She dipped her paintbrush into the color and began.
Day after day, she returned to this very spot, dragging her easel with her, setting up her work. Each day she added a new layer of color, one atop another, until it was impossible to tell that she’d started with the cobalt. Gradually, she’d felt it return, her own potent magic. The painting—her painting—revealed everything that she loved about this view, and everything that she longed to be. Dangerous, rough-edged, vibrant.
Tonight, at last, she would take her work to class. She couldn’t wait to show it to Daniel.
She had worked her ass off—though all that hard work had produced not a pound of weight loss (there was something cosmically wrong with that)—to get a piece ready for tonight. It had been the homework assignment. Begin a work of your own. Any work.
At four o’clock, though it wasn’t yet done, she checked that the paint had dried—it had—then wrapped the canvas in cheesecloth and carefully placed it in the backseat of her car. She took a shower, brushed her hair until it shone, and dressed in a black jersey tunic and straight-legged pantsuit that she’d bought from Coldwater Creek’s last catalog. A chunky turquoise-and-silver necklace was her only accessory.
All in all, she looked good.
She got to the classroom and found it empty. When she looked down at her watch, she saw that she was almost twenty minutes early.
“Idiot,” she said aloud. Now she was trapped. If she walked away, she might meet up with someone from class, or worse, Daniel, and then have to explain why she was leaving. If she stayed, however, Daniel might come to class early and wonder how long she’d been standing there by the door like a bridesmaid waiting for her turn.
“Did you say something?”
And suddenly he was there, standing in front of her, filling the open doorway. His smile seemed too big for his face; it crinkled his blue eyes and carved leathery quotation marks on his cheeks.
“I came early,” she stammered.
“A great quality in a woman, coming early.” His smile broadened, showcased a row of white, even teeth. “Do you have something to show me?”
Elizabeth couldn’t tell if he’d meant that “coming” comment as a sexual innuendo or not. She might have asked him, but when she looked up into his handsome face, her mind went blank. “Huh?”
Idiot.
“I asked you if you brought me something.”
He knows, she realized. He knew she was trembling and sweating like a teenager trapped beside the best-looking boy in school.
No wonder he was smiling. What young man wouldn’t be amused by a middle-aged woman’s runaway lust?
“The painting,” she said quickly. “You told us to paint something that moved us. I chose the view from my house.”
“Let me see.”
She waited for him to turn and go inside, but he just stood there, arms crossed, smiling down at her.
Finally, she turned sideways and sidled past him, hoping her ass didn’t skim his hips. She went to the blackboard, where an empty easel waited.
Her fingers shook as she set her canvas on the easel.
Daniel came up beside her, moving so quietly she didn’t hear his footsteps. Suddenly, he was just there.
“It’s Tamarack Cove,” he said, not smiling anymore. “I used to kayak down there with my grandfather. There a great tide pool, over—”
“By the black rocks, yes.” When she realized that she’d finished his sentence, she wanted to smack her own face. “I didn’t know that was the name of my cove. I should have known, I guess, since I live there, but I don’t spend a lot of time reading maps. Although I’m interested in tide charts.”
Shut up, Birdie.
She clamped her teeth together. They hit with an audible click.
“You really don’t know how talented you are, do you?” His voice was soft as beach sand.
The compliment filled her up inside, made her feel about twenty years old. “You’re nice to say that,” she said, praying her cheeks didn’t turn red.
He took a step toward her, came so close she could see a thin scimitar-shaped scar on his temple. She had a sudden, stupid urge to reach up and touch it, to ask him when he’d been hurt.
That’s it, no more romance novels.
“Come have coffee with me after class,” he said.
She stepped back so fast her butt slammed into a desk. “I’m married.” She lifted her left hand, wiggled her fingers. “I mean, I am. We’re separated right now, but that’s not a divorce. Though he said ‘divorce,’ I don’t think he meant it. So, yes, I’m married.” She tried to shut up, but couldn’t. The silence would be horrible, awkward. “I have two daughters. With my luck, they’re your age. Oh, God, maybe you know them. Stephanie is—”
His touch stopped her.
“Oh,” she sighed.
“It’s just coffee,” he said.
If possible—and frankly, she doubted it—she felt more idiotic. “Yes. Coffee. It’s a beverage, that’s all. You don’t care if I’m married.”
“Not for coffee.”