by Amie Denman
He laughed. “I’m definitely no artist. Nope. I paint the exteriors of houses. I’ve been doing it since I was a teenager.”
“Do you have your own business?”
Kevin leaned back on his elbows, his long, lean body spread out on the blanket. Nicole admired how at ease he appeared. Was that what it was like for someone who knew exactly where he belonged?
“Sort of. But I’m the only employee. Unless you count Arnold. He likes to go along, but he usually sleeps on the job. I mostly paint houses when someone hires me, like my friend Charlie who’s in the real estate business. It’s easier to sell a place with fresh paint, so I stay busy.”
“Charlie seems like an ambitious guy,” Nicole commented. Maybe Jane was wrong about him avoiding commitment. A man who had a full-time job and another on the side...maybe he was just very busy. Kevin and his firefighter friends probably knew Charlie really well. “I believe he’s a friend of Jane’s,” Nicole said casually, hoping it might spark some revelation she could use to help Jane.
Kevin laughed. “He’s a friend of every woman in Cape Pursuit. If you believe the rumors.”
Nicole looked back at the water and tried to focus on helping Jane and pursuing her own dreams. Her future. That was what she’d come to the beach today to begin sorting out. What did she want? Did she plan to stay in Cape Pursuit and use her expensive business degree to sell paintings in a gallery? The sand, sun and sound of the sea made ever going back to an office very unappealing. And Jane needed her.
She sighed, lost in her own thoughts. The beach blanket shifted and Kevin stood. “I’m sorry I intruded on your day off.” He looked down at her, his eyebrows drawn together. “I know you have a lot going on in your life, and I have to get going anyway. Arnold and I have a cottage to paint.”
Nicole looked up at him and nodded. “If you ever give up firefighting, it sounds like you have a fallback career,” she said.
He shook his head, his expression serious. “I’ll never give up firefighting.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MAYBE IT WAS a sneaky move, going to the gallery when he knew Nicole was at the beach, but he wanted a chance to talk to Jane. She was a friend. Of his and Nicole’s. And she was probably the one person who could tell him what was causing the clouds to pass over Nicole’s eyes whenever he talked to her. He’d rather see her spring-green eyes clear. And happy. He didn’t know what it was about her in particular, but she made him want to protect her. Make her happy.
He always wanted to protect people, save them, keep them safe from physical danger. But Nicole brought out something more in him.
Kevin had only been in the gallery a few times, and the foghorn door chime got him every time. At least no one was there to see him jump. Except Jane, who was one of the least judgmental people he knew. That was why he was here.
“Sorry about that. The foghorn scares me once in a while, too, when I think I’ve snuck past it without triggering it,” Jane said. She wore a painting smock and a name tag with the Sea Jane Paint logo—a girl with a swinging red ponytail in front of an easel.
“Why do you keep it around?” Kevin asked. “You could get a chime or a regular doorbell.”
Jane shrugged. “Tourists like it. I’m hoping they’ll remember my shop year after year if they come back on vacation. Sea Jane Paint, home of exceptional watercolors and a door chime that sounds like you’re about to be sliced in half by an aircraft carrier.”
“Good marketing,” Kevin said.
“I like a little danger in my life.”
“Me, too.”
“So what brings you into my watercolor lair?”
“Officially, I’m shopping for a gift for my mother’s sixtieth birthday. My brother and I want to get her something nice and personal. Any ideas?”
“You should get her a painting.”
Kevin laughed. “Thanks, genius.”
Jane smiled, ignoring his barb. Being friends with most of the firefighters and police, she was used to joking around with them. She’d called them worse things.
“I may have a painting hanging around she would like. They’re mostly of the local area, of course. What does your mother enjoy most about Cape Pursuit? Any particular place she likes?”
Kevin thought about it. He hadn’t lived in his parents’ home since he’d graduated from high school. He’d gone to the state fire academy, then rented his own place. But he saw his parents all the time. Dropped by to say hello, helped with cleaning gutters and replacing window screens. All the things that were getting tough for them as they aged, especially considering his father’s health.
“She likes her house. Hanging out on the front porch. Taking the grandkids to the beach,” he brainstormed. “The lighthouse. Having lunch out on the pier. Not the mermaid statue, she hates that for some reason, we always thought it was the bare...uh...top on the statue.”
“I’m not crazy about it either. The scale is way off, makes it look tacky and touristy. I’m sure the city leaders had good intentions when they hired that sculptor fifty years ago, but I keep arguing for a change at the council meetings.”
“Any luck?”
“Not yet. So back to your mom’s present. Tyler is your only brother, right?”
Kevin nodded.
“Did your mom take you to the beach and lighthouse when you were kids?”
“All the time.”
“Follow me,” Jane said. She led him to a group of paintings hanging over a table with a model ship, conch shell and miniature fisherman’s net. She pointed to a watercolor depicting a woman in a straw hat and two little boys, holding one of their hands in each of hers. The lighthouse stood to the left and the wide blue ocean spread across the center and right. The three figures in the painting were facing the sea.
“That could be us,” Kevin said. “When we were smaller, of course.”
“That’s the idea,” Jane said, smiling. “In addition to loving the beach and the lighthouse, she probably loves you and your brother. When you’re behaving.”
They briefly discussed the price, and Kevin continued looking at the picture. “This is really nice. I can see it hanging over her fireplace. Will you take this down and set it aside for us? I’ll have my brother stop in and take a look at it, but I think it’s perfect. Her party is next week at the house. She’ll probably cry and make my dad get a hammer and hang it up right away.”
“Mission accomplished,” Jane said as she carefully took down the framed painting and put it on a shelf behind the cash register. Kevin followed her.
He wanted to find a good way of asking her more about her friend Nicole, but he struggled with how to bring it up. He scratched the stubble on his jaw and waited.
“So you said this gift was your official reason for being here,” Jane said, “leading me to believe there is also an unofficial one. And since you’ve happened to come by when Nicole isn’t here, I don’t really need my decoder ring. Do I?”
Kevin felt the heat in his face. Jane was teasing him, but she was also taking it easy on him by getting to the point.
“I like her,” he said.
“I like her, too. She’s been my best friend since she helped me survive freshman math. She’s smart about numbers.”
“Sometimes I think I’ve said the wrong thing in front of her, but I don’t know why,” Kevin confessed. His heart raced. Talking about this was more disconcerting than strapping on a breathing tank and heading into a fire.
“You took the door off her car in the first five minutes she was in town,” Jane said. “Maybe she hates you.”
“Do you think she hates me?”
“No.”
“So she likes me?”
“Nicole’s nice. She likes everybody.”
That was not very encouraging. “I see,” Kevin said. He pulled his truck keys from his pocket. “Thanks.”
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He took five long steps toward the door before Jane stopped him.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” she said.
Kevin stopped, cold dread sinking around his heart.
“It’s Nicole’s story to tell. But I feel sorry for you. I also think telling you what happened to her brother will prevent you from hurting her feelings. And since she’s my best friend, I’m going to do what I think is in her best interest.”
Kevin turned and walked back to the cash register, his heart still racing but cautiously now. “What happened to her brother?”
“Nicole has a sister two years younger than she is and she had a brother, Adam, who was about four years younger. At the end of his junior year in college, Adam saw a job posting. The forestry service out West was hiring college students to work alongside the experienced forest fire guys for the summer.”
Kevin took a deep breath. “I don’t like where this is going.”
“Adam was with a group that got trapped fighting a fire near Yellowstone. Some of them made it out in a Jeep, some of them got separated. Apparently, his group was on the wrong side of the fire line, fighting for their lives. The fire was racing toward them and they had no place to hide. Their leader had them get under the fireproof lifesaving blankets.” Jane paused, emotion choking her voice. “A few of them were injured pretty bad but lived. Adam and two others died.”
“Man,” Kevin said quietly.
“They said it was the heat,” Jane added. “Either way, I’ve never seen anyone so devastated. Adam was her baby brother and they’d been close all their lives. They looked a lot alike.”
He took a moment to absorb the story. Tried to picture a blond young man with green eyes like Nicole’s. Imagined him dying under one of those blankets, felt the scorching heat, knew the fear.
“I understand,” he said, mentally reviewing everything he’d said to Nicole. The clouds passing over her expression were all too understandable now.
There were tears in Jane’s eyes. Kevin had known her for several years, seen her at fire scenes and around the station helping with coffee, dinners and fund-raisers.
He’d never seen her cry.
“I went to Indianapolis for the funeral. This was just last summer, so the wound is still raw. Nicole and I actually had a trip planned for the week after Adam died, but we canceled our plans.”
Something flashed through Kevin’s mind. A memory clicked. “Were you going to Italy?” he asked.
Jane glanced up quickly, her mouth open. “How did you know that?”
“Just a hunch. Something Nicole said this afternoon on the beach.”
Jane’s expression changed. “You went to the beach with Nicole?”
“Not exactly. I sort of...followed her there.”
“Stalker.”
“Stalker with good intentions.”
Jane narrowed her eyes at him. “Have I mentioned I used to like you?”
“Yes, but I have no idea why.”
Jane shrugged. “I have a soft spot for firefighters. My dad was the fire chief where I grew up, so I hung around the station a lot when I was a kid. That’s where I got interested in art. Drawing pictures of fires and fire trucks. Always starring my dad as the hero.”
Kevin smiled. He’d grown up hanging around the station, watching his uncle work. And he’d always wanted to be a hero and save people, coming to the rescue on a flashing red truck.
But his sinking gut told him Nicole had no interest in a hero like him.
* * *
JANE WAS RIGHT. Hanging up artwork was like putting a little piece of your soul on a wall for people to examine. But Nicole straightened the edges of the frames, resolving to brave it out. Her subjects—the Cape Pursuit lighthouse, beach, hotel skyline, pier and sunrise—would have been beautiful even in the hands of an amateur photographer.
She just hoped her work was as professional and aesthetically pleasing as Jane had assured her it was. Giving her a wall near the front of the shop, Jane had insisted Nicole was ready to exhibit. She even had a plaque made up with Nicole Wheeler, local photographer printed on it.
Local photographer. Apparently the fact that Nicole lived in her friend’s guest room made her a local. Nicole propped a picture of the Cape Pursuit pier on a small easel on a table below the group of framed photographs. Did she want to be a local? See the sunrise from the beach every morning? When she came to town almost a month ago, she’d had no timeline. No goal except to get away. And now?
Jane had taken the day off to visit her parents, who lived about an hour down the coast. Alone in the shop, Nicole had ridden her bike to work early to take advantage of the morning quiet and hang up her photographs. She wanted to get the display right before anyone else saw it.
The foghorn attached to the front door blasted its warning, not even raising a hair on Nicole’s neck. She’d gotten used to it. But the two men standing in the front door both jumped like they’d been shot.
“Dang it,” one said, “that thing would wake the dead.”
Kevin elbowed the man who Nicole recognized as his brother. The morning sun behind the men highlighted their almost identical crew cuts and square shoulders.
“Hi, Kevin,” Nicole said.
“Good morning,” Kevin said. He smiled at her, keeping his eyes on hers. He looked handsome. Clean shaven, a slightly younger and more rugged version of his brother.
“We came to look at the painting Jane set aside,” Kevin said. “I brought my brother along so he could say he had something to do with picking it out. Mom will know it was all my idea anyway.”
“Because you’re the thoughtful son?” she guessed.
“He’s the son with free time,” the brother said. “I have two daughters who usually have me tied up with tea parties, dance classes and piano lessons. Kevin only has a fat old dog to take care of.”
“Arnold’s short, not fat,” Kevin objected. From the tone, Nicole could tell this was an old argument.
“Whatever,” his brother grumbled. “I’m Tyler. I saw you at the station the other day, but my little brother didn’t introduce you.” He held out his hand.
“I believe you were running off to an emergency while he tidied up,” Nicole said, her tone light and teasing.
Nicole shook Tyler’s hand and glanced out the front window. The red fire department pickup truck was at the curb in front of the shop next door, and both brothers wore navy blue uniforms. “Are you on duty?” she asked.
“Yes,” Kevin said. “We’re officially on our way to pick up donuts for the rest of the crew.” He held up a radio. “On call.”
“Then I better show you the painting and get you on your way,” Nicole said. “Jane mentioned you’d come by the other day.”
Nicole had thought it odd that Kevin left the beach and went straight to the gallery, but Jane hadn’t made much of it. Just commented that he had to take advantage of his days off. She started to lead them over to the counter where the painting waited, but Kevin stopped her, his hand on her arm.
“Are these your pictures?”
Heat tinged Nicole’s face. His fingers on her arm were light, only exerting enough pressure so she’d know they were there. Just her luck, the first visitors to the gallery to see her artwork were two firefighters. One of whom made her feel hot all over.
She took a breath while both brothers stared at her pictures. “They are,” she said. “Jane thought I should display them.”
“Are they for sale?” Kevin asked.
“Technically, yes,” Nicole said. More heat warmed her cheeks and her heart was on a roller-coaster ride. “But I hadn’t consulted Jane about a price yet. It’s her gallery.”
“But it’s your work,” Tyler said. “You could do well with these. They’re good.”
“Thank you.”
Kevin continued to stare a
t the photograph of the pier. “Did you take this one the other day when we met on the beach?”
Nicole noticed Tyler’s quick glance at his brother.
“The lighting and the sky look the same as they did that day,” Kevin continued.
“You have a good eye,” Nicole said, smiling. “Yes, I took it right before you sat down.”
“Thought so.”
Tyler punched Kevin on the shoulder. “We better look at Mom’s present and get back to the station,” he said. “The crew’s waiting for donuts.”
“Right over here,” Nicole said. She was glad to have the attention focused on Jane’s art and away from her photographs.
She slid the painting from its shelf and laid it on the counter for the two brothers to see. She stood behind the counter, giving herself a little breathing room. She recognized the painting, but had hardly paid attention to it hanging in a group of beach portraits. Now that she looked more closely at it, she saw why Jane had suggested it. A mother and two sons at the beach. Perfect for a mother’s birthday present.
“Are there just two sons in your family?” she asked.
Kevin nodded, making eye contact with her while his brother looked at the price tag on the edge of the frame.
“No sisters?”
“Nope.”
“Then this is perfect. Two boys at the beach with their mom,” Nicole said. Both boys in the picture appeared to be about the same age but were dressed in different colors. Only their backs were visible as they faced the ocean and the lighthouse. One wore a ball cap and had bare feet. The other one carried a bucket with sand toys sticking out the top. “Which one are you?” she asked.
She looked up and met Kevin’s eyes. The counter wasn’t helping. He was plenty close anyway. His hand rested on the surface and she could move her fingers only inches and touch his.
“I’m the cuter one,” he said.
“Hard to tell from behind,” his brother said. “Unless that’s your best asset.” He stressed the first part of the word and grinned at Kevin.
“Try to have some class. You’re in an art gallery,” Kevin said.
