Like That Endless Cambria Sky

by Linda Seed

  So she contacted artists, looked at the rental places Alex picked out, and worked on an application process for the residency. The McCabes had only agreed to sponsor the program for one five-month period, and when she approached them about continuing it indefinitely, they’d balked. So she drafted a letter to David Walker, reminding him of Kendrick’s astounding progress during the residency and asking him to sponsor the program so that other emerging artists might have the same opportunity.

  The work helped her.

  Keeping busy helped her.

  If she hadn’t been busy, she’d have spent all of her time thinking of Ryan and how she felt when he looked at her with those limitless eyes. If she hadn’t been constantly in motion, she’d have spent a lot of time crying and feeling sorry for herself. As it was, she felt a dull ache in her middle every day, as though she were suffering from some sort of virus. She felt as though her world had been skewed off center, so that everything looked wrong and seemed off-balance. Thank God for her friends and her job. If she hadn’t had them, she’d have risked vanishing into her grief.

  Ryan couldn’t eat.

  He was getting through his day-to-day life okay, except that the very sight of food made him feel sick, so that he picked at his meals and then shoved back from the table with some excuse about being tired or having work to do.

  It wasn’t good, a man with a job as physical as his going hungry, but there was nothing for it. Eating was what you did when you had hope and optimism. Eating was what you did when you wanted to be well and thrive, and he just honestly didn’t give a shit about that anymore. He wanted to, but he couldn’t seem to do it.

  It hurt that she wouldn’t even talk to him.

  The fact that she couldn’t even try to see his side of things made him wonder if he’d misjudged her. But it didn’t matter if he had. No matter what she did, no matter what she was, he loved her with a desperate certainty that couldn’t be undone. His feelings for her were unmanageable, uncontainable, vast like that endless Cambria sky that held the stars, the moon, and all of the unthinkable galaxies beyond.

  His side didn’t matter.

  Nothing mattered but Gen.

  He was sure that he’d survive this, that he’d learn to get along and just live his life. But caring about what was left of that life? Well, that was another thing entirely.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The day Breanna came to see her, Gen was working on a list of finalists for the next spot in her residency. She’d asked Alex to set up phone interviews with some of the most promising candidates, and she was sorting through their information when she heard the front door of the gallery open.

  She looked up and there was Breanna, standing in the doorway looking uncertain and tentative.

  “Breanna,” Gen said. She felt a hard knot of pain in her chest. “Come on in. Is everything okay?”

  “No.” Breanna came into the gallery clutching her purse in front of her. “No, it’s not okay. Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  Gen sat across from Breanna at a café table at Jitters, Gen with a mug of coffee in front of her, Breanna with her hands wrapped around a cup of tea. Alex was manning the gallery. It was midmorning, and the coffee place had a smattering of customers working on laptops or chatting over lattes and scones.

  “So, what is this about?” Gen said once they were settled. She’d always liked Breanna, and part of her sorrow over losing Ryan had to do with the loss of his family as well.

  “It’s about you. And Ryan. He’s miserable, you know. He’s … I’ve never seen him like this. He works, and he comes home, and he does all of the usual things, but … he’s not there. Not really.”

  The thought of him unhappy made the backs of her eyes feel hot with unshed tears.

  “Oh.”

  “You didn’t even hear him out. You didn’t even let him try to explain.”

  “There was nothing to say.” Gen blinked hard to clear her vision.

  “Yes, there was. But he won’t say it. He’s too proud. So I have to say it for him.”

  “Breanna …”

  “Just listen to me. If you won’t listen to him, listen to me.” Something in her voice made Gen stop protesting.

  “All right.”

  Breanna took a sip of her tea and then set the cup carefully back on the table. “A few years ago, before you moved to Cambria, Ryan was involved with a woman.”

  Gen felt a knot in her chest at the thought of him with someone else. It didn’t matter that it had happened before he met her.

  “He was … They were very serious,” Breanna went on. “He was thinking marriage, kids, the whole bit.”

  “What happened?” Gen wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “She tried to take advantage of him. Her parents’ business was failing—because of their own incompetence—and she wanted him to bail them out. He said no, and it ended them.”

  Gen was appalled. “She broke up with him over money?”

  “If you’d asked her about it, she would have said no. They didn’t break up right away. But …” She shrugged. “That was the beginning of the end for them. She started picking fights over little things, finding fault with him over this or that. We all knew it was about the money.”

  “God,” Gen said.

  Breanna leaned closer to Gen. “You have to understand how complicated it is for him. The money—it makes everything harder. More confusing. There’s always the question of whether a woman really wants him for him. And if she needs money for something … for anything, really … it becomes this big minefield he has to navigate. If he gives it to her, he wonders if she’s using him. On the other hand, if he doesn’t …”

  “Then he worries that they’ll leave,” Gen finished for her.

  “Right. And that doesn’t even touch on the issue of the family.”

  “The family?”

  “Well, it’s not Ryan’s money, individually. It belongs to the family. He takes that responsibility seriously. He doesn’t want our parents to think he’s being frivolous or foolish. That’s so important to him. He really worries about how they see him.”

  Gen pulled a paper napkin out of the metal dispenser on the table and started twisting it in her fingers. “So when this thing with Bellini came up …”

  “He was damned if he did, and damned if he didn’t.”

  A fat tear spilled down Gen’s cheek and plopped onto the table. “Yeah. I can see that.”

  “And, Gen.” Breanna looked at her intently. “When he didn’t know what to do, he erred on the side of making you happy. For all the good it did him.”

  Gen let out a shaky sigh. “And I wouldn’t even talk to him.”

  “Well, you might want to reconsider that,” Breanna said. “That thing with his ex-girlfriend was bad. But this? This is worse.”

  Gen tossed the mangled napkin aside. “But … he gave Bellini that money because he thought I couldn’t handle things on my own. He didn’t respect me.”

  Breanna shook her head, frustrated. “God, Genevieve. He’s a man. Do you really think he thought it through that far? He saw something you wanted, and he thought he could get it for you. He was …” She waved her hands around in front of her, groping for a metaphor. “You were a hungry cave woman and he speared a mastodon for you. It’s that simple!”

  Gen laughed through a throat thick with emotion. “And I wouldn’t even eat the damned thing.”

  Breanna nodded. “Pretty much.”

  “Okay.” Gen wiped at her eyes. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, what are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Breanna shook her head in a gesture of pity and scorn. “If you let him go over this, it’s going to be a big mistake. He loves you. I mean, he really loves you. And he’s a good man, Genevieve.”

  She got up from the table, gathered up her purse, and walked out of the café.

  When Breanna was gone, Lacy came over to t
he table, cautiously, and sat down across from Gen.

  “That looked intense,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “I might be an idiot,” Gen said.

  “At least you won’t be lonely,” Lacy said, reaching for Gen’s hand and squeezing it in hers. “It’s a big club.”

  She didn’t know what to do, and she couldn’t quite get it straight in her head.

  Ryan loved her. He did what he did because he wanted to help her. What he’d done had been patronizing and demeaning, no question. But there was every chance Breanna was right—he hadn’t thought of it that way. He hadn’t thought at all. He’d simply seen a chance to get her what he thought she wanted, and he took it.

  The background of the thing—that he’d lost a relationship in the past because of a reluctance to come through with money—did change things. He hadn’t wanted to lose Gen the way he’d lost the woman who came before her.

  But then he’d lost Gen anyway.

  Then there was the question of exactly how important Gen’s pride was to her. Did she care about her ego more than she cared about Ryan? Right about now it didn’t seem that way. She felt broken without him, wounded, as though a part of her body were missing. And the thought of him suffering, too—it made her feel a range of emotions from sorrow to guilt. He hurt because she was too stubborn to even talk to him.

  “I don’t know if I can do this,” Gen told Kate one morning before work, as they were standing on Kate’s deck, drinking coffee and looking at the roiling ocean.

  “Do what?”

  “Stay mad at Ryan.”

  “Oh, Gen,” Kate said. “Then don’t. Just don’t.”

  “Is it that simple?” Gen turned to Kate, the silvery horizon at her back.

  “It can be,” Kate said. “He didn’t mean to hurt you, you know.”

  “I do know that.”

  “But?”

  Gen sighed. “I don’t even know anymore. I don’t even know why I’m holding onto this.”

  “Then don’t,” Kate said again.

  “Yeah.”

  “I think he’s it for you,” Kate said gently. “I really do. Do you want to let him go because of this? Because of money?”

  Gen shrugged. “It sounds stupid when you put it that way.”

  “Well. That’s something to think about.”

  Gen had to help Kendrick move out of the guest cottage. His residency was finished, and he was scheduled to fly back to Chicago the following day. She’d promised that she would help him by picking up the paintings that he’d be taking with him so she could have them crated and shipped to his home address.

  She was nervous about going to the ranch, because she worried that she might run into Ryan—and she also worried that she might not. She thought she was ready to talk to him, but she didn’t know how it would go. There was a good chance that he was so hurt by now by the way she’d shut him out that he would close the door in her face if she went up to the main house.

  Still, she thought she had to try.

  As she drove her car up the road that led to the guest house, she felt a little sick and quivery, as though some dark creature were gnawing at her insides. She just wanted to feel okay again; she wanted to feel whole. And she didn’t think she could do that without Ryan.

  At the guest house, she found Kendrick amid the disarray of packing. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and he looked rested and happy.

  “How’s it coming along?” she asked.

  “Good, good. Though I really hate to go.” He faced her and stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets.

  Gen grinned at him. “I remember when you couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

  “Yeah, well.” Kendrick looked at his feet and smiled, embarrassed. “I can’t thank you enough. For everything.”

  “Oh, Gordon.” Impulsively, she rushed forward and hugged him. At first he didn’t hug her back—she imagined that he was taken aback by her sudden gesture—but then he put his arms around her and squeezed.

  “Yes, well,” he said after they’d separated. He was blushing slightly. “I have the canvases for shipping.”

  “Good.”

  He showed her the paintings stacked against one wall of the little house, and she browsed through them. She gazed in awe at the stunning images, bursts of vibrant color that hinted of the wind, the water, birdsong, the rush of the creek over rocks.

  And then she saw it.

  “Gordon. What’s this?” She pulled away the top canvases so he could see the one underneath.

  “Ah. Cambria Pines III.”

  “This is the one you didn’t want to sell. But Bellini sold it anyway. How did you get it?”

  Kendrick looked at her, puzzled. “I thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “It arrived here about a week after the show in New York. The note enclosed with it said it was from you. I just assumed you’d worked things out with Bellini.”

  “What? I …”

  And then she knew where the painting had come from.

  “I … Gordon, I have to go. I’ll be back for the paintings. Later. I have to …”

  She hit the door at a near run.

  She had to find Ryan.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  He wasn’t at the house. Of course he wasn’t—it was the middle of a workday. Still, she almost wept with frustration. Breanna had answered the door, and she stood in the doorway looking at Gen.

  “I need to see Ryan,” Gen said, breathless.

  “Well, it’s about time.”

  Breanna wasn’t sure where he was, so she called him on his cell phone. He didn’t answer.

  “Cell service is sketchy out here,” Breanna said, though Gen already knew from her own experience that it was true.

  “Please,” Gen said. “Do you have any idea where he might be? I really … I just need to see him.”

  Breanna put one fist on her hip and regarded Gen. “Well, he said something about a fence in the southwest pasture.”

  “Great. Good. How do I get there?” Gen was already stepping down off the porch on the way to her car.

  “Can’t get there by car. You’ve gotta ride.”

  “Oh, God,” Gen said.

  Smirking, Breanna led Gen to the stables. They saddled up two horses—the chestnut named Bailey that Gen had ridden before, and a gorgeous black mare Breanna called Molly. Breanna gave Gen some gentle instruction as she used the mounting block to climb atop Bailey’s back.

  “You ready?” Breanna asked as Gen settled into the saddle, feeling a little scared, intimidated by the size of the animal.

  “I guess.” At least her discomfort with the idea of riding was crowding out her fear about seeing Ryan again. That was something.

  They headed out on a trail that led into the hills past the old barn. They moved at a walk, which Gen assumed was for her benefit.

  “Could we hurry?” Gen called ahead to Breanna.

  “Fine by me. But are you up for it?”

  “I … Yes. Let’s just go.”

  “All right.” Breanna nudged her horse into a trot, and Bailey followed suit. At first the jostling was alarming, and Gen worried that she’d be thrown off and under the massive animal’s hooves. But Breanna called instructions to her, and soon Gen was following the horse’s rhythm and feeling pretty sure that she could do this.

  Gen knew the ranch was big, but it seemed like they’d been riding forever before they finally arrived at the southwest pasture. Breanna brought Molly to a stop, and Bailey came up alongside her.

  “Doesn’t look like he’s here,” Breanna said, unnecessarily. Gen could see that for herself. The countryside was dotted with the big, black bodies of cows grazing or just standing around—but no Ryan.

  Gen let out a little frustrated moan.

  “You want to go back, or you want to try the new barn?” Breanna said.

  “Breanna!” Gen shouted at her.

  “Okay. New barn it is.”

  They tu
rned around and went back onto the path.

  By the time they got to the new barn, Gen’s ass was sore and she was nearly weeping with the need to see Ryan. The horses trotted up to the barn, and Ryan appeared in the doorway. A couple of ranch hands were unloading hay bales from a truck. They looked at her and then at Ryan with curiosity.

  She scrambled to get down from Bailey’s back, which seemed impossibly high off the ground. Her foot got stuck in the stirrup and she stumbled backward. Ryan was there to catch her.

  The feel of his body against hers as he righted her made tears spring to her eyes. She wanted to melt into him and then stay there, warm and safe, forever.

  “Gen,” he said, stepping away from her after she’d gained her balance.

  “Oh, God. Ryan, I need to talk to you. I need …”

  “I think you two can take it from here,” Breanna said. “You’ll get her and Bailey back to the house?” she asked Ryan.

  He nodded, and Breanna led Molly at a trot down the path that led back the way they’d come. As she went, she looked over her shoulder and shot them a satisfied smirk.

  “What’s going on?” Ryan said when she was gone. “Did something happen?”

  “You bought Kendrick’s painting,” Gen said.

  “Ah, Gen.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Look. I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t …”

  “No.” She interrupted him. “You bought the one he wanted to keep for himself, and returned it to him.”

  “Well.” He stood there with his hands on his hips, looking uncomfortable. The ranch hands had stopped unloading the hay and were watching them openly.

  “Don’t you two have something to do?” Ryan asked them. They ducked their heads and disappeared into the barn.

  “Ryan. Giving that painting to Gordon was the most thoughtful, generous … just about the kindest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “I didn’t … It wasn’t … It just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  Being told he was kind and generous made him look like he was standing on a rusty nail. His discomfort with the praise, with the attention from his selfless act, made her melt. She simply could not imagine waiting another moment before being in his arms.