by Sey, Susan
“Fun.”
“You know me.” She scooped her bag out of the bottom drawer of the desk and rose. “I love a good negotiation.”
Matty shrugged and came off the pillar, followed her out the door and onto Main Street like a tall, sullen shadow. Addy locked up the gallery.
“Come on. I’m parked over there.” She pointed toward Soren Buck’s giant fish. He shrugged and fell in beside her.
“Excuse me! Addison Davis?”
She turned to find a breathless young woman sidling from foot to foot on the sidewalk behind them, a gauzy skirt twisting around her ankles, a long, romantic braid snaking over one shoulder. A low-grade anxiety rolled up inside her, tightening her throat and dampening her palms. Oh lord, a Diego fan. Just what she needed today. She shored up her smile and nudged Matty discreetly into the shadow of the fish.
“Yes?”
“Oh my God, it is you.” The woman pulled in a jerky breath. “I just want to tell you how much your husband’s work means to me.” She twined pale fingers together at her waist. “I so admire your strength. I mean, you were his muse. He painted Diego’s Angel and then stopped painting.” She gave a little laugh. “To be loved like that? By Diego Davis? And then to lose him?” She blinked rapidly and gave a watery laugh. “Oh. I’m getting emotional.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Addy murmured through clamped teeth and a twitch of relief. Weepers were generally too focused on their own grief to get overly hung up on that whole painted you then stopped painting business. Slappers, on the other hand, focused on nothing else. She reached for patience and said, “Listen, I’m sorry for your loss. But I’m in sort of a hurry just now so—”
The woman’s gaze flicked past Addy’s shoulder, and her mouth fell open. She stared, white with shock. Addy turned, alarmed, and found only Matty behind her. Oh, no.
“Diego,” the woman breathed, her shock melting into radiant joy. “Oh my God. Diego?” She stepped forward, reached a trembling hand toward Matty’s jaw.
“What? No.” He reared back until he bumped into the flower boxes under the bait and tackle’s picture window. “Diego’s dead, lady. Get a grip.”
“You could paint me,” she whispered as if she hadn’t heard him. She stepped closer yet, eyes wide. Matty leaned away from her until his hair brushed the glass. “I would do anything for you. Anything. If you’d just—”
“Hey, you know what?” Addy leapt forward and took the girl by the shoulders. “The gallery’s right there.” She turned her gently down the sidewalk. “It’s closed for lunch right now but you can window shop. Why don’t you go spend some time with the real Diego? I bet you’ll feel better. I know I always do.”
“Yes.” She blinked bravely. Focused. “Diego. All right.”
“Off you go, then, sweetie.” And she gave her an encouraging nudge that sent her drifting down the sidewalk.
“Crap,” Matty said, squinting after her. “That was fun.”
“Right?” But her stomach clutched at the white-lipped disgust on his face. She tried a weak smile. “You get used to it.”
“Whatever.” He jerked a shrug, but his hands were fisted in his pockets. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just go before Mom blows a gasket, all right?”
Chapter 32
ADDY PARKED IN the turnaround in front of the carriage house and killed the engine. Matty lifted a brow. “You’re coming in?”
“Yeah. I’m going to grab Georgie.”
“Why?”
“Willa’s coming by Davis Place to talk turkeys in a little while, and Georgie’s my partner.” She gave him an innocent smile. “She should be part of the conversation.”
Matty shook his head. “What did Willa ever do to you?”
“Willa’s tough. She’ll survive but Georgie needs to learn to talk to contractors.”
He leaned in with comically pleading eyes. “Take me with you. I want to watch. Come on, Addy. I deserve a treat, don’t I? I’ve been so good.”
She laughed. “You have been good, actually. Really good.” Her laughter faded. “Too good.” She leaned in, too. “What’s wrong, honey?”
He sat back, shifted his gaze to the trees outside the windshield. “Nothing’s wrong, Addy.”
“Are you sure? Because if there is, you can talk to me. You know that, right? Maybe I could do something to help.”
“There’s nothing you can do—”
“About what?”
“—because nothing’s wrong.”
He was lying to her. He was a terrible liar. She loved him for that but it killed her that he couldn’t — or wouldn’t — tell her whatever had him so twisted up.
“But if something was?” She touched his arm, found it stiff, wary. “You’d tell me?”
“Why?” He laughed unpleasantly. “So you could kiss my boo boo? I’m not a baby, Addy. I didn’t break a toy, and nobody knocked down my sand castle, okay?” He shoved open his door. “Besides, what’s the point? You couldn’t fix it anyway.”
He stepped out and slammed the door.
“Fix what?” she wailed to the empty car. She shoved open her own door and jogged after him. “Matty, wait!” But he was already up the porch steps and into the house.
She followed him inside, but paused when she found him stalled uncertainly in the archway to the great room. His mother had risen from the white suede couch beyond, her smile fierce and glittering. “Come in, darling,” she said to him. “I have somebody I want you to meet.”
Addy’s eyes shot to the sharply tailored woman beside her mother-in-law, and she froze. A smooth, dark bob swung to the woman’s shoulders, framing angular cheekbones and fashionably bright glasses. She’d cut her hair but her face was as smooth and unlined as ever, and her eyes were the same shrewd blue Addy remembered.
Bianca said, “Matty, this is Julia Gates of the New York Art Report. And Julia, this—” She came to Matty then, looped a hand through his elbow and tugged him forward. “—is my Matisse.”
“Hello, Matisse,” Julia murmured politely but her eyes brightened, filled with a darker, more dangerous strain of the desire Addy had last seen a few minutes ago in the eyes of a misguided young woman in town. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Oh boy,” Matty murmured as he shook her outstretched hand.
“It’s a real pleasure to finally meet you,” Julia purred and Addy’s stomach soured. Matty had said it didn’t matter, the way people reacted to that face of his, but it did. Of course it did. Work like Diego’s wrenched staggering emotions from even the most well-adjusted people. But what it did to people like Julia Gates, people for whom sex and ambition were all tangled up, people who couldn’t tell desire from love, people for whom rational limits didn’t exactly exist? It was downright dangerous.
And Addy ought to know. She’d been dealing with Diego’s fans for years. She’d taken them on willingly, though. Keeping Diego alive for his devoted followers brought desperately needed tourist dollars into town, first of all, but it also eased Bianca’s pain. It was a gift Addy gave her every day.
Matty hadn’t asked for any of this, though. He hadn’t signed up to keep his brother’s legend alive. He was just a kid with an unlucky face and a desperately grieving mother who hurt too badly to protect him.
Nausea uncurled inside her belly as a future unfolded in her mind’s eye. A future in which Diego’s devotees weren’t just her burden. A future in which Bianca pushed Matty into the public eye to assuage her endless grief. In which pathetic, unbalanced people like Julia Gates smeared their dark need all over him until he, too, suffered minor panic attacks every time a stranger addressed him on the street. Or possibly until he became callous enough to take advantage of what was so baldly offered, because how long could a vulnerable kid stay pure and strong under that kind of warped worship? Certainly Diego hadn’t managed to.
She embraced the surge of horrified adrenaline and stepped forward. She slipped her hand through Matty’s other elbow and said, “Hello, Julia. I
t’s been a while.”
“You know her?” Matty asked, startled.
“Oh sure,” Addy told him. “Julia was Diego’s pet reporter.”
“Addison!” Bianca gave a startled laugh but Julia shifted that sharp smile Addy’s way.
“That was me,” she said hitting exactly the right note of self-deprecating charm. “I was — am — a huge believer in Diego’s talent. Which is why I’m here now.” She leaned in to inspect Matty a little more closely. “It’s uncanny, the resemblance,” she said softly. Those eyes flicked up to catch Matty’s. He swallowed audibly. “I’ll bet you hear that all the time.”
“Uh.” He stared, mesmerized. “Yeah.”
Snake charmer, Addy thought, and firmed up her grip on Matty’s arm. “You’re here to write a story on Matty’s resemblance to Diego?”
Julia reached out and actually tapped Matty’s chin with a teasing finger. “If this face is any indication of your talent,” she said to him, “I’ll be writing about you for sure, sugar. But that’s only one reason for my little visit.” She turned back to Addy while Matty blinked like a startled owl. Her eyes drifted down, fixed briefly on Addy’s wedding ring, then skated back up. Her lips curved in a slick smile. “I hear you have something to show me.”
Addy lifted innocent brows. “I do?”
Julia’s smile curdled. “Good lord, are you still doing that? The wide-eye ingenue routine? You’re getting a little old for it, aren’t you?”
“You recognize age barriers now?” Addy smiled, too. “How refreshing.”
“Aw. The kitten has claws. Adorable.” Julia narrowed her eyes. “Listen, Addison. Everybody knows Diego didn’t stop painting after the angel. A gift like his? Please. Diego’s Angel is pretty enough but it’s plain vanilla. And Diego was decidedly…” She pursed her lips in a knowing little moue. “…not. There isn’t a person on this planet — not an adult anyway — who truly believes he considered Angel his greatest achievement and put away his brushes. No, we know there was more.” She paused significantly, her smile spreading like evil. “Some of us better than others.” Addy endured that in silence, her face utterly impassive. Julia shrugged lightly and continued. “So you can keep telling yourself that you’re protecting him, protecting his legacy by keeping those paintings from the world, but that’s a lie and we all know it. Worse, so do you.”
“Julia, my goodness.” Bianca blinked wide eyes and stepped forward, all startled graciousness. “I’m so sorry, but you’ve misunderstood. My press release was deliberately vague but I never intended to imply—”
Julia spoke over her, her eyes hard on Addy’s. “I know exactly what you intended, Bianca. Why do you think I’m here? No, the only question I still have is whether or not our sweet Addison is finally ready to show those paintings. To let the world see Diego for the mature master he became after her. In spite of her. If she’s finally ready to quit protecting her angelic image and do the right thing for somebody else for a change.”
Ten minutes later, Addy let herself into Davis Place with shaking hands, nausea churning in her stomach. The way Julia had looked at Matty played over and over in her brain — those hard blue eyes hot with both professional interest and twisted desire. A fresh wave of horror swept over her, and she had to lean against the doorjamb until it receded. She stood there for a long moment, staring blankly at the door knob still in one trembling hand, at Diego’s diamond still glittering on her ring finger.
Addy had been resigned to showing those paintings before Julia had ever hit town. Even knowing it would cost her Jax — or at least the dream of Jax — she’d been prepared to go ahead with the showing. It would have freed her from the prison Diego’s Angel had become, it would’ve bought Matty a couple years of breathing room from Bianca’s expectations, and it would’ve allowed Bianca to ruin Julia Gates. Or at least allowed her to try. Most importantly, though, it would’ve forced the world to acknowledge what fairy tales cost. It might’ve tarnished Diego’s legend to the point where Matty could have chosen to live it down rather than measure up. Showing the whole series, from Angel through Broken would’ve gathered all the loose ends Diego’s sudden death had left dangling and tied them up in one neat — if bloody — bow.
Or so Addy had thought.
She’d forgotten the sick lust that had bloomed in Julia’s eyes, though, hadn’t she? The showing would drag into town every last fame whore and art tart Diego had ever slept with, each one praying that she had been special. That Diego had painted her one last fix of fame. And when they found they hadn’t been special and he hadn’t painted them as such, they would immediately transfer all those wretched hopes and dark needs to the thirteen-year-old boy wearing Diego’s face and — according to his mother — wielding his magic.
And Addy wasn’t resigned to that. Not by a long shot.
She dragged her keys from the lock, pushed the door shut, and leaned back against it. She closed her eyes, breathed in the scent of sawdust and progress. She’d figure something out, she told herself. She’d find some way to take off the halo and protect Matty at the same time. She had no idea how but she would.
She crossed the half-sanded hardwood floor of her would-be great room, pushed through a swinging door beside the fireplace and stepped into the greatest accomplishment of her life so far: an absolutely finished and totally functional commercial kitchen.
A parquet tile floor gleamed black and white under her feet, ringed by yards of poured concrete counters studded with sea glass hand-harvested from Lake Superior. A massive farm house sink sat under the window on the far wall, the buttery yellow curtains above it caught back with jaunty bows. A generous island stood in the center of the room, a loaded pot rack suspended above its professional-grade range. An espresso machine the size of a Mini Cooper sat on the island as well. It had cost nearly what the stove had but Addy didn’t regret a penny. Maybe she didn’t love coffee herself but she was in the hospitality business now. Nobody understood better than she what a steaming cup of welcome could mean to a stranger.
Plus, if the internet could be believed, this machine could churn out a cup of cocoa that would make Gerte weep with envy. Addy was looking forward to finding out.
“Aren’t you pretty?” she murmured to it now. She ran a reverent finger over the gleaming steel nozzles, along a row of cunning buttons and switches. “Aren’t you just gorgeous?”
“Who are you talking to?”
Addy whirled to find Willa Zinc just inside the swinging door, her fingers tucked into the pockets of filthy jeans, a dark, thick ponytail snaking down her back. She was wearing what Addy had come to think of as her uniform — a gray t-shirt that read Zinc Pest Control, scarred work boots and that Saint Paul Saints cap pulled practically to her chin.
“Good lord!” Addy clapped a hand to her thumping heart. “Willa! When did you get here?”
“On time.” Willa consulted her watch. “You ready? I don’t have all day.”
“Oh no.” Addy closed her eyes and sighed. “I forgot Georgie.”
“Lucky you.”
“No, I was supposed to pick her up when I dropped Matty off at Hill Top House but I—” Ran away. “—got distracted.” She rummaged in her satchel, came up with her phone and a pleading smile. “Do you mind if I call her just super quick? She’s an official partner in the project now, and I promised to involve her.”
“Up to you.” Willa moved into the room to eye the espresso machine more closely. “I work by the hour, though.”
The kitchen’s swinging door flapped open again and Georgie breezed in on a pair of platform espadrilles, her rich plum wrap dress swishing expensively. She pushed enormous sunglasses to the top of her head.
“Hey, Addy. Matty told me you wanted me up here so I—” She paused just long enough to be rude. “Oh. Hello, Willa. I thought I smelled something.”
“Oh, look,” Willa murmured and sank to her haunches to inspect the espresso machine’s undercarriage. “It’s Trust Fund Barbie.”
“For heaven’s sake, Georgie.” Addy glared at her sister-in-law. “Be nice.”
“No.”
“Seriously?” Addy stared, taken aback. “Just no?”
Georgie smiled. Willa pushed a complicated series of buttons. The espresso machine let out a massive whine and a blast of steam. A jet of thick, black liquid shot into a waiting porcelain cup. Willa grunted with satisfaction, picked up the tiny cup and took a cautious sip.
“Not bad.” She set the cup on the counter, and retrieved her clipboard. “That’s a quality piece of equipment you’ve got there.”
Georgie frowned. “It’s an espresso machine?” She minced cautiously forward on her platforms. “Good God. It’s the size of a lawnmower.”
Willa sent her a sideways glance. “Your lawn mower is a guy named Jeff. And just FYI, he overcharges. Because he hates you.” She wiped down the machine with a dishtowel, powered it off, and leaned around to unplug it. “You always want to unplug appliances,” she said to Addy. “The timing mechanism fails just once on stuff like this — toasters, coffee makers — and it’s hello, house fire.”
“Thank you, Jax.” Georgie rolled her eyes.
Willa ignored her. “So. Addison. You ready to see what I’ve rigged up for the turkeys?”
“And that’s my cue.” Georgie turned on one heel. “I’m out.”
Addy leapt forward, looped her arm through Georgie’s and plastered on a determined smile. “We are definitely ready to talk turkeys.”
Willa eyed Georgie’s platform sandals for a long moment, then cut loose with that slow, surprising smile of hers. “We’ll start underneath the porch.”
Georgie said, “I hate you, Willa Zinc.”
Chapter 33
“WELL, HERE WE are.” Georgie opened the door to Hill Top House a few hours later with a little flourish and gestured Addy inside. “Home sweet home.”
Addy didn’t move. She loved Hill Top House but it wasn’t home anymore. Home was Davis Place. Her treacherous heart whispered about leather couches and goose-down duvets that smelled just faintly of smoke but she refused to listen. Davis Place was home, she told herself firmly. And she wanted — she needed — to stay there. To retreat. To lick her wounds until they scabbed over enough for her to think. To figure out what on earth she was going to do about those paintings. About what not showing them might mean.
