A slow grin spread across her face. “I could live with that outcome. How about you?”
“It is an intriguing prospect,” he agreed, enjoying the flash of confidence in her eyes. He’d given her that. “But a risky one. You said yourself that it’s a busy time of year. Do you want to lose business by sneaking off for some hanky-panky?”
“Oh, I think you could make it worthwhile.”
“I would do my best,” he agreed. “Okay then, you can show me the gallery before I head over to Destiny’s, but we really do need to make it quick or she’ll be joining us.”
“I’ll talk fast,” she promised. “Try to keep up.”
Ben laughed at her obvious desire to avoid an encounter with his aunt. To be truthful, he wasn’t much looking forward to it, either. Destiny was never at her most attractive when she was gloating.
An hour later Kathleen had shown Ben every nook and cranny of the gallery. He had to admit that what she’d accomplished in just a few years was quite impressive. The displays were carefully thought out, the lighting impeccable. Everything had been done with simplicity, style and elegance. The scrapbook she’d kept from past showings, the collection of glowing reviews proved that she had a discerning eye for talent.
“You’ve done an incredible job here,” he told her honestly. “You should be very proud.”
“I am,” she said, regarding him thoughtfully. “Is it impressive enough to convince you to let me show your work?”
He frowned at the question, even though he’d expected it. “It was never about your professional skill,” he reminded her. “It’s about me. I’m not interested in showing my paintings, much less selling them.”
“Ben, that doesn’t make any sense,” she said impatiently. “You have talent. Why not share it with the world? If you don’t want to sell it, fine, but at least give other people the joy of looking at it.”
He knew it didn’t make sense, not from her perspective anyway, but it did to him. His paintings were intensely personal and private, not in the subject matter, but in the way he poured his heart and soul into each and every one. He didn’t want anyone, let alone strangers, getting a glimpse of the world as he saw it. He feared it would tell them too much about him. It would take something that gave him joy and open it to criticism that might rob him of the serenity that painting gave him. The world was neat and orderly on the canvases he painted, and he desperately needed to keep it that way.
That was another reason why there were never people in his paintings. People were never neat and orderly. Emotions were never tidy and predictable. And he’d been shattered too many times by life’s unpredictability.
“Let me ask you something,” he began, hoping to make her see his point. “There was a time when you loved painting, right? When it brought something beautiful and joyful into your life?”
She nodded slowly, and he could see by the quick flash of understanding in her eyes that she already knew where he was going with this.
“And when Tim criticized, when he told you that you weren’t good enough, what happened?” Before she could answer, he told her, “All the joy went out of it, correct? He robbed you of something that really mattered to you.”
“Yes, but—”
“Don’t tell me it’s different, Kathleen, because it’s not. Art meant as much to you as it does to me. So you, of all people, should understand why I don’t want to risk losing that. I can’t do it, not even for you. If I cared about fame, if I needed the money, maybe I’d feel differently, but I don’t.”
“Oh, Ben,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “It wouldn’t be like that.”
“Why? Can you guarantee that some critic won’t rip my work to shreds? Why expose myself to that when I don’t need to?”
“Then this is just because you’re afraid of a little criticism?” she demanded incredulously. “That’s absurd. Why would you let the opinions of people who supposedly don’t even matter to you affect whether or not you continue to paint? They’re not important. Tim’s cruelty mattered because he mattered,”
“You’re right,” he agreed. “The critics aren’t important. That doesn’t mean their words don’t have power. I don’t want to lose the joy I find right now when I sit in front of a blank canvas and envision a painting, beginning with that very first brush stroke, the first hint of a crystal-blue sky, the line of a tree. That feeling is something I can count on now. It’s the only thing I can count on.”
“You could count on me,” she said quietly.
A part of him desperately wanted to believe that, wanted to have faith that nothing would ever take her away, but experience had taught him otherwise. People he loved went away, no matter what promises they made.
He stroked a finger down her cheek, felt the dampness of tears. “I wish I could,” he said with real regret. “If ever I was going to count on another person, I’d want it to be you.”
“Then do it. Take a leap of faith. Forget about the paintings. I would love to show them, and I think the show would be wildly successful, but it doesn’t matter. Just believe in me. Believe in what we found last night. It was real, Ben. You can’t deny that.”
He smiled sadly, regretting that the subject had shifted so quickly from his work to the two of them. While one topic only exasperated him, the other terrified him.
“No, I can’t deny that it was real,” he agreed. “I just can’t count on it lasting.”
And before she could utter another word, before she could try to persuade him to stay, he turned and left the gallery.
Outside he hesitated, then dared to look back. Kathleen was standing where he’d left her, her expression shattered. He realized then that being left wasn’t the only thing that could break a person’s heart. Leaving was tearing his to pieces.
When Ben left the gallery, he didn’t go to Destiny’s. Instead, filled with anger and regret and anguish, he drove back to the farm and went straight into his studio seeking that solace he’d tried to explain to Kathleen.
Filled with an almost frenetic energy, he pulled out a canvas, daubed paints on his palette and went to work.
He began, as he often did, with a wash of blue. As the color of sky filled the canvas, his tension began to ease. He was able to convince himself that nothing had changed, that his world was still orderly. He sat back, filled with relief, and sighed deeply.
He took the time to brew himself a pot of coffee, then went back to the canvas, but this time the first stroke of the brush betrayed him. It wasn’t the familiar, sweeping line of a majestic oak at all, but the curve of a woman’s body. Kathleen’s body. There was no mistaking it. Why would this come to him now with no photo to work from, no live Kathleen there to guide him?
He threw down his brush, tossed his palette across the room and began to pace, muttering to himself as if that alone would get her out of his head. When he was certain he was back in control, he went back to the easel.
Impatiently he tried to change the form, to add a texture that spoke of something solid and unyielding. Instead, the image softened and blurred, the very picture of welcoming arms and tender flesh.
Another tantrum, another attempt, another failure to regain control.
Defeated, he gave himself up to the inspiration, then, letting the image flow from the brushes as if they had a mind of their own. His usual palette of greens and browns and grays gave way to the inky blackness of night and the shimmering pastels of a woman in moonlight.
Her body took shape before him, as intimately familiar as the skies he usually painted. Without a picture, without her, it was her face that gave him the most trouble, especially the eyes. He cursed himself time and again for not getting them right, then sat back for a moment in dismay.
He knew in his gut why they wouldn’t come to him. It was because he couldn’t bear to look into those eyes and see the pain he’d put there. And that’s what he would have to paint if he completed this now. It was the truth, the reality, and that’s what he always insisted on whe
n he painted, absolute clarity.
Exhausted, he finally put aside the brushes and paints and methodically cleaned up the studio, which seemed to be in more disarray than usual thanks to his impatient pacing and frequent rages of temper.
He went into the house, grabbed a sandwich, then fell into bed and spent a restless night tortured by dreams of Kathleen and his determination to throw away what they were on the brink of having.
He was back in his studio at the crack of dawn, armed with renewed determination, a strong pot of coffee and some toaster pastry that didn’t hold a candle to anything Kathleen had ever baked for him. Rather than satisfying him, that paltry pastry only exacerbated his irritation.
He wasn’t all that surprised when Destiny came wandering in around eight. To his shock, though, she didn’t immediately pester him with questions. She merely came to stand beside him, her gaze locked on the canvas.
“She’s very lovely,” she said at last.
“No denying it,” he said tightly, knowing she was talking about the woman, not the painting.
“Why not just admit that you love her?”
“Because I don’t,” he lied.
Destiny gave him a chiding, disbelieving look. “Oh, please,” she admonished. “You need a real woman in your life, Ben, not a portrait, however magnificent it might turn out to be.”
“Stay out of this,” he told her flatly.
“Too late. I’m in the thick of it. I brought her into your life and now you’re both hurting because of it.”
“I forgive you,” he said. “Eventually Kathleen will, too. Now go away.”
She smiled at that. “Forgiveness doesn’t come that easily to you,” she chided. “Besides, there’s nothing to forgive, is there? Kathleen is the perfect woman for you.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the only thing that matters,” she said fiercely.
He gave Destiny a hard look. “I thought you dragged her out here because of my art. Wasn’t she merely supposed to convince me that I had talent?”
“I think we both know better than that.”
“Well, whatever your intentions, it was a mistake.”
“You keep telling yourself that. Maybe you’ll wind up believing it. Of course, you’ll also be old and alone and bitter.”
“Not so alone,” he muttered, not liking the picture she painted. “I’ll have you.”
“Not forever, darling,” she reminded him matter-of-factly. “And your brothers have their own lives now, their own families. You’ll always be a part of those lives, of course, but you need to be—you deserve to be—the center of someone’s universe. Even more important, you need to make someone the center of yours.”
“Why?” he asked, not even beginning to understand. Loneliness had become a way of life long ago. Even when his whole family had been around, he’d felt alone.
“Because, in the end, love is the only thing any of us has that truly matters.”
“You’ve been courted. You’ve been admired by many a man, but you’ve chosen to live without the love of a man all these years,” he reminded her.
“And that was probably a costly mistake, not just for me, but for all of you,” she admitted. She gave him a surprisingly defiant look. “Moreover, it’s one I intend to correct before too long.”
Ben seized on the implication. “What on earth does that mean?” he demanded, not entirely sure he liked the sound of it and not just because he hated having his own world turned upside down, which any change in Destiny’s life was bound to do.
“Nothing for you to fret about,” she reassured him. “I won’t do anything until I know you’re settled and happy.”
He scowled at her. “Isn’t that blackmail? If I decide to maintain the status quo, you’re stuck here, so therefore I have some obligation to what? Get married?”
She beamed at him. “That would do nicely. Let me know when you and Kathleen have set a date.”
“Hold it,” he protested when she started toward the door. “No date. No wedding. I am not letting you blackmail me into making a decision I’m not ready to make, will probably never be ready to make.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sakes, Benjamin, now you’re just being stubborn,” she declared, facing him with an exasperated expression. “It’s the worst of the Carlton traits. Everyone has always said you were the most like me, but I see absolutely no evidence of that right now. Whatever the choices I made, at heart I’m a romantic. I believe in happily ever after. I certainly thought I taught you more about grabbing on to life with both hands.”
“You tried,” he admitted grudgingly.
“Then why are you here when there’s a woman in Alexandria who’s brokenhearted because she thinks she pushed you too hard? She’s terrified you’ll think she only slept with you to get her hands on your paintings.”
The thought had never crossed his mind, at least not until this moment. Now he had to wonder. As soon as he did, he dismissed the idea. There wasn’t a shred of duplicity in Kathleen. He wished he could say the same about his sneaky aunt.
“Nice try,” he congratulated her. “For a minute there you had me going.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I was with Kathleen yesterday after you’d gone. She’s beside herself. If you don’t believe me, call Melanie or Beth. We were all there.”
The thought of that made his skin crawl. “What the hell was going on, some sort of Carlton hen party?” He shuddered. “Just thinking about all four of you gathered around discussing me and Kathleen is enough to twist my stomach into knots.”
“It should,” Destiny said without a trace of sympathy. “You’re not very popular with the females of the family right now.”
“What did I do?” he asked, bewildered. “I was honest with her. I’ve been honest with Kathleen from the beginning. She knew what she was getting into when we were together the other night.”
“Did she really? You slept with her and then you walked out on her,” Destiny accused. “Do you think she was expecting that?”
“In a very condensed version, that much is true,” he acknowledged. “But a lot went on in between.” He raked a hand through his hair as he realized that he wasn’t going to win, no matter how he tried to explain away that scene in the gallery. “What do you want from me? What does Kathleen want from me? Besides my paintings, of course.”
“Oh, forget the stupid paintings,” Destiny said. “I want you to tell that woman you love her before it’s too late.”
He stared at her bleakly, filled with dismay that this woman who understood him so well could ask the impossible of him.
When he said nothing, she walked over to his painting. “Look at this,” she commanded. When she was apparently satisfied that his gaze was on the canvas, she asked, “What do you see?”
“Kathleen,” he said. “And I’ve never painted a portrait before. Is that your point?”
“No, darling,” she said more gently. “I want you to open your eyes and really look at what’s on this canvas. It’s not just a very nice likeness of Kathleen.”
He tore his gaze from the painting and stared at her, not comprehending.
“It’s a portrait of love in all its radiance,” she told him quietly. “Any man who could paint this is capable of great passion.”
After she’d gone, Ben sat and stared at the painting. He could see the passion she was talking about. In fact, passion was something he certainly understood, but love? Only four little letters, but they added up to something that scared the living daylights out of him. He didn’t think there were enough weeks in a lifetime or enough reassurances to help him move past that terror.
Chapter Fourteen
Kathleen still couldn’t get over the way the Carlton women had rallied around her two days ago. Within moments of Destiny’s arrival at the gallery and her discovery that Ben had walked out on Kathleen that morning, she sent out an alert to the others. Minutes later Melanie and Beth had burst into the gallery
like the calvary arriving. Melanie had brought a huge bag of junk food, and Beth had brought nonalcoholic drinks for Melanie and champagne for the rest of them. These women clearly knew how to prepare for a crisis.
Satisfied with the reinforcements, Destiny had locked the gallery door and they’d all proceeded to get thoroughly intoxicated on potato chips, cheesecake, ice cream and old-fashioned gossip.
Ben had not fared well, despite Kathleen’s halfhearted attempts to defend him or at the very least to make them see his point of view. She’d been amazed to find them all on her side.
“Take him out and shoot him,” Melanie had suggested with real enthusiasm. “Maybe that would get his attention.”
“Aren’t you being just the teensiest bit bloodthirsty?” Kathleen had asked weakly. “That can’t possibly be good for the baby.”
“Boy or girl, this baby needs to know that there’s right and wrong in the world when it comes to the way men treat women,” Melanie insisted. “Besides, this baby is now officially overdue and getting on my nerves. I want the man responsible for this pregnancy—no, I want all men, especially Carlton men—to pay.”
“Don’t get too carried away and do anything you’ll regret. You’ll stop blaming Richard once you hold the baby,” Beth assured her. She turned to Kathleen and added, “As for Ben, shooting’s too good for him. Tie him up and torture him. You have no idea how often I was tempted to do that to Mack, when he was being pigheaded.”
“But you didn’t,” Kathleen reminded her, then hesitated. “Did you?”
“No,” Beth said with apparent regret.
“That’s because the person you really wanted to torture was Destiny,” Melanie said, then gave their aunt-in-law an apologetic look. “No offense.”
Destiny laughed. “None taken. But since we’re obviously not going to convince Kathleen to shoot or torture Ben, perhaps we should try to focus on some more practical solutions to this dilemma. How can we get through to him? Goodness knows, I’ve tried. If it hadn’t been for Graciela, I doubt he’d be making this so difficult, but her death destroyed whatever progress he’d made in terms of having faith that people he cared about would stick around. He seems to have forgotten all about what brought on their fight that awful night.”
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