moment, it became clear neither one of them was going to say anything else. She felt ridiculously insensitive, meeting the news of his wife’s death with nothing more than “oh,” yet JT seemed to exude silent relief that they weren’t going to discuss it. Maybe it was too painful for him. Maybe he still loves her.
“Are you two coming or what?” Drew called from the top of the stairs.
“Sorry,” Kenzie said. “I slowed down for a sec to catch my breath.”
Drew grumbled in a low mutter to his sister. Kenzie thought she made out the word old.
“He’s not the most patient child in the world,” she said to JT. “Deep down he’s a sweet boy, but he’s been… I want to apologize for what he said to you in the van.”
JT turned toward her, his smile sardonic. “Don’t worry, he’s not the first person who didn’t think my art was ‘useful.’ At least he has the excuse of being a kid.”
She sucked in a breath at the hurt in his eyes.
He shook his head. “I was trying for humorous, but it came out bitter, didn’t it?”
Wounded, she would have said.
“Suffice it to say,” he continued in a more nonchalant tone, “my par—my father wasn’t keen to have an artist for a son. Saw it as a foolish hobby to indulge and a waste of my potential. All behind me now. I just didn’t want you to think my feelings are so easily bruised that I’d hold it against a nine-year-old boy that he’d rather be at a baseball game.”
Ironically, that same boy now seemed eager to get started. “What is taking so long?” he demanded, a pleading note in his tone.
“We’re on our way,” JT called back, not glancing in Kenzie’s direction as he took the stairs two at a time.
She was glad for the moment to collect her thoughts. Whatever he might tell her—or himself—about having made his peace with his dad’s disapproval, there was residual pain. Was JT so estranged from his parents that he hadn’t been able to turn to them while coping with his wife’s death? A sobering possibility. Much as she might wish in adult hindsight that her folks had raised her differently, with more structure, she’d never for a second questioned whether they loved her. She couldn’t even fathom what heinous sin she’d have to commit to incur their disdain.
As a mother trying to do what was right by her own children, she experienced an immediate, albeit judgmental, flare of dislike for any father who alienated his son. Then again, was she being hypocritical? Did she respect JT’s chosen career path, or did she also see it as wasted potential, a risky indulgence when there were monthly bills to pay? Completely different circumstances.
The benefit of not letting herself be romantically interested in a man like JT was avoiding those difficult dilemmas. She could merely be a distant but supportive friend, unworried by how his choices would affect her life or her kids’. It was best for all of them that he remain off-limits.
If only she could do a better job remembering that whenever a smile lit his eyes and his gaze warmed her skin.
Chapter 7
“Wow! You did this?” Leslie asked over her shoulder.
JT almost smiled at her incredulity, which was simultaneously endearing and insulting. “Yep.” He pointed at the initials slashed in deep purple at the bottom left corner.
The mural, a painting in bold colors of children playing at the Fountain of Rings in nearby Centennial Olympic Park, encompassed this entire section of wall. The kids in the picture were nearly as large as the two studying the work. Drew didn’t share his sister’s effusive enthusiasm, but he looked grudgingly impressed. At the very least, he didn’t ask the kinds of questions JT might have expected: Why don’t the kids have eyes or mouths? How come the sun is green? JT wouldn’t describe himself as a Fauvist, but it was fair to say he’d been influenced by a Matisse exhibit his mother had taken him to see.
“This is really good.” That hushed endorsement came from Kenzie.
Her praise affected him almost bodily, as if she’d reached out and stroked her hand along his bare skin. He couldn’t help preening. Being an artist, neither could he resist asking what she liked about the work.
In response to being put on the spot, she glanced down, her tone turning shyly hesitant. “It’s a nice sense of…motion? Something about the way you’ve drawn the children seems so realistically active.” A wry smile touched the corner of her mouth. “And trust me, I know active children.”
He quirked his lips in wry acknowledgment. Her two kids had already moved on to a nearby enclosure that featured “junk art” laid out as floor sculpture.
Kenzie studied the mural in front of her, then looked at JT. Obviously she had other thoughts on the painting, but seemed reluctant to share them.
“What?” he prompted. “Is there something about it you don’t like?” His voice was neutral, almost academic, as though he were an art professor coaxing a reaction from a promising student, even if JT felt more lik
e a nervous teen trying to impress a first date. Good grief—were his palms actually turning damp? He’d been reviewed by some of the foremost art critics in the country, for crying out loud!
“Oh, no,” Kenzie assured him. “I was serious when I said it was good. It’s just, those vivid colors…”
When she trailed off apologetically, he knew she didn’t plan to finish her sentence, but he could guess. Had she expected something starker? God knows he’d become less vibrant in the past couple of years—not that some of his darker work wasn’t beautiful in its own right, but where had the colors gone? He’d tried once, experimentally, to force them, and the resulting canvas had struck him as garish and obscene. He didn’t remember the joy of green suns and purple clouds or why neon pink had seemed the perfect color for a German shepherd.
Kenzie excused herself to check that her kids weren’t touching anything they shouldn’t be, and JT lingered at the mural. It was as much a picture of who he used to be as it was of children playing.
Holly would have been disappointed in him. She’d been too full of life to want him to fade into a colorless existence. Her potential disapproval from beyond the grave carried more weight than his father’s cold disdain ever had. I’ll try harder, he promised his late wife. He also knew she wouldn’t have wanted him to be lonely, that she would have wished him happiness. Catching himself staring after Kenzie’s retreating backside, he wondered if it was also time to try dating.
Maybe. But not with a skittish divorcée who had her own emotional baggage and two kids with father issues.
JT had never visited an art venue with people who knew so little about art. As the day wore on, he found himself strangely charmed by the way Kenzie busied herself in the brochure and stammered whenever they encountered one of the many Do You Know…? stations located throughout the museum. Geared toward young guests, many of the trivia questions were intentionally easy, but it was clear she didn’t have any of the answers. Even Leslie, who’d seemingly memorized half an art primer from the local library, had a full-fledged lightbulb moment, crying “Oh!” in the Impressionists’ Hall when it dawned on her that Manet and Monet were not the same painter.
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