He studied the portrait of Sara. Jamie had captured something magical in this picture, dreams in the child's eyes, the tender innocence of the very young, the feline wildness lying dormant in the cat's narrowed eyes.
He thought of the young boy in the portrait he'd purchased from Northern Images The picture had reminded Alex so much of his brother, and he'd known the moment he first saw it that he wanted those dreaming eyes in his living room. The trouble was, when he'd got the picture home, he'd realized it didn't fit the living room.
Alex himself didn't seem to fit that living room anymore. Until he met Jamie, he'd never seen the sterility of his life and his house. He couldn't call it a home. This was a home, this house with a studio for a living room, and a warm, living woman's personality imprinted everywhere throughout the tiny structure.
Slowly, he walked to the far wall where several paintings stood drying on a rack she'd built, or had built for her, especially to hold them. Whenever he'd been in this house, his mind had been so focused on the woman that he hadn't really looked at these paintings.
He stood in front of a dark swirl of red and black, feeling his heart pound with the memory of her naked body joined with his. He couldn't locate sex, lust, passion in the splashes of red and black, but he felt them.
Shaken, he moved to the next painting, became trapped in a yearning so intense it seemed too much to bear. Did she feel these emotions as she placed color on canvas? How could she create feelings so intense with only color and line, without identifiable form?
What had the banner at the gallery claimed? A Strong Young Northwestern Talent. Jamila Ferguson was more than that. She saw more than the ordinary person, somehow used her own passion to transfer her vision to canvas.
On the next canvas, a man walked through the rain, head down, hurrying home. How had she managed to show the faceless man's eagerness? What line or splash of gray told Alex that this man was hurrying home, that his mind was not on the wet raindrops, but on the warm home waiting, the woman whose arms would welcome him, the fire in the fireplace?
Yet the picture showed only a rainy street and a faceless man.
The next three paintings were covered with white cloth. Alex lifted the first cloth, found himself staring at another image of Sara. While the painting resting on Jamie's easel showed a child full of dreams and innocence, this portrait revealed sorrow. Sara stood on the balcony, staring out over the water, oblivious of the kitten rubbing against her leg. Grief lived in the curve of the child's shoulder, in the stance that revealed hope even in the midst of hopelessness.
Without Mother, he thought, the portrait of a motherless child's grief. Sara had shown Jamie her grief, her loneliness, and Jamie had painted it, immortalizing pain on canvas. He dropped the cloth, wondering if Jamie had covered it as some part of the drying process, or because the painting would disturb Sara if she saw it.
What did she plan to do with it? Show it in the gallery when she had her fall showing, revealing the child's private pain to the world?
Disturbed, he covered the image of a grieving Sara, reached for the cloth over the next painting and flipped it back.
Alex himself, sitting up in a bed... the bed where they'd first made love.
He swallowed, backing away from the painting. The man on the canvas reached out, stretching his hand toward a woman out of sight His eyes, his face... a man helplessly entrapped in the spell of love, eyes yearning and filled with worship.
Jamila had reached inside him, had pried into his most secret place to grasp the vulnerability, the love he himself had only just discovered. Then she'd used it to create his image on canvas, to immortalize his weakness. She'd used him, teaching him to need her, taking his need and his—his love, exposing it on canvas.
Her fall showing. She'd hang this painting in Liz's gallery, exposing—to anyone who walked by—the need against which he was helpless to fight. A powerful new talent. The critics would stare at Alex's soul, exposed here on canvas, and write words in their columns.
"Alex?"
He turned his head. Jamila Ferguson, powerful new talent. He hadn't heard her returning. She stood in the doorway to the corridor, her eyes tangled with an emotion he decided must be nervousness. Or guilt.
His head swiveled back to the paintings. He stepped forward and pulled away the covering over Sara's painting once again. Sara and Alex immortalized on canvas, souls exposed.
"Alex?" Her voice grew closer. "What are you—Those are private."
He laughed bitterly. "These are private?" he turned his head and saw her eyes feigning innocence. "This is why you wanted Sara, isn't it?"
She stepped back. "I painted Sara. I painted you. It's what I do, Alex. I'm a painter, an artist."
"Oh, yes." He focused on Sara's image. "You saw this in her, didn't you, that first night? You saw her sadness, this terrible weight of grief."
Jamie—no, Jamila walked to the painting of the child, stood in front of it as if considering it for the first time. "I saw a hint," she said slowly. "I knew she was lonely."
"So you brought her here, where you could exploit her grief to create a painting that would get you a good review."
"Exploit?" She turned to stare at him, one fist pressed against her chest between her breasts. Suddenly, graphically, he saw his own hands on the naked flesh of her breasts, saw her eyes lose focus as he loved her. But when they loved, she'd remained aware enough—had seen enough to paint him like that, to place the bewitched man on her canvas.
"When did you plan the painting?"
"Plan?" She shook her head. "I painted Sara—I saw her standing there, Squiggles rubbing against her. I knew she was remembering her mother, yearning for her mother and knowing she would never return. I—" She spread her hands expressively. "The painting just—I saw her and I needed to paint her."
"And me?" He jerked his head to the canvas behind her. "When did you see that? When did you see me like that? Did you see a hint at the beginning? Did you want it for your canvas? You made the suggestion, Jamila. You told me you wanted an affair. You were the one who selected the hotel." He forced a laugh. "I should have known, shouldn't I?"
"Should have known what?" Her cooling voice fueled his anger.
"I should have known you wanted an artistic experience. Did you get what you wanted?" He wanted to pace, wouldn't let himself because he wasn't sure what he might do if he got close to her. He wanted to shake her, to bury his mouth in hers—even now. "Did you give your virginity to expose the part of me you needed for a good painting?" He stepped closer, couldn't stop himself. "Is it enough, or do you need more? Two paintings? Six? How many will it take to satisfy your lust?"
"I love you, Alex." Her hand touched his chest and he stared at it, a thing separate from him, inanimate and powerless.
"Of course you love me. You love everything, everyone. You love Sara, you'll go on loving her until you've sucked her dry of emotion, until you've got her guts on canvas. You love me—oh, yes, you really get into the part, and I have to admit you're good, damned good in bed. But I don't think I'll stick around for the rest of the show."
"You're wrong."
"No, I'm not wrong." He'd intended to step back but came closer instead, hating himself because he had to slide his hand into her hair and angle her head for his lips. He thought she would fight him, wanted her to fight, but she seemed plastic in his grip and he kissed her once, hard, then released her as if she'd burned him.
"You use everyone, Jamila. Me, Sara, that poor fool walking down the street, even the cat. When you look at us, if you can see a painting, you pull us into your life for as long as it takes, then you drop us."
"It's not like that."
"Isn't it? Can you deny that when we're together, you're thinking how it will be on canvas?" He caught something in her eyes, an admission.
"Alex, do you think because I'm passionate about my painting, that means my passion for you is invalid?"
He smiled, and in that instant wondered how she wo
uld paint his travesty of a smile. "This time, Jamila Ferguson, I'm walking away, and I don't give a damn if you're finished having your passionate artistic experience."
Her lips parted but he knew he mustn't listen to her words.
"If you show that painting," he growled, "if you show any painting of me, I'll sue you. I'll take every damned cent you've earned from your art and I'll ruin you."
Her head went back at his words, her eyes catching fire. Suddenly he felt the energy, the rage flaming in her.
"I warn you, Jamila. I'll sue."
She spun and jerked her hand out, pointing at the red and black swirl on canvas. "That's us, Alex, making love. When I show that painting this fall, they'll talk about power and passion, and you can sue all you damned well like, you won't win." She smiled bitterly. "I'm going to call it Alex."
"You'll be sorry." Jesus! Now he was reduced to childish threats!
"Is that your objective, Alex, to make me sorry? I knew from the beginning that I would be. You've got a nerve, you know, standing there accusing me of devious dealing. What about you? You took one look at me and disapproved. Before you knew anything about me, you didn't like me. But you lusted, didn't you, Alex? So you took me."
"Took you? You damned well offered."
Her smile grew colder. "How convenient for you. And now that you've had me, you're looking for a way out and you want to blame it on me. That's what you've done from the beginning, isn't it, Alex? You've blamed every damned thing in the world on me. When you go back to Diana, will you tell yourself you've stopped wanting me? Don't believe it, Alex. If you go to Diana Thurston's arms, if you marry her, you'll spend your life wanting me."
For the first time in his life since his brother's death, he was in danger of doing physical violence to another human being. He reached for her, caught himself, and clenched his fists at his sides.
"Jamila—"
"Get out." She crammed her hands into her pockets. "Get out of my house."
He spun and walked away, throwing her front door open and striding out, fighting his need to grasp her by the shoulders, to shake her within an inch of her life, to bury his mouth in hers and kiss her until the madness left him.
Somehow, he got to his car, yanked open the car door.
He would go back, take that canvas, and tear it to bits, destroy what she'd created. At the very least, he should go back and close her front door. Anyone could see that open door and walk in.
He was not her keeper! He owed her nothing, and if she was too damned stupid to close her door when he left—
He jammed the shift lever into reverse and gunned the engine. If he didn't get out of here now, he'd be back up those stairs. God help him, he could end the night again in her arms. Even now, he needed her with a fever that wouldn't leave him.
Chapter 15
"I haven't heard from you in over three weeks." Even over the telephone, Liz's voice showed concern. "You haven't answered your phone. Were you away?"
"I have paintings for you," said Jamie, knowing Liz would recognize the words for an evasion. "I'll bring them this afternoon. I need to make room here."
"You've been productive?"
"Yes."
"Come this afternoon then."
Jamie spent the rest of the morning getting the paintings ready to take to Liz. She hauled the big sheets of cardboard out of the storage space under the balcony, wrapped canvases, and strapped them with packing tape. Last year, when she'd taken her paints and easel and driven along the coast, she'd had the paintings crated before shipping them to Liz, but the cardboard was good enough for a trip across town in her own car.
She'd be glad to be rid of the canvases. After Alex had left, she'd gone straight to her easel, but had found only empty blackness—no colors. For almost a week she'd been frozen, unable to paint. She'd walked, endless walks, had paced the floors of her tiny house. She hadn't called Liz or her father, had known she couldn't bear to be with anyone but Squiggles, and Sara.
When Sara visited, Jamie tutored the child through another drawing of her cat, then enticed her onto the balcony, where she got Sara involved in building a scratching tower for Squiggles from pieces of plywood and carpet.
After seven days, Jamie could no longer bear the numbness. Just before midnight she left her sleepless bed and walked barefoot into her studio. She pulled away the cloth protecting the two paintings of Alex, and forced herself to look. She would never show these paintings, yet how could she keep them? How could she live, seeing Alex's image before she slept each night, waking to it each morning?
She picked up a blank canvas and began to pour out everything she had held trapped inside for the last seven days. She painted in the fury of compulsion, driven to create canvas after canvas, colors of dreams, of love, of loss. Sometimes her tears forced her to stop until she could see again; sometimes she painted for hours, dry-eyed and empty.
" You use everything, everyone," he'd said.
With the brush in her hand and the love she'd dreamed of on canvas, she admitted his truth. Hadn't she once told herself that when it was over, she would paint her pain, would sell the pain?
* * *
In the back room of the gallery, Liz gasped when Jamie unwrapped the first painting, then silently set to work helping strip the cardboard away from the others.
"My heavens," she whispered when the paintings were ranged against the wall. "They're incredible. I didn't know."
Jamie stared at the paintings, realizing she'd failed. She would paint her grief, she'd said, and here it was, but painting hadn't freed her and she could feel no joy in Liz's awe at the paintings.
"I'm going to talk to Enders in San Francisco," said Liz. "We'll do something big, not just a simple showing in my gallery. New York, too. I'll get on the phone to Jason Tempers."
"I'm going away."
Liz jerked her attention away from the paintings. "You look terrible, Jamie. And these—" She crossed the floor to Jamie. "It's him, isn't it?"
"I'll call," Jamie said, needing to get away before Liz's concern turned to active sympathy. "Bye, Liz."
"Jamie!"
She ran out of the storeroom, across the elegant floor of the gallery, down the stairs, and out the door. She couldn't see to unlock her car door, struggled, and finally stumbled inside her car and jammed the key in the lock. Yes, she'd get away, far away. She'd take paints and canvases and she'd drive clown the coast.
No, somewhere different this time. North perhaps, up into Canada. She'd keep driving, north and north and north until she found herself in Alaska.
She started her car and drove slowly, very carefully, recognizing her state of mind as uneven, undependable. Hadn't he said that about her, that she was undependable? That she used everything, everyone, for her art. It was true, but it didn't mean she loved him less.
He had never wanted to believe in her love.
She parked outside her house, frightened because she'd got here without remembering the drive. In this state, she daren't go driving off into the unknown. She thought of Sara, of the terrible thud when her car struck the little girl.
She couldn't risk anything like that happening again. And Sara, the child would be expecting to visit Squiggles. So there would be no escape, no running away from the love or the pain.
Inside her house, Jamie went to the two paintings of Alex on her drying rack.
When Alex had seen the first of them, it seemed as if everything he felt for her was destroyed. She touched the canvas, tracing the texture of the paint as it formed his eyes.
She'd painted love in his eyes. If he didn't love her, why would it bother him?
But if he did love her...
* * *
Vanda carried the parcel into Alex's office just after Jason's visit. "It came by courier," she said. "Do you want me to unpack it?"
"No," snapped Alex.
Vanda left with a backward look that told him he'd been snapping too often, and he glared at the big parcel leaning against his desk
. If he stripped off the packing, the room left inside would be just the size of one of Jamie's canvases.
He carried the parcel into the storage closet behind his desk, pushed the intercom, and told Vanda to bring his next patient in. Then he did his best to forget Jamila Ferguson and focus wholeheartedly on examining Sandra Berkley's eight-month-old twin girls.
Two hours later, after he congratulated his last patient—a thirteen-year-old anorexic girl who'd achieved a seven-pound weight gain—he could still feel the painting waiting for him behind the closet door.
Someone knocked, saving Alex from opening Jamie's package.
Dennis stepped into Alex's. He'd forgotten Dennis was coming—had forgotten so many things in the last three weeks, but not once, for one moment, had he forgotten Jamie Ferguson.
"You're done?" asked Dennis. "Patients gone?"
"Done," agreed Alex. "What did you think?"
"Tell me again, why are we doing this when we don't have Thurston's answer yet? Wouldn't it make more sense to wait until we know?"
"I'm not waiting." Alex felt the familiar pressure build in his chest. If he didn't do something about this new tension, he'd be developing some stress-related illness.
Cool Hand Alex, Emma Garrett had called him once. It doesn't matter what happens, you never lose your perspective. If Emma could only see the view from inside his head today.
"What does Jamie think of this idea?" asked Dennis.
"What?"
"Don't bite my head off. I just think that if you're determined to do this, we could use a second opinion. You're talking about putting up your house, your investments, every asset you have."
"They're my assets."
"True enough, but I don't believe you're thinking straight. You'll have nothing left for operating costs. Jamie would tell you that in a minute."
"Jamie doesn't know a damned thing about money."
"Of course she does. She's a CPA and a damned good one. I don't know if she kept up her designation after she went to art school, but she still has the knowledge. Her father said she had more natural talent for auditing than any accountant he'd ever seen."
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