Art-Crossed Love

by Libby Rice

  If she was in India to clear Cole’s conscience, she had no problem riding his relief straight to the top. He’d get his clean slate. She’d get hers.

  Leaning on her family hadn’t resulted in true success. The idea of relying on Cole to propel her to new heights had been a farce from the beginning. She’d spent three months blind to that futility, but in the process, she’d learned an important lesson.

  Lissa didn’t need anyone else.

  Despite the crash course in Colorado, Lissa had made a convert of Cole, at least artistically. Patience and persistence had paid off because lord knew he hadn’t condescended to embark on India out of charity. All on her own she’d forced him to see value in their differences. Now when he viewed her work, appreciation gleamed behind what had formerly been a mask of distaste.

  If she could reach Cole, a man predisposed to subliminally connect her paintings with loss and despair, she could reach anyone. Sitting there with her driver, soaking in one of India’s cultural masterpieces, she’d realized that plus or minus one Cole Rathlen, she would reach everyone.

  Sonu had proven himself a diligent and reflective companion, and she could see why Cole sought him out over and over. The man had answered her questions, but otherwise left her to her own devices, seeming quietly impressed with her growing enthusiasm. At the end of the day, he’d escorted her to the guesthouse door before promising to return the next morning. When she’d tried to tip, he’d stepped away from her outstretched money. “We have many days. At the end, if you’re happy, you pay.”

  Lissa had rushed the stairs to break her confident revelation to Cole, only to find him gone. A note told her he was out shooting night shots.

  Don’t wait up.

  The second day, she’d set the alarm for six in the morning only to find Cole had risen earlier. Like in Colorado, the man had a way of ghosting out the door before Lissa’s head left the pillow.

  Lissa had endeavored to orchestrate a chance run in, be it five in the morning or ten at night. Cole proved elusive. While Sonu was attentive to her every need, he remained hesitant to cross the boundary between hired help and friendship. India suddenly felt not only new and overwhelming, but incredibly lonely.

  At the top of the mosque’s steps—had they been steeper than they’d looked?—Lissa bent against a gust of cold wind and gave in to a coughing fit. Other than the occasional outburst, she felt decent. Before she could straighten and contemplate the awe-inspiring behemoth in front of her, a pair of fuzzy slippers were shoved her face. “Fifty rupees,” came a shout from above.

  Motioning for Sonu to wait at the car, Lissa straightened and traded rupees for slippers, leaving her shoes under the watchful gaze of an attendant. A teenager ran forward with a ticket. “Two-hundred rupees.”

  She paid.

  As she walked through an arch into the open-air platform of the Jama Masjid mosque, a bright silken robe landed on her shoulders, and another teen with an official-looking badge fell in step. “One hundred rupees,” he said. When she looked confused, he pointed to the robe.

  She paid.

  The guide led her over alternating strips of red sandstone and white marble flanked by towering minarets standing guard over Old Delhi. He explained where the prayer rugs went and how the mosque had been constructed. The view from the elevated floor stretched over miles and miles of seething city.

  On the streets, Delhi overwhelmed. From her perch high above them, it amazed. The sight nudged a balking voice in the back of her mind. Like a city that seemed as impenetrable and inaccessible as a bank vault, Cole lied. Delhi wanted to be dirty and dangerous, yet the soot hid an artistic heart of temples and monuments and mausoleums. Rumors of violence masked a people who offered help to strangers in the dark and watched over visitors’ shoes while they toured the city’s treasures.

  Cole had never disliked her work more than when he’d been fighting its hold over him. When he’d wanted to take her to bed, he’d warned her away in the crudest manner possible. Now, when he feared liking her too much, he acknowledged their attraction but swore she was nothing but a means to an end, a balm to soothe a guilty conscience.

  Hands on hips, she clucked her tongue and surveyed the pandemonium below. Delhi did dusty and despicable in the same way Cole did derogatory and detached—extremely convincing but misleading all the same.

  Shame on Cole for thinking her so easily fooled.

  Shame on her for nearly proving him right.

  When her guide led her back to the shoe pile and demanded five-hundred rupees for his services, services she’d had no idea weren’t included in the price of the ticket or the slippers or the robe, she swallowed and wiped away beads of sweat that dotted her brow despite the chill.

  And she paid.

  When the man watching over her shoes stuck out his palm and grunted about twenty rupees more, she grinned despite the increasing pressure in her chest.

  But she paid.

  Because five questionable fees to see one house of worship was one of Delhi’s harmless quirks. Pay too much mind and she’d risk her enjoyment of an entire city.

  Patience and persistence. Sometimes good really did sprout from bad, making the good all the sweeter.

  Lissa couldn’t wait for the sugar shock of Cole falling at her feet.

  Chapter 30

  Kent stopped on the sidewalk outside the St. Julien hotel, peering through the windows into Jill’s restaurant. Sasha—who was baching it with Kent while Cole worked in India—meandered to the end of his flexi-lead, admiring his own reflection. Before Kent could reel the dog in, Sasha’s huge head bonked the glass, leaving a smear of slobber behind to commemorate the failed attempt to lick his likeness.

  Kent could see the table where Rhea and Kate had dined on that fateful afternoon Cole had accused his wife of adultery. No takers today. The two-top sat empty, its tasteful, upholstered chairs blurring behind the waves of winter sun buffeting the window.

  The details of that faded day had started a slow creep into Kent’s current reality. Similar weather—sunny but frigid in the middle of one of the coldest, driest winters on Colorado record—had lent the windows the same glare.

  Kent knew he’d been curious, at least before his heart attack, about what he’d seen beyond the glass. He’d actually filled in quite a few blanks over his a nightly “relaxation” beer, a developing tradition neither nephew had successfully snuffed. Still, daily walks led him to the St. Julien, as though something important lay in wait.

  Today the past yawned behind him, blank as ever.

  Turning to leave, Kent stopped for one last glance. A young couple now sat at “Kate’s” table. The woman wore a sweater and slacks and appeared surprised, while the man looked unsettled, apologetic even, in a three-piece suit. At first Kent assumed the two were having a genteel business disagreement of some sort, but by the time couple’s drinks arrived—stiff drinks by the looks of it—the hairs on the back of Kent’s neck vibrated with the frequency of a tuning fork.

  A newspaper vending machine beckoned from the curb. Lugging Sasha in retreat, Kent fiddled in his pocket for change and took his time purchasing a paper, all while observing the showdown in the window. Opening the front page, he leaned against the machine and pretended to be engrossed, eyes wandering beneath his sunglasses.

  The scene played out like a silent movie. Some words he recognized.

  “I’m sorry.” From him.

  “Why?” Her.

  “Not your fault.” Him.

  “Don’t do this.” Her.

  Other parts of the conversation piggybacked on a live wire of emotion strung between the two participants. When the woman reached for the man’s hand, Kent ceased to see two strangers. Suddenly it was Kate who recoiled from Rhea’s searching grasp. Though unwilling to make physical contact, Kate shook her head in obvious sadness. She didn’t rebuff Rhea lightly.

  The physical rejection brought an abrupt halt to Rhea’s cajoling. Even from a distance, Kent saw the seeking des
peration of her earlier appeals drain away, leaving a brittle shell.

  Accepting, but probably not respecting, Kate’s wishes, Rhea stood and backed away from the table. A parting shot—“Wrong choice”—left Kate staring after Rhea’s retreating back.

  Kent charged for the door. Halfway across the sidewalk, he jerked to the end of Sasha’s lead and realized the dog had wrapped himself around the base of the newspaper vendor and fallen asleep. The sight cleared the vision, leaving him alone outside a restaurant, spying on two strangers. He wouldn’t interrupt their moment any more than he had Kate and Rhea’s two years ago, when he’d noted the tension and faded into the background, determined to learn more.

  Which explained how his curiosity had survived partial amnesia.

  Kent had witnessed more than a casual lunch between his two nieces-in-law. If forced to guess, he’d say he’d watched two people, intimate if not in love, part ways.

  Chapter 31

  Cole woke in the night to Lissa’s suppressed coughing. The creaking bed made more noise than she did, but he could still make out the wet squeeze of her lungs with each muffled burst.

  Today they’d headed south with Sonu and their compact car for Agra and the awaiting Taj Mahal. The hundred-and-forty-mile trip had taken hours, with Sonu calmly charging around everything from meandering cows, to an ancient tractor dangling a wrecked tuk-tuk, to what Cole would always believe had been a dead body. Sonu claimed prostrate forms bordering the road were a common trick—first play dead and then play on a motorist’s sympathies—but the facedown form had been too diminished for miraculous resuscitation.

  Before vacating Delhi, Cole had been leaving Lissa to her own devices during the day, hoping she’d explore and create solo. In turn, he’d been trying to follow suit under the guise that his head—not his cock and definitely not the empty organ between his ribs—ran the show.

  Trying and failing.

  At night, when she’d been deep asleep in the single bed next to his, he’d looked his fill. Lissa reminded him of a flawless wind-up doll. No matter the draining frustrations of the day, she slept like a rock and headed out again the next morning, armed with a handful of brushes and a mindset that no one and nothing could stop her.

  All of his pictures, on the other hand, screamed sophomore photography student. Plus, he still wanted every part of Lissa, from the top of her head to the tips of her blue-painted toes. He also wanted to talk to her, even if only to pretend to ignore her theories about him needing her and not the other way around.

  Ignoring her let him pretend she wasn’t right.

  Strangely, leaching off Lissa’s essence during the wee hours of the morning hadn’t resulted in a shared of vision of depth and insight.

  Now Cole winced at each weak cough that drifted from her bed. He tugged on a pair of nylon pants and trekked across the teak flooring to the second bedroom of their new suite. After making her rough the cold water and freezing floors in Delhi, he’d upgraded about a hundred notches in Agra. Few could call the Oberoi Amarvilas, literally six-hundred meters from the Taj Mahal itself, anything but perfection. The private balconies where they could work—all commercial activity had been banned on the Taj’s official grounds—were alone worth the personal expenditure.

  Lissa’s murmured, “Thank you baby Jesus and Shiva, too,” when she’d spied the colossal pedestal tub crouching before a Taj-facing wall-o-windows had sealed the deal.

  He nudged into a spot next to her hip, stroking the ribbons of dark hair that spread over the pillow. “Baby, I know you’re awake. I can hear you.”

  “Sorry,” she croaked.

  “Do you want water?”

  He felt her nod beneath his hand. A minute later, she was propped up in bed, sipping from a bottle of Indian-equivalent Evian. She looked pale in the lamplight, wan even. Lissa wasn’t supposed to look vulnerable. Despite her delicate build, he trusted her to be hearty enough to be difficult.

  He counted on it.

  Difficult he could fight. Needy he could only hope to fix. Whenever Kate had been down, struggling against the darkness that had so often tried to suck her under, he’d been overcome with a need to make things better. Bringing a smile to Kate’s face had made him feel worthy. Knowing he’d held the proverbial gun to her last grin had killed his desire to try with anyone else.

  Yet he would. “Roll over,” he instructed Lissa, slipping the water bottle from her grasp. “You’ll recover if you can go awhile without agitating those pissed-off lungs. When the sun comes up, I’ll find codeine.” Or something even better. “For now, you have to relax.”

  “Relaaaax,” Lissa repeated lazily before more wracking coughs cut her off.

  Her skin radiated heat, and he began to massage her shoulders and back, hoping the slow pressure would lull her to sleep. When she quieted, he reached around her front to rub along her throat in soothing circles.

  Just when he thought she was out, she curled a slender hand around his. “I have a plan for us.”

  A ball of barbed wire knotted in his stomach. “Do you?”

  “We work together. Or nothing.”

  Of course Lissa hadn’t appreciated his defense mechanisms. Who the hell would enjoy being hauled across the world and then dumped with a driver?

  “By together,” she went on, “I mean mixed media. We share a base—a canvas, photo paper… whatever—and build from the bottom up.”

  “Details?”

  “Pretty obvious, I’d think. You do your thing. I do mine. We make the two mesh in the same piece of artwork.”

  “Like, what, I take a picture of the Taj Mahal and you paint the trees surrounding it?”

  “No, I paint the Taj Mahal.”

  She wheezed in a shallow breath, and he returned to rubbing along her spine. “Big aspirations, baby.”

  “No more separate, Cole. Else I’ll withhold my valuable contributions and leave you to compare one exact reproduction of the Taj to another.”

  Was that a threat or a promise? Despite the warmth coming off Lissa’s body, she shivered against him. He began gathering her up, hating the sound of her lungs and the chills simmering in her limbs. Thank God he’d traded up to the gilded version of India. The thought of her sick in a cold, dingy room made his gut roil. “You need steam.” And a doctor.

  Lifting her up, covers and all, Cole carried Lissa into the palatial bathroom, where he propped her against the edge of the tub and then wrenched the glass-encased shower to scalding.

  Returning, he ditched the blankets and set her inside the porcelain basin in her panties and bra, willing to soak any barrier to blast the congestion in her chest. All the pollution had gone to battle with her airways. “Sit back. Like I said, relax.”

  Between the streaming shower and tub, the bathroom practically flash heated. With each degree, Lissa sank further into the water. “We probably ought to plan.”

  “You probably ought to breathe.” The way she gasped in sudden, searching eruptions had him worried. “Deep. Over and over.”

  “I’ve been reading up on the Taj.” Lissa should have gone limp in the water and focused on her protesting chest cavity, but she chattered like she wasn’t a hair’s breadth away from a midnight hospital run. “It’s seen as one of the world’s great symbols of love, but I don’t think many people—at least not that many women—know this emperor Shah Jahan had other wives. Mumtaz Muhal was merely his ‘favorite.’ If that’s not enough to impugn the ‘greatest love of all,’ how about the fact that poor Mumtaz died while giving birth to Jahan’s fourteenth child. That would be one, four. I do not hear a Whitney Houston track in the background on this one.”

  Leave it to Lissa to boil things down. “This was the early seventeenth century.”

  “I bet he didn’t breed his dogs that hard—”

  “He wasn’t a modern man. Polygamy was accepted—expected—of his rule. More male children meant a secure line of succession, and the other women were simple procreation placeholders. Plus it wasn’t
like the Empress could go out and get a quick IUD.”

  Lissa snorted through thick lungs. “Yeah, yeah, the suffragettes weren’t exactly marching on the lawn.”

  “Right,” Cole agreed, swallowing hard. Water had crawled past Lissa’s thighs, dousing her tiny lace panties and ratcheting inviting up to irresistible. “The story is at least an interesting one.” Cole waited for her to interrupt. For once, she didn’t. Thank God for pre-pneumonia. “Two people fell in love, despite living in a time when marriage was an institution devoted to the political and the practical. That Mumtaz Mahal died in tragic circumstances and Shah Jahan devoted himself to her memory only adds to the mystic.”

  Quiet enveloped the steaming room. Then, “If he loved her, why did he hurt her?” Whether earnest or inflammatory, Cole couldn’t tell, but Lissa’s dry question boiled through two years of doubt.

  The bathroom washed pitch black. Cole threw his hands in the air, backing away from the threat in the tub. “Why?” He braced himself against the shower glass, sucking in hot, wet air. “Because he loved her, was by all accounts completely enthralled, besotted… obsessed. She meant everything—confidant to lover. His inescapable need to have her, killed her.” As it so often does. “So he went fucking crazy and spent a year in seclusion. Then, white-haired and bent, he built one of the world’s most beautiful monuments in her name and spent the remainder of his pathetic life alone.”

  Opening his eyes, he saw Lissa had braced her chin on the outer curve of the tub, pillowed by soft, slick arms. Those arms invited his touch, but an inch up, her mouth stretched in a sneer. “You aren’t an ancient Mughal emperor,” she said, her voice surprisingly smooth and stern as steel. “You didn’t kill your wife. You’re not crazy. And you don’t have to build a legacy to her name before withering away to nothing.”