Two expectant male faces turned toward her and she was struck by the sense that she was seeing the same person at two different ages.
“I went riding this afternoon.”
Eric was unimpressed since he didn’t know about her past, but he said a polite, “Cool.”
Paul, however, shed his listlessness as his eyes lit with genuine triumph. He leaned down to kiss her cheek and remained at her eye level as he said, “Congratulations! How’d it go?”
“Pretty well, all things considered.” Julia took a deep breath. “I rode Darkside.”
Paul straightened abruptly, his face tight with anger. “Between you and Sharon, you haven’t got the sense God gave a squirrel when it comes to that horse.”
Eric’s eyes went round. “You rode the devil horse?” He slapped his hand over his mouth as his gaze shifted to his uncle.
“You just have to know how to handle him,” she said, her gaze on Paul.
Paul didn’t care about his nephew’s brush with blasphemy. His fingers were drumming at high speed against his leg, and fury was rolling off him like the heat from asphalt on an August afternoon. “Don’t get any ideas, Eric,” he snapped. “Darkside is off-limits.”
“Yes, sir.” Eric knew better than to argue with his uncle in this state.
“There’s a reason I rode Darkside. Carlos is coming here tomorrow. It was now or never.”
“Never would be good.”
“Paul, he’s my Night Mare and my whisper horse. He’s the one I was meant to ride. Once Carlos arrives…” Julia shrugged. It was impossible to explain how her uncle could control her with a word or a look. Even she didn’t understand how she had allowed him to become so powerful. She supposed it was a combination of love and a desire to please him, a habit that went back to her younger days, one she’d never been able to break free of before.
Paul made a wordless sound of frustration. Julia understood he was holding back what he really wanted to say and mentally thanked Eric for acting as a buffer.
A cell phone beeped and Paul pulled his out of his pocket, tapping the screen to read the text message. “Change of plans. Your dad is going to pick you up at my office,” he said to Eric. “We’d better get going.”
Julia opened her mouth to point out Eric’s father could just as easily come to her studio, but Paul’s expression was too forbidding. She closed her mouth and carefully tore the drawing of Eric off her pad. “Maybe you can hang this up alongside your dad’s stenciling.”
Eric took the paper, looked at it, and handed it back to her. “Since you’re famous, would you please sign it?”
Julia wrote her name carefully and legibly before she scrawled a flourish under it. “I keep forgetting I’m famous.”
“Really?” Eric said, his brow wrinkled. “Isn’t that kind of opposite? I mean, if you’re famous, everyone knows about you so you should too.”
“You’re a smart kid,” Julia said, holding out the drawing again.
“Smarter than some adults,” Paul muttered.
“Cool,” Eric said. “Are you going to give Uncle Paul his picture?”
“No, that one’s for me to take home.”
“You’re leaving?” Eric asked.
“In a few days.” And Carlos was coming tomorrow. Regret clogged her throat as she realized how little time she had in Sanctuary.
“Wow, I’m glad I got this before you left,” Eric said.
Julia stood up and shook hands with the boy before she looked at Paul uncertainly. Should she kiss him good-bye? It seemed ridiculous not to, but he didn’t look like he’d welcome it. “I’ll see you later?” she said, shoving her hands in her jeans pockets because she didn’t know what else to do with them.
“Count on it.” He took her shoulders in a less than gentle grip and kissed her on the lips. As he pulled away, she got a good look at the temper still burning in his eyes.
At least she had gotten the truth out before he heard it from someone else. He ought to give her credit for that. However, as she noted the way he stalked out the door, she decided she should just be grateful she hadn’t added that particular fuel to the flames.
As soon as the screen door slammed behind them, she walked back to the painting of Paul, stopping to look at it as she recalled his reaction. No matter how she tilted her head, she still couldn’t see what had upset him so much. Shrugging, she took it off the easel and propped it against the counter. In its place she put the Darkside canvas and felt her spirits soar again.
She had ridden a horse.
Chapter 24