Who Rescued Who

by Victoria Schade

  She hugged the phone to her chest. Her rebound was beginning, and now she’d have even better cover when she took Cecelia down. No one would suspect that she was the photo source if she was back kicking ass in a new position with an even better company. It was all happening!

  Harriet rolled up behind Elizabeth with an overflowing cart. “You found fashion, amazing!”

  Elizabeth glanced at the bag sitting on the counter to make sure the lemon dress was buried at the bottom, as if it were as embarrassing as a box of hemorrhoid cream. “I’m going to be sporting some barn chic, that’s for sure. And look at you, your cart overfloweth.”

  “Yeah, Des just got paid from a major gig, so I’m taking advantage of the money while it’s here. A freelance journalist and vintage clothing store owner aren’t exactly known for financial stability.”

  Elizabeth understood what that meant for the first time in her career. Though she was still a few months away from nightmares about being a bag lady, she could appreciate how disorienting and scary it felt to be without a stable income.

  “I’m feeling particularly flush at the moment, so I’m taking you for lunch to celebrate your new position with Rowan. I won’t hear a no,” Harriet said as she waddled back to the car.

  Elizabeth smiled at the words new position. The only new position that mattered to her was the one she was about to snag.

  chapter twenty-one

  I told you this wasn’t going to be easy, Bess.”

  Rowan leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, smiling at Elizabeth as she walked around the studio with a cup of tea in one hand and her tablet in the other, looking more overwhelmed with each step. Major and Georgina trailed behind her like eager assistants. Working on the spreadsheet layout and talking about the process with Rowan over the prior few days had been easy, but now that it was time to start inputting the details of each work Elizabeth finally understood the full scope of what she was facing.

  “I’m just in awe that there are so many. You’ve got paintings hidden everywhere. How fast do you paint?”

  “In the old days I was a madman. Your aunt hated me for it, because I’d get the itch and keep going for hours on end. Sometimes all through the night. Back then I was averaging about one finished work per week, plus a few smaller studies as well. Thanks to the fickle gods of art patronage, those little throwaway pieces are now valuable, so the drawers full of them need to be included in the inventory as well. It’s overwhelming, I understand. And then there’s this.” He beckoned her to follow him through a small door on the far side of the barn.

  Elizabeth peeked into the room. It was a quarter of the size of the main room, narrow, without windows and as tall as the rest of the barn. It was also crowded with paintings, but they were unlike anything in the other room.

  “Portraits? You paint portraits too?”

  “Used to. I haven’t done one in over fifty years.” Rowan walked around the room with his hands clasped behind his back. He stopped in front of a painting of a beautiful young woman hanging opposite the door like a sentry. “Do you recognize this gorgeous creature?”

  Elizabeth moved closer to the painting to examine it. It was nothing like Rowan’s typical exacting style and was painted with such looseness that she could see his brushstrokes. The colors were muted, as if it had been painted at twilight. The woman’s dark hair spilled over her naked shoulders, which were just barely covered with rumpled white cloth she had clutched with one hand. Her chin was slightly lowered and her gaze at the viewer was direct beneath heavy eyes. Her eyebrow arched in a way that looked like she had just said something naughty. Her expression was so seductive that Elizabeth was almost embarrassed to look at it with Rowan standing behind her.

  “That’s my Trudy.” He sighed. “The one that started it all. When your father saw it he knew exactly what was going on between us.”

  Elizabeth imagined her father discovering the painting. It must have broken his heart.

  “Do you understand what all of this means?” Rowan gestured to the other portraits ringing the room.

  “More to inventory?”

  Rowan laughed. “Well, yes, of course. But this room is . . . newsworthy. I’m known as a landscape artist. The paintings in this room represent a different side of my work that the public, and more importantly, my collectors, don’t know exists. There’s sure to be great interest when these come to light.”

  “This is a big deal,” Elizabeth said, almost to herself. “Rowan, are you sure I should be the one to help you with this?”

  “There’s no one else I want beside me. You’ll be fine, Bess.”

  She started to follow him out of the room and something streaked in front of her foot. Major followed closely behind it, with Georgina bringing up the rear.

  “Mouse!” she screamed.

  The dogs skidded, cartoon-style, into a stack of paintings and pushed their noses up against the canvases. Major whined and dug at them, and Georgina stood by watching him expectantly.

  “Determined, yet perpetually unsuccessful,” Rowan said. “I’m glad of it, I quite like those little things, even though they’ve nibbled holes in too many paintings to count.”

  Major raked his paw against the side of the canvases, trying to part them to get to the mouse. Georgina crowded beside him, snuffling between the paintings. Elizabeth watched until she couldn’t take it and took a few halting steps toward the dogs.

  “Major, stop!” He continued digging at the paintings and she looked at Rowan. “He’s damaging them, get him to stop!”

  “Look at you, already worried about preservation. You’re a natural.” Rowan chuckled. “Major, enough.”

  Major immediately turned to face them and plopped into a statue-like sit. Georgina ignored them and tried to force her nose between the canvases.

  “I believe it’s time for young Georgina to begin training. Trudy and William will help you with that. Now then, before we begin . . .” He trailed off and walked out of the small room. Elizabeth dutifully followed behind as he walked to a corner in the main barn next to a vine-covered window. He stopped in front of an easel equipped with a blank canvas and a set of brand-new paints and brushes beside it. Georgina leapt up to try to grab the rag hanging down from the table.

  “Before we begin,” he continued, “we paint. This canvas is yours, Bess.”

  The expanse of white looked gigantic and unfillable.

  “Rowan, I . . .” She started to say can’t but realized it would be rude. “Thank you.”

  “Sit, my dear. There’s no pressure to do anything today. Settle into it slowly. Just let the brushes take you where they will. I’ll be right over there if you need me. Do you mind if I play music?”

  Elizabeth shook her head, imaging the calming classical that was about to fill the room. Instead, horns and drums surrounded her from speakers hidden in the eaves.

  “Do you like Benny Goodman?”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “Well, then, you’re about to get a musical education. Big band, swing, and a little bit of old jazz. Forgive my singing.”

  Elizabeth sat staring at the canvas as Rowan busied himself at his. She hadn’t painted in years, and even in her peak she always found herself overwhelmed by the thought of touching the first dot of paint to the perfect field of white. She picked up one of the brushes Rowan had selected for her and examined it. The gleaming ebony handle tapered at the center and was tipped with firm, bright white bristles. She ran the brush along the back of her hand, trying to assess how the silky bristles would move the paint on the canvas. It was a quality brush, and she hated to envision the pristine handle and silver collar coated in careless layers of paint. Rowan had given her every brush she could possibly need and more, from a wisp with a few eyelashlike bristles at the end to a fat mushroom-shaped brush that was nearly as big as her fist, and every shape and size in between.r />
  Rowan clearly enjoyed the pageantry of new supplies, and had laid out the tubes of paint in color order, starting with three shades of white on the left side of the table and working through various yellows, oranges, reds, blues, and greens to a wall of browns and blacks on the right. The variety of colors was extravagant. Back in her painting days, Elizabeth could create any hue imaginable using just the primary colors. She was both touched by Rowan’s generosity and slightly insulted that he thought she wasn’t capable of mixing.

  She looked around the room for inspiration, and then, as if no time had passed, felt compelled to mix colors. Her fingers moved as if directed by an invisible puppeteer, squeezing the paint from the tubes onto the round porcelain palette. She quickly filled half of the twelve wells, mixing some colors with the palette knife and using others straight from the tube.

  She knew immediately that the resulting colors were perfect, and she picked up a fat, flat brush and started slapping paint on the canvas, almost in time to the music. Whereas the beat seemed lost on Rowan as he leaned in inches from the canvas, Elizabeth gave in to the tempo and let it direct the brush in her hands. She worked fast, tilting her head at the image she was creating, then back at her subject across the room. Sometimes her gaze jumped back and forth between the two so quickly that she felt dizzy. She lost track of time and didn’t notice Rowan standing behind her as she worked.

  “Oh my,” he said quietly over her shoulder, startling her out of her trance. How long had they been at it?

  “Rowan! No, don’t look yet, I’m not ready!” She held her hands in front of the canvas. It felt like he’d caught her half-dressed.

  He gently moved her aside and inched in closer with his hand pressed to his mouth and his eyes squinted. He stepped back to take in the entire thing, then moved in again as if to decipher how she’d created the image.

  “How long has it been since you’ve painted?” he asked.

  “Forever. Please, don’t look at it. It’s not good.”

  Rowan waved a hand at her and continued analyzing her work. Elizabeth watched him and tried to imagine his critique. She’d never painted an animal before, but Major had opted to laze directly in her sightline practically willing himself to be her first subject.

  It wasn’t tentative, what she’d put on the canvas. Her depiction of him was bold but at the same time it captured the dog’s nuances. From the way his paw curved against his chest to the way he looked asleep and alert at the same time, it was a perfect representation of the dog’s spirit.

  “Bess,” Rowan said quietly. “You are about to go places you haven’t even imagined.”

  chapter twenty-two

  You’re supposed to be taking it easy,” Elizabeth told Trudy.

  “I’m ‘supposed’ to do a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean I will,” she snapped back. Trudy had regained some of her strength and all of her grit in the time since the fall and had coerced Elizabeth to come to her volunteer day at Dogs Trust. They were stuffing Kong toys with food for the dogs’ meals, and Trudy winced every time she accidentally used her bad arm. “There’s too much to do around here. They need me.”

  Trudy was right. When they’d arrived in the cheery yellow foyer Trudy was greeted like a celebrity by staff and volunteers alike at the rehoming center. They fussed over her arm for a few seconds, then immediately began detailing which dogs had found forever families, which were in need of her special attention, and how she could accomplish her usual tasks with her injury.

  “I’ll be fine,” Trudy had fussed at Lisa, the pretty blond volunteer coordinator. “I’ll use a waist leash. The dogs need walking, that’s why I’m here.”

  “Absolutely not,” Lisa replied, smiling tightly as if she could tell a fight was brewing. “There’s too much risk to both you and the dogs.”

  “Well, then, Bess can hold the leash while we walk. She’s an experienced dog handler.”

  Elizabeth widened her eyes at Trudy.

  Lisa ignored Trudy and turned to Elizabeth. “We’re so happy to have you along today, but unfortunately we can’t let you walk the dogs without prior training. I was thinking that the two of you could be on kitchen duty. Isn’t that lovely?”

  Trudy’s harrumphing and banging around the kitchen made it clear that it was a rookie job well below her abilities.

  “It’s a perfectly perfect day outside and those poor dogs are sitting in their pens. This is ridiculous. They’re treating me like I’m an invalid. I was volunteering here before they were born.” She slammed a spoon on the counter and it spattered soft dog food everywhere.

  “Trudy, they’re just looking out for you,” Elizabeth replied. “And this is sort of fun.” Elizabeth had been relieved that they were downgraded to kitchen duty. Although she could handle Major and Georgina, the thought of walking strange shelter dogs made her queasy. She had visions of jumping, biting, dropped leashes, and runaway dogs.

  “Hey, Trudy.” A woman with short dark hair and the rehoming center’s telltale yellow golf shirt poked her head in the kitchen. “Can I steal you?”

  “Tamsin, hello. Officially, you can’t steal me because we still have a bucket to finish. But yes, please do. Get me out of this kitchen nightmare.”

  “Lisa gave us strict orders to keep you safe in here, but this dog needs you.” Tamsin sized Elizabeth up. “You can come too.”

  Elizabeth’s stomach knotted. Was Tamsin implying that they were about to do something unsafe? Was it a vicious dog?

  They stopped outside a room away from the main floor where the rest of the dogs were, and Elizabeth hung back, waiting to hear the frenzied barks and growls from whoever was inside.

  “Oh, the poor dear!” Trudy exclaimed as they looked in the window. “I can see it trembling from here.”

  “We just got her in yesterday and she hasn’t moved from that spot. Hasn’t had a drop to drink, won’t even look at the food bowl. We’ve all tried to connect with her but she’s completely shut down. I figured you could work your magic.”

  “Of course I will. Bess, you’re coming in with me.”

  They both turned to look at her and she realized that she had no choice. Elizabeth worked up the courage to peek at whatever hulking beast was in the room, expecting a shaggy wolf-dog cowering in the corner. Instead she could barely make out the tiny lump of brown fur curled up on a raised bed in the corner of the room.

  “I’ll keep Lisa busy while you go in,” Tamsin said. “Good luck.”

  Trudy beckoned Elizabeth to follow her into the room and shut the door behind them quietly.

  “Let’s sit down.” Trudy awkwardly lowered herself to the ground near the door, making quiet groaning noises and pretending it wasn’t an effort to do so. Elizabeth settled on the cement floor beside her.

  “What now?” Elizabeth asked.

  “We wait,” Trudy said. She exhaled, then yawned dramatically.

  The puppy slid an eye in Trudy’s direction.

  “And we’ve made contact. The yawn always works,” Trudy said, smiling. “Hello, love. We’re going to be friends.” She brushed her hands down her pants and looked at Elizabeth. “Don’t stare at her. You’ll frighten her.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t realized that she’d been staring. “What should I do?”

  “Just be calm. Feel calm. Send calm.”

  “Why don’t we get closer to her?”

  “That’s exactly why she’s in this mess. No one respects what she’s saying. That puppy is very clearly telling everyone, ‘Stay away.’ Until she says otherwise, I’ll listen to her.”

  “But how will we know?”

  “It will be obvious, Bess. When she’s ready to meet us, she’ll tell us.”

  The puppy was about the size of Georgina and had light brown fur. Even though its head was nearly buried beneath its front paws Elizabeth could still see two small reddish-golden dots abo
ve each eye and an apron of the same pretty color across its chest.

  “What kind of dog is it?”

  “It looks to be a Rottweiler mixed with . . . maybe a chocolate lab? The coloring is lovely.”

  Trudy yawned again.

  “Are you tired?”

  “No, that’s called a calming signal. It’s a little bit of dog-speak that I steal for myself in situations like this. Yawning is a way to signal that I’m not a threat.” She yawned again and Elizabeth mimicked her.

  “Look!” Trudy said quietly. The puppy had picked its head up and was watching them. “Let’s scoot a touch closer.”

  They moved toward the dog slowly, and she put her head back down and looked away for a second, then looked back at them and raised her head again.

  “Lovely, sweetheart,” Trudy cooed. “Aren’t you so brave? Are we going to be friends?”

  The puppy wagged the tip of its tail and Elizabeth’s heart thumped faster.

  “It’s working!”

  “So it is. We’re making wonderful progress.”

  They continued their slow approach, watching the puppy for signs that she was comfortable with what was happening. Trudy translated everything the puppy’s body language was saying, and Elizabeth made mental notes so she could apply the new information to Georgina. Every movement the puppy made meant something, from the little licks as if she were tasting the air, to the way her eyes darted, to the position of her head and the movement of her tail. With Trudy’s translation skills it was as if the puppy were having a full conversation with them.

  Within fifteen minutes they were only a few feet away from the puppy, and her posture had relaxed.

  “Can we touch her?”

  “No, not yet. Let her make the first move.”

  The room was still until a tapping on the window interrupted the silence with an avalanche of sound. Lisa peered in at them.