Take Me Home

by Nancy Herkness

  “I like pictures of horses. I have a couple by Larry Wheeler, a very minor George Stubbs, as well as a few of Lionel Edwards’s humorous drawings. I’ve never been a fan of Munnings, but I have one nice pencil sketch by Degas. I’ve always wanted to own a Castillo, though.”

  Claire kept her jaw from dropping, but she knew her eyes had gone wide. He had just punctured her unconsciously judgmental balloon with his list of well-known equine artists. He’d done it on purpose too, just as her ex-husband had in their fateful first meeting six years ago. Except Tim wasn’t trying to snow her with his knowledge. With a mental shake, she gathered up her professional persona. “Perhaps I can help you. I have contacts with other collectors.”

  She swung the door open and gestured for the vet to precede her into the room, but he didn’t move.

  “After you, ma’am.”

  It still surprised her when the scruffiest of rednecks would hold a door for her or offer her a seat at the bar. She had been too young to receive such courtesies when she’d bolted from her home in the middle of nowhere right after high school. Yet Dr. Tim’s courtly manners were just exaggerated enough to be touched with irony. He had caught her out in her inadvertent snobbery.

  All irony dropped from him when he caught sight of the work of art hung in the place of honor. It was a large canvas with a group of five horses standing together in the middle of a landscape of meadow, mountains, and sky. The vibrant colors were both softened and heightened by the slight haze of a low-slanting, late-day sun.

  His eyes narrowed into a look of intense concentration, and she heard the intake of breath as the full impact of Castillo’s genius hit him. He took a few steps toward the painting, as though drawn by a magnetic force, then stood still.

  Claire loved to watch people react to art. She could learn so much about them. This man understood what he was looking at. She could see it in his stance, at once respectful and attentive. She could tell by the way his mouth turned up in a smile of pure delight.

  Finally, he let out a low whistle of appreciation and turned back to her. “This is one of her best.”

  Claire almost purred with gratification. “Thank you. I think so too.”

  “You can see the distinct personality of every horse in the herd,” he said, gesturing toward the picture. “You can almost hear them talking to each other. And the light is extraordinary.”

  Claire nodded as pleasure at his pleasure washed through her.

  “May I ask how you came to own it?”

  “Pure luck,” she said. “The artist’s uncle Carlos Castillo brought four paintings to the gallery in New York where I was working. No one in the city art world had heard of Julia Castillo then, and Carlos was trying to expand her market. Luckily, I was the first person he showed the paintings to. I bought three of the paintings for the gallery without even consulting my boss. The fourth—this one—I bought for myself.”

  She didn’t mention that her boss at the time was Milo and that he had hated the paintings, telling her they were trite and out of step with the gallery’s vision. Of course, she had thought they shared a vision for the gallery.

  She didn’t argue with him, though. Bowing to his opinion, she offered three of the paintings to Henry Thalman and kept this one. Henry had sold all three within a week while his clients clamored for more. Milo accused her of all sorts of ugly things it still made her cringe to remember. In hindsight, that had been the beginning of the end for their marriage.

  “You made a smart investment,” Tim said.

  Claire had to choke back a wry laugh before she could answer. “Not really. I simply had to have this. I knew I would never sell it.”

  “Never?” He gave her a slow smile.

  She shook her head. “Never. Some things are too precious to let go.”

  Tim’s gaze swung around to the painting. She’d seen the same look in the eyes of clients before. He wanted the Castillo for himself. He needed to lose himself in the artist’s vision every day. She braced herself to courteously but firmly turn down whatever offer he was about to make.

  “Hmm. Could we discuss it over dinner?” he said.

  “Excuse me?” The invitation threw her completely off balance.

  “Would you have dinner with me so we can talk about the painting?”

  “I...er...I’m not sure. I mean, I hadn’t thought about it.” Claire was shocked when her first impulse was to say yes.

  “I expect not, since I hadn’t asked you yet.”

  “Thank you, but I can’t accept,” she said, pulling herself together. “I have no intention of selling the painting, so there’s no point in discussing it.”

  “We can talk about other things.” He was enjoying the fact that he’d flustered her.

  “What other things?”

  “The weather. The price of corn. The hat Mrs. Callison wore to church on Sunday.” Tim gave her a disarming smile. “Why the person who discovered Julia Castillo works at an art gallery in Sanctuary, West Virginia.”

  That clinched Claire’s decision. He would ask questions about her life in New York that she would have to find a polite way to avoid answering. “Most definitely not,” she blurted out, then added with an apologetic smile, “I appreciate your invitation, of course.”

  “So you disapproved of Mrs. Callison’s hat? Too many sunflowers?”

  “Mrs. Callison’s hat had tiger lilies on it, and I liked it. It made a statement.”

  “I had to deliver a foal, so I missed church last Sunday and only heard about the hat—from an unreliable source, evidently. I wouldn’t have pegged you as a churchgoer.”

  “I sing in the choir.”

  His eyebrows rose. Finally, she’d been able to surprise him.

  In fact, she wasn’t a churchgoer, but Holly had been a stalwart in the choir for years. When she couldn’t muster the strength to sing, she asked Claire to be her stand-in. How could Claire say no?

  “A woman of many talents. Are you free Friday night?”

  “A man of great persistence,” she echoed.

  “I learned young that when you want something, you keep after it. It works nine times out of ten.”

  “What is it you want—the painting or the date?”

  “It seems to be a nice package deal, so both.”

  His eyes glinted with both humor and a challenge. Claire hadn’t had this much fun flirting since...well, since she’d married Milo. Temptation slithered through her brain. Frank was always home on Friday nights, so Holly wouldn’t want her there. She’d be all alone in the converted barn she rented.

  “All right, I’m free Friday night, but there will be no false expectations. I’m not going to sell the Castillo to you.”

  “I’ll pick you up at six thirty. You’re renting Ms. Hauser’s place, aren’t you?”

  “One thing about small towns—no one needs GPS.” Claire rolled her eyes. “Where are we going?”

  Since only four restaurants in Sanctuary didn’t serve fast food, she would be familiar with whichever one he named.

  “Not sure yet. I’ll let you know if you give me your number.” He pulled out a silver cell phone and typed in the digits she gave him. “No need to show me out.”

  She nodded. She wanted to spend a few moments alone with the Castillo anyway. She’d been looking at the man more than at the painting. “Thanks for stopping by to keep me posted about Willow. I’ll see if I can locate another Castillo for sale before Friday.”

  A low chuckle rumbled in his chest. As he reached the door, he looked over his shoulder and said, “One other thing I learned young—never say never.”

  She waited for the sound and vibration of his footsteps to recede before attempting to engage with the painting. Shoving away thoughts of anything other than Julia Castillo’s brushstrokes, Claire fought her way into the tranquil world of the artist’s vision.

  Just as she could almost hear the swish of horsehair and the buzz of lazy bees in the sunshine, the phone shrilled. Claire jumped and let o
ut a startled “Oh!” before crossing the room to pick up the handset from the wall. The caller identification said it was Holly, and Claire’s throat went tight. Her sister never called her on the business phone, only on her cell.

  “Holly, are you okay? Are the kids all right?”

  “No...I mean, yes, I’m fine, or I’m not hurt or anything. The kids are fine. I just...I just heard...I mean, Frank just...”

  “Is Frank okay?” Holly’s voice was so choked with tears that Claire could barely understand her.

  “Yes...I mean, no, I hate him, but he’s fine.”

  “What?”

  “Frank just told me he wants a divorce.”

  OUTSIDE THE GALLERY, Tim climbed into his pickup truck. His vanity had gotten the better of him during his conversation with Claire. He could tell she thought he was a simple country horse doctor. Which shouldn’t have bothered him, since he worked hard to project something close to that image. But it had, so he’d name-dropped his catalog of artists and invited her out to dinner just to show he was as sophisticated as she was. He shook his head at himself as he put the pickup truck in gear and eased the big vehicle out into what passed for traffic on Washington Street.

  Last night, he’d dreamt about Anais for the first time in a month, and he was sure it was because of his encounter with Claire Parker. As he lay awake at two a.m., staring at the shifting shadows on his bedroom ceiling, he decided the only way to put Anais’s specter back to rest was to face Claire again. He would prove to himself she was nothing like his dead wife.

  So when he saw an empty parking space right in front of the art gallery, he’d followed up on his middle-of-the-night decision and pulled in.

  His resolution had wavered as he stood waiting in the empty gallery. In fact, when he heard Claire’s footsteps behind him, he had taken a deep breath and braced himself before turning.

  But this time it had not been Anais standing in front of him.

  Today he’d seen a woman with glossy dark hair that fell sleekly to her elbows and a serene oval face lit by deep-brown eyes. Her outfit was straight from the streets of East Side Manhattan, with heavy gold jewelry, an off-white silk blouse, black skirt, and bright-pink shoes with very high heels. All the city fashion didn’t conceal the figure he had noticed yesterday, a figure with a lushness his wife would have considered professionally unacceptable.

  He realized her voice, too, was different from Anais’s. Now that he could listen without the overlay of a ghostly echo, he heard a whisper of the South in some of Claire’s words. Yet her phrasing was clipped and northern.

  What had made him react so strongly to her when they’d first met? He had encountered other dark-haired women since his wife died. None of them evoked nightmares.

  To get to the bottom of the problem, he had done what worked for him as a scientist: he kept asking questions and making observations.

  The request to look at the Castillo had started out as a way to keep probing. Then he’d seen the painting, and buying it became more than a ploy. He wanted it—no, he coveted it for the living room of the house he was building halfway up Flat Top Mountain.

  As he pulled into his parking slot at the Sanctuary Veterinary Hospital, he realized he was looking forward to an evening with Claire Parker.

  His receptionist, Estelle Wilson, greeted him at the back door with his white lab coat in her hand. “You’re late, and you’ve got two emergencies on top of your regular appointments.”

  Estelle was a retired first-grade teacher who believed in punctuality. She also knew everyone and everything about Sanctuary, so she was an invaluable resource.

  “Do you still have the private phone number for the Aerie?” Tim asked, washing his hands. “The one Adam Bosch gave me?”

  Estelle threw him one of her gimlet stares. “Of course I do. He’s the chef with the German shepherd. If you tell me when you want to eat there, I’ll call for you.”

  “This is personal, not business.”

  “I’ve never been one of those folks who is too uppity to do an occasional personal chore for their boss.”

  Tim reflected that he’d never had any personal chores for her to do before this. “Well then, I’d appreciate it if you could get a reservation for two at seven this Friday.”

  “This Friday?” Estelle looked daunted.

  “Adam said he’d get me a table anytime I wanted one.”

  “Yes, but even the rich people wait months to eat there. Still, you did save his dog’s life.”

  A couple of hours later, he had worked his way through the patients lining the walls of his waiting room and was making follow-up calls.

  Estelle poked her head into his office. “That Adam Bosch fellow really loves his dog. He swore it was no problem to get you in this Friday.”

  “You’re a marvel,” Tim said. He felt again that surprising lift of anticipation at the prospect of the dinner.

  As Estelle left his office, Tim dialed Claire’s cell phone. It went to voice mail, and his fizz of anticipation faded slightly. He’d wanted to hear her reaction to his choice of restaurant.

  “Claire, this is Tim Arbuckle. I’ve got reservations at the Aerie for Friday night. Looking forward to seeing you then.”

  Tim hung up the phone and scooped up the keys to his pickup truck. It was time for his farm visits. As he walked up front to get the appointments from Estelle, she looked at him strangely.

  “You’re humming,” she said. “I’ve never heard you hum before.”

  Claire found Holly in Brianna’s room, sitting on the bed with her shoulders hunched over, wearing a sheer pink baby-doll nightie. When her sister raised her head, Claire saw blotches of red on her skin and mascara smeared under her eyes.

  Claire crossed the purple rug with the unicorns dancing on it and sat down beside her sister, turning to wrap her in a gentle hug. “Oh, Holly, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

  “Frank told me to make sure we were alone today. I thought he wanted...well, you know.” Holly fingered the filmy fabric brushing her thigh. “That’s why I’m wearing this stupid nightgown. Instead, he wanted—”

  An ugly moan tore out of her mouth, and Claire hugged her sister tighter. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly. “You don’t have to.”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. Oh God, what am I going to do?” Holly’s sobs shook the bed they sat on.

  “You’re going to get through this tough time and come out stronger on the other side.” Claire restrained herself from calling Frank all the names she wanted to. She’d learned the hard way that sometimes people changed their minds before a divorce was final. Then they remembered your unkind comments about their almost ex-spouses, which made things awkward.

  “He actually looked disgusted when I walked out wearing this, like he hated the sight of me. He gave me this on our last anniversary. He said I looked like a Vegas showgirl in it, and it made him hot for me. Not anymore.”

  “You look fantastic in it,” Claire said, remembering how insecure she felt when her marriage disintegrated. “Like a Victoria’s Secret model.”

  “Not unless I was a foot taller.”

  “If you can joke about that, it proves you’re going to make it through this.”

  Her sister gently shrugged out of Claire’s embrace and sat up straight. “Maybe, but I don’t know what to do now.”

  “Well, some people go to a marriage counselor to see if they can fix things.” Claire had believed in that once.

  “No,” Holly said with a finality that surprised Claire. “There are things that...Well, it has to end.”

  Claire didn’t push her to explain, but her sister suddenly slumped over again. “Frank says we have to sell the house. He needs the money to buy an airplane.”

  “What the hell does he need an airplane for?”

  “He says he’ll be able to cover more territory and make more money for alimony and child support. But I don’t want to sell the house.” Holly looked around her daugh
ter’s tiny room, decorated with brightly colored fantasy creatures. “I stenciled every one of these pictures on Brianna’s walls. I did the ones in Kayleigh’s room too. This is my family’s home, and I made it, not Frank.”

  Claire remembered how excited Holly had been when she and Frank bought the brand-new ranch house, built in a subdivision that had once been a cornfield. It was small and looked like every other house on its treeless street, but Holly was thrilled that Brianna and Kayleigh would have their own rooms, a luxury Claire and Holly hadn’t had. Almost as important had been the mantel where Holly could display the treasured Royal Doulton figurines.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Claire said with sudden fierceness as she thought of her sister’s carefully arranged china statuettes. “I promise you. We’ll buy out his half of the house.”

  Claire’s comment set Holly off again, and the day’s events tumbled forth piecemeal between bouts of crying. It wasn’t an unusual story, Claire thought grimly. His wife was ill, and Frank didn’t have the guts or the decency to go through it with her.

  Of course, what he’d said to Holly was they’d married too young, had children too young, and now he wanted some freedom to “be himself.” Claire suspected he wanted to be himself with other women—and in fact, would bet he already had—but she didn’t share the conviction with her sister.

  According to Holly, Frank had made his speech and then bolted out of the house. She didn’t know where he had gone.

  Claire made sympathetic comments and let Holly cry. God knew she could empathize. The day Milo told her he wanted out of their marriage, Claire had felt like a mule had kicked her in the belly.

  When Holly flopped back on the bed and announced she was wrung dry, Claire stood up. “Sweetie, go wash your face and put on a robe while I open a bottle of wine. If you’re sure there’s no hope of saving your marriage, we need to do some preemptive paperwork so you and the girls get everything you deserve. We’re not going to let Frank waltz out of this marriage with more than his fair share.”