“You could count on me,” she said quietly.
A part of him desperately wanted to believe that, wanted to have faith that nothing would ever take her away, but experience had taught him otherwise. People he loved went away, no matter what promises they made.
He stroked a finger down her cheek, felt the dampness of tears. “I wish I could,” he said with real regret. “If ever I was going to count on another person, I’d want it to be you.”
“Then do it. Take a leap of faith. Forget about the paintings. I would love to show them, and I think the show would be wildly successful, but it doesn’t matter. Just believe in me. Believe in what we found last night. It was real, Ben. You can’t deny that.”
He smiled sadly, regretting that the subject had shifted so quickly from his work to the two of them. While one topic only exasperated him, the other terrified him.
“No, I can’t deny that it was real,” he agreed. “I just can’t count on it lasting.”
And before she could utter another word, before she could try to persuade him to stay, he turned and left the gallery.
Outside he hesitated, then dared to look back. Kathleen was standing where he’d left her, her expression shattered. He realized then that being left wasn’t the only thing that could break a person’s heart. Leaving was tearing his to pieces.
When Ben left the gallery, he didn’t go to Destiny’s. Instead, filled with anger and regret and anguish, he drove back to the farm and went straight into his studio seeking that solace he’d tried to explain to Kathleen.
Filled with an almost frenetic energy, he pulled out a canvas, daubed paints on his palette and went to work.
He began, as he often did, with a wash of blue. As the color of sky filled the canvas, his tension began to ease. He was able to convince himself that nothing had changed, that his world was still orderly. He sat back, filled with relief, and sighed deeply.
He took the time to brew himself a pot of coffee, then went back to the canvas, but this time the first stroke of the brush betrayed him. It wasn’t the familiar, sweeping line of a majestic oak at all, but the curve of a woman’s body. Kathleen’s body. There was no mistaking it. Why would this come to him now with no photo to work from, no live Kathleen there to guide him?
He threw down his brush, tossed his palette across the room and began to pace, muttering to himself as if that alone would get her out of his head. When he was certain he was back in control, he went back to the easel.
Impatiently he tried to change the form, to add a texture that spoke of something solid and unyielding. Instead, the image softened and blurred, the very picture of welcoming arms and tender flesh.
Another tantrum, another attempt, another failure to regain control.
Defeated, he gave himself up to the inspiration, then, letting the image flow from the brushes as if they had a mind of their own. His usual palette of greens and browns and grays gave way to the inky blackness of night and the shimmering pastels of a woman in moonlight.
Her body took shape before him, as intimately familiar as the skies he usually painted. Without a picture, without her, it was her face that gave him the most trouble, especially the eyes. He cursed himself time and again for not getting them right, then sat back for a moment in dismay.
He knew in his gut why they wouldn’t come to him. It was because he couldn’t bear to look into those eyes and see the pain he’d put there. And that’s what he would have to paint if he completed this now. It was the truth, the reality, and that’s what he always insisted on when he painted, absolute clarity.
Exhausted, he finally put aside the brushes and paints and methodically cleaned up the studio, which seemed to be in more disarray than usual thanks to his impatient pacing and frequent rages of temper.
He went into the house, grabbed a sandwich, then fell into bed and spent a restless night tortured by dreams of Kathleen and his determination to throw away what they were on the brink of having.
He was back in his studio at the crack of dawn, armed with renewed determination, a strong pot of coffee and some toaster pastry that didn’t hold a candle to anything Kathleen had ever baked for him. Rather than satisfying him, that paltry pastry only exacerbated his irritation.
He wasn’t all that surprised when Destiny came wandering in around eight. To his shock, though, she didn’t immediately pester him with questions. She merely came to stand beside him, her gaze locked on the canvas.
“She’s very lovely,” she said at last.
“No denying it,” he said tightly, knowing she was talking about the woman, not the painting.
“Why not just admit that you love her?”