The Colors of Love

by Grant, Vanessa

  "You're certain the board's answer will be yes?"

  "I'm positive," she said, laughing. "Grandfather would do anything for me—not if it wasn't a worthy project, of course, and the paperwork weren't done properly. But he'll do this."

  "For you?" She couldn't mean what he thought. He gripped the receiver more tightly and said, "He'll do this for you?"

  "Alex—" Her laugh seemed nervous, or perhaps the satellite was giving weird sound effects again. "Your children are a worthy project. I'm just saying that because Grandfather knows how much I care about this, you've got an extra little edge."

  He felt a chill down his back. "Diana, I wouldn't want to think I got the endowment on anything but my project's merit."

  "What's got into you today, Alex? You're so prickly."

  "I'm—" He would not lie to her again, could not leave the implied lie he'd already allowed to stand. "I'm uncomfortable about this conversation."

  "Alex, for heaven's sake, I know you're ethical. You're so ethical you're almost stodgy." He heard affection in her laugh.

  The silence lasted too long to be blamed on satellite delay, then he said, "Diana, I'm seeing another woman."

  "Oh... You... I'm happy for you."

  "No, I—You've got it wrong, Diana. It's not serious."

  Her laughter sounded almost natural. "It sounds serious to me. Did you see her on Sunday? I thought something was different. Look, Alex, I have to go. I've got a thousand things to do today. I'll talk to Grandfather in a couple of hours. Send the papers round to him by messenger."

  "Diana, I'm sorry."

  "Why on earth would you be sorry? I asked you to stay over one night; it wasn't a declaration of eternal love, just an impulse. Good luck on Wednesday."

  Damn it!

  He felt like a heel.

  He liked Diana Thurston. She was a good, decent, hardworking woman with every characteristic he'd ever told himself he wanted in a woman. But she had never stirred him to a fraction of the emotion he felt just thinking of Jamie, and he knew now that anything less would never be enough.

  Jamie—

  Safer, he'd known, to hold the image of her as Jamila in his mind, to remind himself with every breath that she was exotic, artistic, dangerous. A man might dare to make plans with a woman named Jamie, but Jamila...

  He sent the package off by courier to Thurston, and felt sick knowing he could lose the treatment center his kids needed so badly, that there was nothing he could do now but attend the meeting Wednesday and answer their questions. If the center was dependent on the possibility of a relationship with Diana—

  He hoped that wasn't true, because the kids couldn't afford for him to mess it up—and it was too late now. It had been too late the moment he met Jamila Ferguson.

  After his hospital rounds, Alex found Emma Garret fixing herself a bowl of yogurt and fruit in the physicians' lounge of the clinic.

  "Looks revolting," he commented.

  "Thanks." She spooned a piece of yogurt-coated cantaloupe into her mouth. "You look different today. What's up?"

  "Different?" He poured coffee from the pot on the counter. "Different how?"

  She laughed and spooned another hunk of fruit into her mouth. "Ever the noncommittal Alex. Different as in—I don't know. You wouldn't be in love, would you?"

  He sputtered on a mouthful of coffee. "No," he said firmly, "I wouldn't be. How's Teddy?"

  "They'll be fitting his prosthesis next week. He's showing some anger."

  "So would I, in his place." Alex frowned as he watched Emma eat a mouthful of pure, creamy yogurt. Something was different about her. Something...

  "Emma?"

  She looked up. Her eyes looked different, and her face too, an almost imperceptible fullness.

  "You're pregnant."

  Her mouth parted, then she laughed. "For heaven's sake, Alex, don't shout. I wasn't going to tell Gray until the weekend. He's leaving this evening for New York, and if I tell him now, we won't have time to celebrate. But if you go shouting the news, sure as hell someone else will leak it, and he'll know before I ever tell him."

  He crossed the little lounge and hugged her. "You look rapturous."

  "You should try it, Alex. Love, conception, all that good stuff. There's nothing like it." She brushed her lips over his cheek and was gone.

  I love you. Jamila's voice, soft and husky, her eyes glowing sincere green as they stared down at him. He'd be insane to believe her.

  He checked his appointment book, then left the clinic to talk to Jason's counselor. Afterward, he realized he had half an hour before his first appointment, so he decided to pick up the painting he'd arranged to purchase. At the gallery, the smoothly sophisticated Liz greeted him with no trace of a smile.

  "Your painting's ready," she said, turning smoothly on low heels to lead him into her office.

  He sat across from her and pulled out his checkbook. The transaction was completed in near silence. It wasn't until she handed him the wrapped, framed canvas that she spoke. "Dr. Kent?"

  "Yes?" Whatever it was, she'd been itching to say it from the moment he entered the gallery.

  "I hope you'll be very careful not to hurt Jamie." She spoke so soberly, her blue eyes so accusing, that he was astounded.

  "Why would you assume I intend to hurt her?"

  "No, I don't imagine that you intend any harm, but what seems a casual affair to you could easily hurt Jamie. She's a very vulnerable young woman."

  He shifted the painting and tried not to feel like a child called on the carpet. "I would hardly call Jamila fragile."

  She smiled, although he sensed no warmth. "Fragile and vulnerable are not at all the same thing, Dr. Kent."

  He was damned if he'd explain his affair with Jamila to this woman... to anyone. "I think your concern is misplaced."

  "The first time I met Jamie, she was twelve years old, a very sad little girl who had lost her mother. We became friends. Jamie loved coming to stare at the paintings, and I was lonely, too."

  He could see Jamie, a thin child whose hair stood out wildly from her pale face, haunting the gallery because her own home was a dismal, lonely place without her mother.

  "She was lucky to have you."

  "Thank you."

  He shook off the image. "She's hardly a little girl now."

  "No," Liz agreed, "but she's always been a solitary person, and you worry me. Jamie's not a girl for casual affairs, but you're not in there for the long haul, are you?"

  He picked up the painting again. "I don't think this is any of your business, Liz."

  "I love Jamie. That makes it my business."

  "Good-bye, Liz."

  He left the gallery, telling himself she was an interfering busybody, but he couldn't shake the image of a motherless twelve-year-old Jamila standing in front of some other artist's painting, coming back again and again—for the paintings, or for the maternal love a lonely gallery owner gave?

  * * *

  Between a pair of eighteen-month-old twins and a nine-year-old recovering from chicken pox, Vanda slipped a message slip from Paula on his desk. Important, it read, so he grabbed a minute to dial his sister's number.

  "Alex, there you are," she said in a voice that reminded him of their mother. Odd, because normally he saw no resemblance between Alisha and either himself or his sister.

  "What's up?"

  "Come to dinner tonight. We need to talk."

  He scribbled a note on the chart in front of him. "Can't. I've got a meeting."

  "You're seeing her, aren't you?"

  He set his pen down. "What do you mean, her?"

  "That woman you brought to the house. Your artist."

  His artist. He didn't want to think of Jamila that way. She wasn't his artist, just a woman he was having a brief affair with.

  "It's the fourth Monday of the month. I have a case conference at the hospital. I've had one every month for the last four years."

  "Don't bite my head off, Alex."

&n
bsp; "You caught me at a busy time. I've got to go. I'll come over Saturday afternoon?"

  "Can't you come tomorrow night?"

  "I'll be with Jamila tomorrow night."

  "You told me you weren't seeing her."

  "I wasn't, but I am now."

  "Bring her, then," said Paula angrily.

  "Paula, I have a patient to see, and no, I'm not bringing Jamie. The last time I did that, you treated her terribly." They'd both treated her terribly, because Alex had known Paula would disapprove of Jamie. He remembered Liz saying that Jamie was vulnerable, remembered Jamie's anger the night he took her to Paula's. How much had he hurt her with his suspicions?

  "You're not serious about this woman?"

  "Paula—"

  "She's not your type, Alex. You know she's not."

  "I have to go. Next time, don't tell reception it's important when it's a social call." He slammed the receiver down, cursing both Paula and himself. He didn't need advice, not from Emma, not from Liz, and certainly not from his sister. He was a thirty-eight-year-old man conducting an affair with a woman ten years younger. He didn't need anyone to tell him it was stupid, crazy, or wrong.

  A casual affair conducted in an adult, responsible manner.

  Responsible... so long as he didn't count the first time.

  Casual? Nothing about Jamie's impact on him had ever been casual. He had to be insane to think that could change.

  Chapter 14

  The telephone rang just as Jamie added a taste of red to the color mix on her palette. On any other night, she would have ignored it, but tonight it could be Alex.

  She ran for it. Between one step and the next, Squiggles twisted in front of her. She stumbled and flailed wildly for her balance, and Squiggles shot away with a yelp.

  She yanked the receiver to her ear on the fourth ring. "Hello?" she gasped.

  "Jamila?"

  "Yes. Yes, it's me." Damn, she sounded too eager, almost desperate. "Squiggles tripped me as I ran for the phone, so I was out of breath." Too much explanation, almost defensive. "How are you, Alex?"

  "Harried."

  She could hear sounds in the background and asked, "Are you at the hospital?"

  "Yes, It's going to be a while before I'm free. I'd better head straight home."

  Don't beg, she ordered herself. Be graceful.

  "Whatever's most convenient for you." That was good, she thought, smooth. Then she ruined it by saying, "If you change your mind, I'll be up late. I'm painting."

  For a minute she thought he'd hung up, then she heard voices in the background again, and he asked, "What are you painting?"

  "Sunset." Earlier, she'd worked again on the painting of Alex, placing love in his eyes to fulfill her own needs. She couldn't tell him that, and was glad the painting on her easel now was something she could share. "Did you see tonight's sunset, all golden streaks? Do you have a window there?"

  "The blinds are pulled. I'll look at your version when I get there."

  "Yes," she agreed, smiling. He was coming. It didn't matter if he was late, so long as he did come.

  "Jamie, I've got to get back."

  "Okay." He'd called her Jamie again. She pressed her fist to her chest and smiled for herself, for him. "Alex?"

  "Yes?"

  "If you want to bring some things, that would be okay."

  "You want me to bring wine?"

  "No, I meant—this morning you had to leave early. You could bring a change of clothes if you wanted. I have a disposable razor and a spare toothbrush." Her heart hammered. Sticking her neck out, she realized, assuming he wanted to stay, first to love her and then to sleep with her.

  "We'll see," he said.

  She was smiling when she hung up, hugging herself with the pleasure of his voice, of knowing he was coming after all and might sleep the night through at her side.

  Back at her easel, she added neutral base to the colors of sunset on her palette, using the knife to mix the base through the drying colors. She was using acrylics tonight, and the fast-drying paint had changed consistency even as she spoke with Alex.

  A little more red, just a touch... yes, perfect. She stroked highlights of red along the bottom of the long flat cloud hanging in the western sky. Now a few more strokes, here and here, sunset alive.

  She stepped back, staring at the colors on canvas. A swirl of passionate sunset, but she wanted more.

  More? What did that mean? More what? Alex? Waking in the morning to find his arms around her, his eyes caressing?

  Slowly, she crossed the room to a covered canvas she'd set against the wall earlier. She threw the cloth back and exposed Alex, his hand reaching for her, the sheets twisted around his hips in rose hues of reflected sunrise. His eyes filled with love... more than love, filled with worship. It hurt, seeing the image of love in his painted eyes, and she cradled herself, wrapping her arms around her midriff. If he stayed tonight, slept through the night in her bed, when morning came she would rise. Two steps away from the bed, she would turn back and he would—

  Oh, God, she was in trouble! Staring at her own fantasy painting, aching for it to be real.

  An affair—the very word meant temporary.

  It wasn't the dreams that frightened her, but the fact that she'd painted the dream, filling the canvas with the colors of love, and now she stood staring at the image of Alex. If the painting were complete, then the ache should be there, on canvas. Not here, in her heart.

  Of course it wasn't complete, or she wouldn't feel this tearing inside as she studied the painting. Something—she hadn't found it yet—but something wasn't right in the painting. Once she'd perfected it, she'd be free.

  Perhaps she'd return to this painting again and again over the next few weeks. A few weeks, touching, perfecting with careful brush strokes. Then the picture would be complete, Diana would return, Alex would leave, and Jamie would be free to paint the pain, the residue of emptiness after love.

  * * *

  When Alex left the meeting, he drove directly to his condo, telling himself it was too late to go to Jamila, that he'd go to bed and get a good night's sleep for a change. That he wanted a night alone, to think, to assess this relationship and remind himself of his priorities.

  Wednesday—two days from now—he'd stand in front of the Thurston Foundation's board and answer their questions about his children's treatment center. He wasn't sure if he would hear their verdict then, or would have to wait.

  What the hell was he going to do if they turned him down? With the economy in trouble, dollars weren't easy to find.

  At home, he stared at the pile of papers, copies of documents he'd emailed to Diana and sent by courier to old man Thurston. What the hell was there to do if he stayed home tonight? Read financial figures he'd already committed to memory? Worry? Ache for Jamila, who had said come, it didn't matter how late.

  He took two shirts from his closet, packed razor, shaving cream, and after-shave in a toiletry bag, added briefs and socks. He opened a drawer in the bathroom, grabbed a box of condoms, and added it to the shaving supplies. He carried the stuff out to his car.

  Halfway to her place, he came to his senses and knew he mustn't stay overnight. If he had to go to her, much safer to make sure he awoke the next morning in his own bed, alone. Afterward, he'd remember her, of course he'd remember, but it would soon seem like a dream, a fantasy, something out of his world, tempting but hardly practical for the long run.

  So he'd visit her tonight, and he'd be lying to himself if he said he didn't mean to make love to her. But afterward, he'd return home.

  He parked in front of her house, leaving his things in the car where they belonged. He should have brought wine, he realized, or flowers, instead of clothes for an overnight stay.

  When he knocked, she answered within seconds. Tonight she wore black leggings and another of those drifting, colorful shirts. Afterward, he wasn't sure if he pulled her into his arms, or if she walked into them under her own power. All that mattered was he
r lips, warm and welcoming; her body, alive and soft to his touch.

  "You didn't bring your things?" she asked when he let her lips free.

  "In the car," he said, his words given without permission.

  Of course he stayed the night; he should have known he would. How could he leave the warmth of her arms to return to his cold condominium?

  * * *

  Wednesday morning, staring at Alex's painting, searching his dark oil-painted eyes, Jamie realized that, for the first time in years, she didn't know if the painting was finished or not. She knew only that she was terrified to touch a brush to it again, in case the addition of one light brush stroke destroyed the love she'd placed in Alex's eyes.

  Both last night and the night before, he'd slept in her bed, had awoken with her, showering in her shower, shaving and brushing his teeth in front of her bathroom mirror while she made breakfast.

  He'd eaten the food and sipped the coffee she'd bought for him, the morning sun filtering through her kitchen curtains. I love you, she'd thought, sitting across her own small table from him. What began as an affair, an exciting journey into the land of romance, had grown swiftly to a love she knew would not ease with his leaving.

  Two mornings, each so perfect not one color needed changing. He'd even talked a little about his work the first morning, although today he'd seemed different, distracted.

  "What will you be doing today?" she asked.

  "Seeing patients, and then I've got an afternoon meeting."

  "The Thurston Foundation?"

  When he frowned, she realized she'd guessed right, that he was meeting with the charity foundation that afternoon. She wished he'd confided in her, shared his nervousness—because surely he must be nervous about a meeting that held the future of his dream in their hands.

  When he put his cup down, she walked him to the door exactly as she had the morning before, and he kissed her before he left, a long hot kiss that left her in no doubt he would return.

  "Good luck," she whispered.

  He looked startled, but didn't ask what she meant. She wanted to ask, "You'll come tonight?" but wouldn't let the question past her lips. She didn't want him to think she was clinging, although she ached to throw her arms around him and beg him to promise her forever.