“Oh, my God.” His sister was staring at him as though she’d never seen him before. “You are in love with her!”
Thirty years of practice at keeping love at bay had Drake instinctively telling himself that he was simply captivated. Obviously enthralled. Definitely consumed. Yes, he was tempted to break all of his rules for her—was already doing it, for God’s sake. Had been riding the edge from the first moment he’d drawn her in his sketchbook.
But did that mean he was in love with her?
Drake deliberately turned his back on his paintings. “I told you—I just met her yesterday.”
Suzanne actually had the nerve to smile. “At least half of our happily married cousins can attest to the fact that love at first sight is real.”
“When did my computer genius sister become such a romantic? Is there a guy you haven’t told us about?”
“Don’t try to turn this on me.” She wagged her finger at him. “We’re talking about you right now and what you’re going to do about the fact that you’re in love with Rosalind Bouchard.”
“Her name is Rosa.” Of all the things to correct his sister on right then, Rosa’s name shouldn’t have been at the top of the list. And yet, he couldn’t forget how she’d looked as she’d said, Rosa is my real name. Working to shake that vision out of his head, along with the others that had all but hypnotized him from the first moment he’d seen her on the cliffs, he said, “Trust me when I say that the last thing she needs right now is some new guy in her life.”
And the last thing he needed was to fall in love with a woman who could too easily become an obsession. A woman who had already brought him far too close to the kind of deep feelings he’d made it a point his whole life to avoid so that he wouldn’t repeat his parents’ destructive cycle.
“Are you sure about that? After all, she let you paint her. Maybe you’re exactly what she needs. And maybe that goes both ways.”
His sister had the same determined look that she got when a computer program she was writing wasn’t doing exactly what she wanted it to do. Drake knew for a fact that she’d always beaten the computer, every single time.
“I understand if you don’t want to head to the Adirondacks with me right now to see Dad. But I won’t understand if you don’t do something about Rosa. I’ve never seen you like this, never seen you paint like this either. Your work has always been amazing, Drake, but these paintings?” She put a hand over her chest. “They make my heart spin around in my chest, in the best kind of way. And if my heart feels like this just from looking at your paintings, then I can’t even imagine the way yours must feel when the two of you are actually together.”
Lack of sleep had him admitting, “It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.” Now that he’d finally said the words aloud, it was suddenly impossible to keep the next ones inside. Especially when Suzanne was one of the only people on the planet who could fully understand where he was coming from. “But that’s exactly the problem, Suz. Our mother wasn’t just Dad’s muse, she was his obsession. And that obsession didn’t just destroy him.” He ran a harsh hand through his hair. “It destroyed them both.”
“Yes, it destroyed them. But it didn’t destroy us. And I refuse to believe that you and I and Harry and Alec are destined for the same horrible-ever-after ending.”
Suzanne spent so much time inside her head that people often made the mistake of assuming her passions didn’t run deep. But Drake knew firsthand just how wrong they all were. His sister had one of the biggest, most caring hearts of anyone he knew. Especially when it came to her brothers. They would fight to the end for her, and she would do the same for them.
Just the way she was right now.
Her eyes were flashing as she told him, “One day, when I find the guy I’m supposed to be with, I’m not going to be afraid to love big. And I’m definitely not going to stop myself from loving with everything I am. Our parents might have misused love to destroy each other, but as far as I’m concerned, that just means the four of us all know better. Better than to throw away real love when it comes just because of mistakes they made.” She looked at his paintings again, before turning back and pinning him with an unwavering gaze. “And definitely to be brave enough to risk our hearts when love comes walking through our door, even if we’re not expecting it. Even,” she added in a softer voice, “if that love looks like the one thing we’ve always thought we shouldn’t have.”
Oscar’s howl from the corner was the perfect punctuation to his sister’s words, an exclamation point at the end of Suz’s heartfelt wisdom that Drake couldn’t possibly ignore.
No more than he could ignore the way he felt about Rosa...whether he should or not.
Chapter Eleven
Rosa had just got out of the shower and wrapped a towel around herself when she heard a knock on her motel room door.