It was the way she wanted to remember him.
She decided it was time to return Paul’s phone call.
“I’m sorry, I was working and had the phone turned off, so I didn’t get your voice mail until just now.” Julia winced. She hated telling him lies, even minor ones, especially when she’d checked her missed calls to discover he’d called four more times.
“As long as you’re not sobbing into your pillow because of what that asshole Paxton Hayes said, it’s all good.” His words were light but his voice held undertones of anger and worry.
She forced a chuckle. “He’s coming to the show, so nothing else matters.”
“You don’t sound like yourself. Are you still at Plants ’N Pages?”
“Don’t upset Verna by canceling an appointment to come over here.”
“She’d be more upset if she thought I’d left you alone when you needed a friend.”
She should be annoyed with him for thinking she couldn’t handle the art critic’s remarks, but the sound of his deep voice just made her wish he was there in the room with her. She wanted to press herself against his long, lean body and kiss him until they were both senseless. That was the drawback of spending two hours focused on capturing Paul’s body in a painting; it got her all hot and bothered. “I was leaning more toward needing a lover,” she said.
“Damn, my next appointment is here,” he growled. “I’ll be shoving the last client out the door by four, so I’ll pick you up then.”
“Thank you for worrying about me. Even if you don’t need to, it makes me feel…cared for.”
“Never doubt it, sweetheart.”
She hung up, shaken. Oh dear God, she’d almost said loved. That would have sent Paul running for the hills.
It should send her fleeing in the same direction. In her experience, being loved had become synonymous with being smothered and coddled and not allowed to live fully. Paul’s brand of caring offered the opposite. He took pleasure in expanding her horizons, in challenging her.
But that was because he didn’t know about her weakness. She had seen how people responded to that.
She jumped as her phone rang again. It was Carlos, and she had no intention of talking to him again today. She waited for the ping of the voice mail arriving before she brought the phone to her ear. “Julia, this is your uncle.” And he sounded annoyed. “I have gone to considerable trouble to rearrange my schedule to arrive in Sanctuary at noon and will expect to see you at the Traveller Inn. I understand they serve lunch there so we will eat together.”
“If it was so much trouble, you shouldn’t come,” she muttered.
She walked back to the easel and lifted the Darkside painting onto it. She stood back and examined it, trying to decide what part to work on first. She’d sketched in Darkside’s head with a focus on the horse’s eye. You could see his ears and part of his cheek and neck, but the rest bled off the edges of the canvas. She had challenged herself to catch the liquid depths of his eye and the silken texture of his glossy coat as it stretched over muscle and bone. It required a totally different technique from her nearly abstract Night Mares.
After a couple of minutes, she shook her head and walked to the front window to watch the people and cars pass.
A sense that this was the last day of her idyll in Sanctuary built in her mind. Carlos would arrive tomorrow and blast the gutsy, adventurous image she’d somehow created to smithereens. Paul and Claire and Tim would see her as the fragile, reclusive invalid her uncle believed her to be.
“So I’d better gather some rosebuds before Carlos says the thorns are too dangerous for me,” she said, turning back to recap her paint tubes.
It was time to visit her whisper horse.
Chapter 22
YOU PAID GOOD money for a taxi to come see Darkside?” The lanky young stable hand shook his head in disbelief. “That horse ain’t worth spending a red cent on. I don’t know why Ms. Sydenstricker keeps him around, eating his head off and kicking up nothing but trouble. Anyway, he’s in the north paddock over yonder.”
“Thanks,” Julia said, jogging in the direction he pointed. She’d stopped to collect some carrots before discovering Darkside’s stall was empty.
She burst out of the barn into bright sunlight and blinked a few times, trying to figure out which way was north. It turned out all she had to do was follow the cursing to locate her horse.
“Goddamned devil horse, get your butt out of the way of the gate!” One of the hands was trying to maneuver an empty water bucket into the paddock. Darkside was having none of it. “I don’t care if you die of thirst, but the boss lady says you gotta have some water.”