AN IRRESISTIBLE BACHELOR

by Jessica Bird

Jack's breath left him in a rush as the solution became clear, at least on his side.

  He would absolutely give up his political aspirations for her. No question. But that was only half of it. If he was going to make that kind of compromise, she was going to have to be completely truthful with him. He would need to know everything.

  He focused on his brother. "Thanks, Nate, this has been really helpful."

  Nate looked a little confused, but then slapped his hands on his knees and got up. "Always glad to help. Even when it's just listening."

  They started for the door.

  "So how long are you here for?" Jack asked.

  "Thought I'd hang around for the party and then go up to Montreal to see Spike and Louie."

  Jack killed the lights and they headed upstairs. "How are those two nut jobs?"

  "Still out of control. So naturally I'm thinking of going into business with them. We might buy a restaurant together:"

  "The rolling stone is thinking of settling down?"

  "Not at all. I'm just buying a joint, brother." Nate shrugged. "Anyway, I've saved some money."

  "You have?"

  "Don't sound so surprised. It's not your kind of money, but it's enough to get us started."

  Jack stopped as they emerged into the hall. "Look, if you find something, just let me know. I'll be happy, to give you—”

  "Don't even go there. You have enough dependents and I don't want to be a charity case."

  Jack paused, thinking back to Callie saying those very same words to him at the Plaza. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  "Well, keep me in mind if you want a loan."

  "Will do, brother." Nate grinned. "But don't hold your breath."

  Callie opened the door to her bedroom and looked out into the hall. The only sound she could hear was Artie smacking his chops after a yawn and rearranging himself on her bedroom floor.

  She quickly crossed the hallway and knocked on Jack's door. There was no answer.

  "Looking for him?"

  She wheeled around. Nate was coming down the hall, a book in his hand, a grin on his face.

  "Ah—yes."

  "He's down in his study." The man paused and whispered, "Don't worry, I'm discreet as hell. Oh, and avoid the third stair from the bottom, it creaks like a bitch if you hit it wrong."

  He shot her a wink and sauntered down to his bedroom.

  Moving quickly, Callie made her way downstairs, judiciously avoiding the stair Nate had warned her about.

  When she got to Jack's study, the door was open. He was sitting in a pool of light, facing the window behind his desk. His hand was on the phone as if he'd just hung it up.

  His head moved, as if he'd seen her reflection in the panes. When silence stretched out between them, she said, "We need to talk."

  "Now?" His voice was so low, it almost didn't carry.

  She cleared her throat. "Yes."

  There was a long pause and then he said, "Okay."

  Callie frowned as she realized something was very wrong with him.

  "Jack? What's going on?"

  He slowly turned the chair around and faced her. His face was frozen, his mouth set in a grim line.

  "She died this afternoon."

  Who? Callie wondered.

  Oh, no, the little girl.

  "Oh, Jack..."

  His voice was utterly devoid of emotion, as if he was holding himself together with that iron will he was known for. "The funeral is going to be tomorrow afternoon, in the Jewish tradition. I'm going to go, of course. I've decided to close the office. Everyone is going to go. And then her family will be sitting shiva for the next week."

  Wordlessly, she went around the desk, hoping he would let her take him into her arms. When he leaned into her, she could feel him shudder.

  He took a deep breath. "I've been sitting with her and her family at night. That's why I've been getting home so late. They had this fantastic nurse from hospice. The care was amazing." She could feel his chest rise again. "I'm going to set up an endowment at the hospice center in her name. It will be—” He cleared his throat "It's going to be the first charitable donation I've ever made."

  Callie held him tightly, wishing there was more she could do. When he finally lifted his head, he looked up at her.

  "I know there are things left unsaid, things we need to talk about. But stay with me tonight?" he asked.

  When she nodded, he took her hand and rose from the chair.

  Chapter 20

  Early the next morning, Callie sat on her stool, grabbed one of the solvent jars, and cracked it open. After adjusting her breathing mask, she dipped a cotton bud into the isopropanol and carefully brushed the solution over the surface of the painting. She was all the way into the center of the portrait now, right at the edge of the mirror, having logged countless hours while she and Jack were at odds. There was not much left of the cleaning to do.

  She glanced up. Outside, the sun was bright in a clear New England sky.

  She couldn't stop thinking about the night before. They'd made love and Jack had held her long afterward. They hadn't talked very much, but it had been enough just to be with him, to close the distance between them even if it was only physically. And she'd been relieved that he'd allowed her to be with him at a vulnerable time and that she'd had the opportunity to console him.

  In the morning, as he'd left her room, he'd promised her they would talk tonight.

  She was hoping that he was going to tell her he wasn't going to run in the election and that they could go back to the way things had been. In her heart, she knew that both were unlikely and she tried, once more, to reconsider the ramifications if he did get into the race.

  The outcome wasn't any better than it had been all the other times she'd thought about the situation. He was right; if her father had been a private citizen, the papers would have no real cause to follow the story. Unfortunately, Cornelius Woodward Hall's infidelity was going to be huge news.

  If Jack ran, she had to back out of his life. That was the only way to keep the past from coming to light. But the idea that she wouldn't end up in Boston, by his side, was intolerable. Whenever she pictured herself going back to New York and never being with him again, her heart just about shattered.

  Callie took a deep breath, looked back down at the painting, and shot up in a panic, knocking her chair over. She barely heard the slamming noise of the thing hitting the floor or Artie's terrified yelp and scatter.

  "Oh, no, no, no..."

  She threw the swab down and grabbed a rag though it wasn't like she could do anything with the damn thing.

  Suspended with horror over the painting, she stared in disbelief at what she'd done. She'd burned a hole right through the varnish and into the paint layer. She bent down further, hoping that closer proximity would reveal it was just superficial damage. It wasn't.

  Across the face of the mirror, in a swath about an inch square, Copley's original paint had been eaten up.

  Callie cursed as she quickly looked at the jar she'd opened. By mistake, she'd picked out the strongest solvent she'd brought with her and had compounded the error by leaving the damn stuff on as she'd stared out the window. The chemical had had plenty of time to seep in, infecting a larger area than just the part she'd applied it to as it spread outward.

  A hot flash ran through her body, bringing sweat to her palms and her underarms and her forehead.

  She'd marred a great work of art. She'd never work again. Jack was going to kill her.

  And all because she'd let herself get distracted.

  Of all the stupid, neophyte—

  But now was not the time to beat herself up. God knew, there would be plenty of opportunity for that as she waited in line to collect unemployment.

  She needed to focus. Focus and assess the situation and the remedies. Then she would call Gerard Beauvais.

  She hovered above the painting, her eyes moving desperately around from the damaged area to all the work she'd done so well.
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  Screw it. She needed to call Beauvais now.

  Callie reached into her tool kit for his card and dialed the number on the back, praying her voice would work if he answered. And God help her if she burst into tears. Looking weak as well as incompetent would just about put the finishing touch on a total nightmare.

  She got his voice mail and left him a message to call her as soon as he could.

  After a couple of deep breaths, and with a resolve not to keep picturing herself career-less and tossing pizzas for a living, she bent over the painting again. The solvent's appetite hadn't waned. The damaged part was getting bigger. : It was like watching an evil tide.

  Yeah, and that path of destruction was wiping out her professional future as well as all that paint, she thought.

  She propped her head on her hands and told herself that Beauvais's shop could do a repaint on the mirror, just as he'd done for the Fra Filippo Lippi. They'd match the paint tones and brushstrokes with as much precision as possible so that it would be virtually impossible to tell that anything had gone wrong.

  Which was a cold comfort, she thought. Even if the damage was hidden masterfully, she had still irrevocably diminished the value of the painting.

  Abruptly, Callie frowned. Blinking her eyes a few times, she told herself she was seeing things.

  It couldn't be.

  She bent down so low she felt the heat of the chemical reaction and her eyes burned.

  From out of the mess, a shape was emerging. Underneath the blistered and melting layers of paint, she could see the outline of... a face.

  She rubbed her eyes.

  No, there was definitely a pattern coming through. Behind the pale creams of the mirror's surface, it looked like... the shape of a face.

  Her heart started to pound for an altogether different reason than career suicide.

  When the phone rang next to her, she grabbed it, hoping to pick up before anyone else did at the house.

  Gerard Beauvais's cultured tones were the sweetest sound she could imagine hearing.

  "Oh, God, I screwed up," she began, her words running together, just like the melted paint. "I was working over the mirror and I used the wrong strength solvent and I melted part of the paint layer—”

  "Okay, okay, cherie. Slow down."

  Somehow Beauvais's calm voice reached her inner ear and she forced herself to stop jabbering.

  "Now," he said, when she had herself under better control, "tell me exactly what happened from start to finish. And what the chemical composition of your solvent is."

  After she was finished, her throat was tight as she waited for his response.

  "I must know," he said quietly. ""What was underneath? In the mirror."

  "A dark figure, actually." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "In the shape of a head, I think."

  Beauvais laughed tensely. "Well, perhaps your mistake is fortuitous. Did the paint layer there react differently to the solvent than the other parts of the portrait?"

  "Well, I didn't burn any of the rest of it off, thank God, so it's hard to say. But no, I don't think it did. It came up easily but that could be explained by the increased strength of the solution."

  Beauvais was silent for a moment. "I must see it for myself. But do not move the painting. I will come to you tomorrow. I have family here now and cannot leave. In the meantime, say nothing to Jack or his mother. I don't think you should go to them until we know what our plan to remedy the situation is. There is no reason to upset them, if it can be avoided."

  Callie's breath came out in a shudder. "God, I feel awful. Jack's going to fire me. I'm never—”

  Beauvais laughed easily. "Jack is not going to fire you. And you are going to work again, trust me. The conservation science is administered by human hands and we make mistakes. There is nothing we cannot fix together, but let us not be foolish. I will call on you tomorrow and we will decide what to do."

  "How am I ever going to thank you?"

  "That, my dear, is simple."

  She laughed with a choked sound, finding it hard to imagine she could offer him much of anything.

  "You, Callie Burke, are going to do the same thing for someone else when you are well along in your career and a younger colleague has a problem. Twenty-five years ago, I was working on a Titian when I managed to spill raw turpentine in one corner." When he heard her gasp, he laughed merrily. "It was awful. After I retired to la salle de bains wherein I revisited my lunch in a most unpleasant way, I came back, told my mentor what I had done and the two of us took care of it. The painting is hanging in the Uffizi to this day, and every time I go for a visit, I make sure I take a hard look at that canvas. I can still see the strip we had to repaint. Few others can, of course, but it always reminds me of my folly. I will say this. Egos are far more damaging in our line of work than mistakes. So when someone calls on you years from now, remember this experience and do the right thing. Help. Do not judge."

  "I feel so ashamed," she whispered. "That I have to come to you like this."

  "And that is good. What your regrets will do to you will be far worse than the harsh words of someone else. We all go through this, cherie. Just make sure it is only once."

  When Callie hung up the phone, she wiped her eyes with her palms and looked down at Artie who'd come over to offer his condolences. He gave her a little wag as he put his head on her thigh.

  Her sense of failure warred with her relief that Beauvais was willing to help and it was a while before she could go back to the house and face anyone. Not saying anything to Jack made her feel uneasy, but she trusted Beauvais implicitly and she knew the man was right. It would be far easier to present the problem to an owner if the solution were offered as well.

  As soon as she opened the back door, she was enveloped in a wall of cooking smells. It was like being hugged.

  "You call that dough? " Thomas was saying to Nate while gesturing with a wooden spoon. "It looks like something you'd put wallpaper up with."

  Nate cracked a smile as he kept kneading on the counter. "Why don't you give those onions a stir, old man. Before they have to be taken out of the pan with a jackhammer."

  "Hey, Callie!" Thomas grinned. "Welcome to my nightmare. Two cooks, one kitchen."

  As gratitude for some uncomplicated friendship washed her eyes with tears, she knew she was in a vulnerable place. If she was smart, she'd go up to her room and stay there. Now was not a real good time for her to be around other people. Particularly nice ones.

  When the front doorknocker sounded, she volunteered to answer it and nearly let out a cry of joy when Grace and her bodyguard were on the other side.

  She embraced her half sister. "I am so glad to see you."

  The hug she got back was just as strong as the one she gave.

  When they pulled apart, Grace motioned to the imposing man behind her. "You remember Ross?"

  Callie smiled as she felt her hand taken in a firm grip.

  "It's good to see you again," she said, looking up into his stark face. The smile he gave her made him look almost approachable, in spite of his black leather jacket and his hooded eyes.

  She motioned the pair inside. "Come on in, it's cold out here."

  Ross bent down and picked up a couple of leather bags like they were weightless.

  "Where's Jack?" Grace asked, taking off her coat.

  "He's still out, I think. But Nate's here."

  "You're kidding me."

  As Callie shook her head, the man in question came around the corner while wiping his hands on a dish towel. "Gracie!"

  Grace let out a laugh and went to him. As they embraced, she said, "It's good to see you, stranger."

  "You, too. Who's this?" Nate looked over at the other man.

  "This is my fiancé, Ross Smith."

  Callie gasped. "Congratulations!"

  "Thank you. It just happened last night. We couldn't be more thrilled."

  When Grace and Ross were seated in the kitchen, having a drink while Thomas and
Nate cooked, Callie found the shouts of laughter and private jokes a little hard to bear.

  Making a quick excuse, she slipped upstairs to her room, promising to return when the meal was on the table.

  Jack parked his mother's Jaguar in its bay, turned off the ignition, and stared at the back wall of the garage. He was suddenly exhausted, but didn't want to close his eyes because he'd only replay scenes from the synagogue and the graveyard. He couldn't get the image of that small coffin out of his mind, no matter what practicalities he tried to distract himself with.

  When he finally walked over to the house, he saw Grace and his brother through the windows, laughing while one poured dressing on a salad and the other tossed. Standing in the pitch dark, looking at two of the people he loved most in the world, he was grateful to be home. Grateful that his loved ones had not suffered as the family of that little girl had. As she herself had.

  He opened the door and frowned when he didn't see Callie.

  "There he is!" Grace exclaimed, rushing to him. She pulled up short when she got a load of the cast. "I heard all about your accident. I'm glad you're okay."

  "And all the better for seeing you."

  He gave her a quick hug and a kiss, but when he pulled back, she held onto his good arm.

  "Hey, how are you really doing?" she whispered as she gave him a shrewd stare. "I also heard about you and Blair. I'm sorry."

  "Thanks." Jack smiled and nodded across to the big, silent man in the corner. "John Smith, right?"

  "My fiancé's name is Ross," Grace interjected.

  Jack cocked an eyebrow at the name change and the announcement.

  "Well, congratulations," he said, meaning it. As he shook hands with his friend's fiancé, he approved of the way Smith put his arm around Grace and brought her close to him.

  "Hey, brother, go get Callie will you?" Nate said from the stove. "We're ten minutes out. She went upstairs."

  Jack put down his briefcase and went up to her bedroom. When he knocked on the door, she answered softly.

  When he walked in, he saw her sitting on the big bed, a pillow in her lap. She smiled. "I was hoping it was you."