One Man's Art, Page 4

  barbed wire and land mines. Nothing like a land mine to make a statement. Not that I can blame you for wanting to keep this little slice of the world to yourself, Grant,” she added as she began to sketch again. “But I’m going to leave it exactly as I found it—no pop cans, no paper plates, no cigarette butts.”

  Even lifted over the roar of the sea, her voice held a mild, deliberately placating tone designed to set nerve ends on edge. Grant came very close to grabbing her by the hair and dragging her to her feet when he was distracted by her pencil moving over the paper. What he saw halted the oath on the tip of his tongue.

  It was more than good, too true to life for a mere excellent. With dashes and shading, she was capturing the swirl of the sea on rock, the low swoop of gulls and the steady endurance of the lighthouse. In the same way, she’d given the sketch no hint of quiet beauty. It was all hard edges, chips, flaws, and simplicity. It wouldn’t make a postcard, nor would it make a soothing touch of art over a mantel. But anyone who’d ever stood on a point where sea battled shore would understand it.

  Frowning in concentration rather than anger, Grant bent closer. Hers weren’t the hands of a student; hers wasn’t the soul of an amateur. In silence Grant waited until she had finished, then immediately took the sketchbook from her.

  “Hey!” Gennie was halfway off her rock.

  “Shut up.”

  She did, only because she saw he wasn’t going to hurl her work into the sea. Settling back on her rock, she watched Grant as he flipped through her pages. Now and again he stopped to study one sketch a bit longer than the others.

  His eyes were very dark now, she noted, while the wind blew his hair over his forehead and away again. There was a line, not of temper but of intensity, between his brows. His mouth was unsmiling, set, Gennie thought, to judge. It should have amused her to have her work critiqued by a reclusive fisherman. Somehow it didn’t. There was a faint ache behind her temple she recognized as tension. She’d felt that often enough before every one of her showings.

  Grant’s eyes skimmed over the page and met hers. For a long moment there was only the crash of the surf and the distant bell of a buoy. Now he knew why he’d had that nagging sense of having seen her before. But her newspaper pictures didn’t do her justice. “Grandeau,” he said at length. “Genviève Grandeau.”

  At any other time she wouldn’t have been surprised to have had her work or her name recognized. Not in New York, California, Atlanta. But it was intriguing to find a man at some forgotten land’s end who could recognize her work from a rough sketch in a notepad.

  “Yes.” She stood then, combing her hair back from her forehead with her hand and holding it there. “How did you know?”

  He tapped the sketchbook on his palm while his eyes stayed on hers. “Technique is technique whether it’s sketches or oils. What’s the toast of New Orleans doing in Windy Point?”

  The dry tone of the question annoyed her enough that she forgot how easily he had recognized her work. “I’m taking a year’s sabbatical.” Rising, she held out her hand for her pad.

  Grant ignored the gesture. “An odd place to find one of the country’s most … social artists. Your work’s in art papers almost as often as your name’s in the society section. Weren’t you engaged to an Italian count last year?”

  “He was a baron,” she corrected coolly, “and we weren’t engaged. Do you fill your time between catches reading the tabloids?”

  The flash of temper in her eyes made him grin. “I do quite a bit of reading. And you,” he added before she could think of some retort, “manage to get yourself in the New York Times almost as often as you get yourself in the tabloids and the glossies.”

  Gennie tossed her head in a gesture so reminiscent of royal displeasure, his grin widened. “It seems some live and others only read about life.”

  “You do make good copy, Genviève.” He couldn’t resist, and hooked his thumbs in his pockets as new ideas for Veronica raced through his mind. It seemed inevitable that she would come back and drive Macintosh crazy for a while. “You’re a favorite with the paparazzi.”

  Her voice remained cool and distant, but she began to tap her pencil against the rock. “I suppose they have to make their living like anyone else.”

  “I seem to recall something about a duel being fought in Brittany a couple of years ago.”

  A smile lit her face, full of fun, when he hadn’t expected it. “If you believe that, I have a bridge in New York you might be interested in.”

  “Don’t spoil my illusions,” Grant said mildly. The smile wasn’t easy to resist, he discovered, not when it was genuine and touched with self-deprecating humor.

  “If you’d rather believe tripe,” she said graciously, “who am I to argue?”

  Better to keep digging at her than to dwell too long on that smile. “Some tripe’s fascinating in its way. There was a film director before the count—”

  “Baron,” Gennie reminded him. “The count you’re thinking of was French, and one of my first patrons.”

  “You’ve had quite a selection of … patrons.”

  She continued to smile, obviously amused. “Yes. Are you an art buff or do you just like gossip?”

  “Both,” he told her easily. “Come to think of it, there hasn’t been a great deal about your—adventures—in the press for the last few months. You’re obviously keeping your sabbatical very low-key. The last thing I recall reading was …”

  He remembered then and could have cut out his tongue. The car accident—her sister’s death—a beautiful and intrusive wire-service photo of Genviève Grandeau at the funeral. Devastation, shock, grief; that much had been clear even through the veil she had worn.

  She wasn’t smiling now, but looking at him with a mask of placid blankness. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  The apology nearly buckled her knees. She’d heard those words so many times before, from so many different people, but they’d never struck her with such simple sincerity. From a stranger, Gennie thought as she turned toward the sea again. It shouldn’t mean so much coming from a stranger.

  “It’s all right.” The wind felt so cool, so vital. It wasn’t the place to dwell on death. If she had to think of it, she would think of it when she was alone, when there was silence. Now she could breathe deep and drink in the sea, and the strength. “So you spend your leisure time reading all the gossip in this wicked world. For a man who’s so interested in people, you chose a strange place to live.”

  “Interested in them,” Grant agreed, grateful that she was stronger than she looked. “That doesn’t mean I want to be around them.”

  “You don’t care for people, then.” When she turned back, the smile was there again, teasing. “The tough recluse. In a few years you might even make crusty.”

  “You can’t be crusty until you’re fifty,” he countered. “It’s an unwritten law.”

  “I don’t know.” Gennie stuck her pencil behind her ear and tilted her head. “I wouldn’t think you’d bother with laws, unwritten or otherwise.”

  “Depends,” he said simply, “on whether they’re useful or not.”

  She laughed. “Tell me …” She glanced down to the sketchbook Grant still held. “Do you like the sketches?”

  He gave a short laugh. “I don’t think Genviève Grandeau needs an unsolicited critique.”

  “Genviève has a tremendous ego,” Gennie corrected. “Besides, it’s not unsolicited if I ask for it.”

  Grant gave her a long, steady look before answering. “Your work’s always very moving, very personal. The publicity attached to it isn’t necessary.”

  “I believe, from you, that’s a compliment,” Gennie considered. “Are you going to give me free rein to paint here, or am I going to have to fight you every step of the way?”

  He frowned again, and his face settled into the lines so quickly, Gennie swallowed a laugh. “Why here, precisely?”

  “I was beginning to think you were perceptive,” Gennie sa
id with a sigh. She made a sweep with her hand, wide, graceful, encompassing. “Can’t you see it? It’s life and it’s death. It’s a war that never ends, one we’ll never see the outcome of. I can put that on canvas—only a part of it, a small, small slice. But I can do it. I couldn’t resist if I wanted to.”

  “The last thing I want here is a bunch of eager reporters or a few displaced European noblemen.”

  Gennie lifted a brow, at once haughty and amused. It was the casual superiority of the look, Grant told himself, that made him want to drag her to the ground and prove to them both she was only a woman. “I think you take your reading too seriously,” she told him in an infuriatingly soft drawl. “But I could give my word, if you like, that I won’t phone the press or any of the two dozen lovers you seem to think I have.”

  “Don’t you?” His banked temper came out in sarcasm. Gennie met it coolly.

  “That’s none of your business. However,” she continued, “I could sign a contract in blood—yours preferably—and pay you a reasonable fee, since it’s your lighthouse. I’m going to paint here, with your cooperation or without it.”

  “You seem to have a disregard for property rights, Genviève.”

  “You seem to have a disregard for the rights of art.”

  He laughed at that, a sound that was appealing, masculine, and puzzling. “No,” he said after a moment, “as it happens, I feel very strongly about the rights of the artist.”

  “As long as it doesn’t involve you.”

  He sighed, a sound she recognized as frustrated. His feelings about art and censorship were too ingrained to allow him to bar her way. And he knew, even as he stood there, that she was going to give him a great deal of trouble. A pity she hadn’t chosen Penobscot Bay. “Paint,” he said briefly. “And stay out of my way.”

  “Agreed.” Gennie stepped up on the rock and looked out to sea again. “It’s your rocks I want, your house, your sea.” The lazily feminine smile touched her lips as she turned to him again. “But you’re quite safe, Grant. I haven’t any designs on you.”

  It was bait, they both knew it. But he nibbled anyway. “You don’t worry me, Genviève.”

  “Don’t I?” What are you doing? her common sense demanded. She ignored it. He thought she was some kind of twentieth-century siren. Why not humor him? With the aid of the rock she was a few inches above him. His eyes were narrowed against the sun as he looked up at her, hers were wide and smiling. With a laugh, she rested her hands on his shoulders. “I could have sworn I did.”

  Grant considered simply yanking her from the rock and into his arms. He ignored the stab of desire that came so quickly then left a nagging ache. She was taunting him, damn her, and she would win if he wasn’t careful. “It’s your ego again,” he told her. “You’re not the type that appeals to me.”

  Anger flashed into her eyes again, making her nearly irresistible. “Does any?”

  “I prefer a softer type,” he said, knowing her skin would be soft enough to melt if he gave in and put his hands on her. “Quieter,” he lied. “Someone a bit less aggressive.”

  Gennie struggled not to lose her temper completely and slug him. “Ah, you prefer women who sit silently and don’t think.”

  “Who don’t flaunt their—attributes.” This time his smile was taunting. “I don’t have any trouble resisting you.”

  The bait was cast again, and this time Gennie swallowed it whole. “Really? Let’s see about that.”

  She brought her mouth down to his before she had a chance to consider the consequences. Her hands were still on his shoulders, his still in his pockets, but the contact of lips brought on a full-scale explosion. Grant felt it rocket through him, fierce and fast, while his fingers balled into fists.

  What in God’s name was this? he demanded while he used every ounce of control not to bring her body against his. Instinctively he knew that would be the end for him. He had only to weather this one assault on his system, and it would be over.

  Why didn’t he back away? He wasn’t chained. Grant told himself to, ordered himself to, then stood helpless while her mouth moved over his. Dozens, dozens of images and fantasies rained in his head until he nearly drowned in them. Witch, he thought as his mind hazed. He’d been right about her all along. He felt the ground tilt under his feet, the roar of the sea fill his brain. Her taste, warm, mysterious, spiced with woman, seeped into everything. And even that wasn’t enough. For a moment he believed that there could be more than everything, a step just beyond what men knew. Perhaps women understood it. He felt his body tense as though he’d been shot. Perhaps this woman did.

  In some part of his brain, he knew that for one brief moment he was completely vulnerable.

  Gennie drew away quickly. Grant thought he felt the hands still on his shoulders tremble lightly. Her eyes were dazed, her lips parted not in temptation but in astonishment. Through his own shock, he realized she’d been just as moved as he, and just as weakened by it.

  “I—I have to go,” she began, then bit her lip as she realized she was stuttering again—a habit she seemed to have developed in the past twenty-four hours. Forgetting her sketch pad, she stepped off the rock and prepared to make an undignified dash for her car. In the next instant she was whirled around.

  His face was set, his breathing unsteady. “I was wrong.” His voice filled her head, emptying it of everything else. “I have a great deal of trouble resisting you.”

  What had she done, Gennie wondered frantically, to both of them? She was trembling—she never trembled. Frightened? Oh, God, yes. She could face the storm and the dark now with complete confidence. It was nothing compared to this. “I think we’d better—”

  “So do I,” he muttered as he hauled her against him. “But it’s too late now.”

  In the next instant his mouth covered hers, hard, undeniable. But she would deny it, Gennie told herself. She had to or be swallowed up. How had she ever thought she understood emotions, sensations? Translating them with paints was nothing compared with an onslaught of experience. He poured through her until she wasn’t certain she’d ever be free of him.

  She lifted her hands to push him away. She drew him yet closer. His fingers gripped her hair, not gently. The savageness of the cliff, the sea, the wind, tore into both of them and ruled. He tugged her head back, perhaps to pretend he was still in command. Her lips parted, and her tongue raced to meet his.

  Is this what she’d always ached to feel? Gennie wondered. This wild liberation, this burning, searing need? She’d never known what it was like to be so filled with another’s taste that you could remember no others. She’d known he had this kind of strength in him, had sensed it from the first. But to feel it now, to know she was caught up in it was such a conflicting emotion—power and weakness—that she couldn’t tell one from the other.

  His skin was rough, scraping against hers as he slanted his mouth to a new angle. Feeling the small, intimate pain, she moaned from the sheer pleasure of it. His hands were still in her hair, roaming, gripping, tangling, while their mouths met in mutual assault.

  Let yourself go. It was an order that came from somewhere deep inside of her. Let yourself feel. Helpless, she obeyed.

  She heard the gulls, but the sound seemed romantic now, no longer mournful. The sea beat against the land. Power, power, power. She knew the full extent of it as her lips clung to Grant’s. The edge of the cliff was close, she knew. One step, two, and she would be over, cartwheeling into space to be brought up short by the hard earth of reality. But those few seconds of giddy freedom would be worth the risk. Her sigh spoke of yielding and of triumph.

  Grant swore, the sound muffled against her lips before he could force himself to break away from her. This was exactly what he had sworn wouldn’t happen. He’d done enough fishing to know when he was being reeled in. He didn’t have time for this—that’s what he told himself as he looked down at Gennie. Her face was soft, flushed with passion, her hair trailing down to be tugged at by the wind as s
he kept her head tilted back. His lips ached to press against that slender, golden throat. It was her eyes, half closed and gleaming with the ageless power of woman, that helped him resist. It was a trap he wouldn’t be caught in no matter which of them baited it.

  His voice was low when he spoke, and as furious as his eyes. “I might want you. I might even take you. But it’ll be when I’m damn good and ready. You want to call the tune, play the games, stick with your counts and your barons.” Grant whirled away, cursing both of them.

  Too stunned to move, Gennie watched him disappear inside the lighthouse. Was that all it had meant to him? she thought numbly. Just any man, any woman, any passion? Hadn’t he felt that quicksilver pain that had meant unity, intimacy, destiny? Games? How could he talk of games after they had … Closing her eyes, she ran an unsteady hand through her hair.

  No, it was her fault. She was making something out of nothing. There was no unity between two people who didn’t even know each other, and intimacy was just a handy word to justify the needs of the physical. She was being fanciful again, turning something ordinary into something special because it was what she wanted.

  Let him go. She reached down to pick up her sketch pad and found the pencil Grant had dislodged from her hair. Let him go, and concentrate on your work, she ordered herself. It was the scene that carried you away, not the content. Careful not to look back, she walked to her car.

  Her hands didn’t stop trembling until she reached the lane to the cottage. This was better, she thought as she listened to the quiet lap of water and the gentle sounds of swallows coming back to nest for the evening. There was peace here, and the light was easy. This was what she should paint instead of the turbulence of the ocean and the ruggedness of rocks. This was where she should stay, soaking up the drifting solitude of still water and calm air. When you challenged the tempestuousness of nature, odds were you lost. Only a fool continued to press against the odds.

  Suddenly weary, Gennie got out of the car and wandered down to the pier. At the end she sat down on the rough wood to let her feet dangle over the side. If she stayed here, she’d be safe.

  She sat in silence while the sun lowered in the sky. It took no effort to feel the lingering pressure of Grant’s lips on hers. She’d never known a man to kiss like that—forceful, consuming, yet with a trace of vulnerability. Then again, she wasn’t as experienced as Grant assumed.

  She dated, she socialized, she enjoyed men’s company, but as her art had always come first, her more intimate relationships were limited. Classes, work, showings, traveling, parties: almost everything she’d ever done for almost as long as she could remember had been connected with her art, and the need to express it.

  Certainly she enjoyed the social benefits, the touches of glitter and glamour that came her way after days and weeks of isolation. She didn’t mind the image the press had created, because it seemed rather unique and bohemian. She didn’t mind taking a bit of glitz here and there after working herself to near exhaustion in silence and solitude. At times the Genviève the papers tattled about amused or impressed her. Then it would be time for the next painting. She’d never had any trouble tucking the socialite away from the artist.

  Wouldn’t the press be shocked, Gennie mused, to learn that Genviève Grandeau of the New Orleans Grandeaus, successful artist, established socialite, and woman of the world had never had a lover?

  With a half laugh, she leaned back on her elbows. She’d been wedded to her art for so long, a lover had seemed superfluous. Until … Gennie started to block out the thought, then calling herself a coward, finished it out. Until Grant Campbell.

  Staring up at the sky, she let herself remember those sensations, those feelings and needs he’d unlocked in her. She would have made love with him without a thought, without a moment’s hesitation. He’d rejected her.

  No, it was more than that, Gennie remembered as anger began to rise again. Rejection was one thing, painful, humiliating, but that hadn’t been all of it. Grant had dumped his arrogance on top of rejection—that was intolerable.

  He’d said he’d take her when he was ready. As if she were a—a chocolate bar on a store counter. Her eyes narrowed, pale green with fury. We’ll see about that, Gennie told herself. We’ll just see about that!

  Standing, she brushed off the seat of her pants with one clean swipe. No one rejected Genviève Grandeau. And no one took her. It was games he wanted, she thought as she stalked toward the cottage, it would be games he’d get.

  Chapter 4

  She wasn’t going to be chased away. Gennie told herself that with a grim satisfaction as she packed her painting gear the next morning. No one chased her away—especially a rude, arrogant idiot. Grant Campbell was going to find her perched on his doorstep—in a manner of speaking—until she was good and ready to move on.

  The painting, Gennie mused as she checked her brushes. Of course the painting was of first importance, but … while she was about it, she thought with a tight smile, she would take a bit of time to teach that man a lesson. Oh, he deserved one. Gennie tossed the hair out of her eyes as she shut the lid on her paint box. No one, in all of her experience, deserved a good dig in the ribs as much as Grant Campbell. And she was just the woman to give it to him.

  So he thought she wanted to play games. Gennie snapped the locks on the case a bit violently, so that the sound echoed like two shots through the empty cottage. She’d play games all right—her games, her rules.

  Gennie had spent twenty-six years watching her grandmother beguile and enchant the male species. An amazing woman, Gennie thought now with an affectionate smile. Beautiful and vibrant in her seventies, she could still twist a man of any age around her finger. Well, she was a Genviève, too. She stuck her hands on her hips. And Grant Campbell was about to take a short walk off a high cliff.

  Take me, will he? she thought, seething all over again with the memory. Of all the impossible gall. When he’s ready? Making a low sound in her throat, she grabbed a paint smock. She’d have Grant Campbell crawling at her feet before she was through with him!

  The anger and indignation Gennie had nursed all night made it easy to forget that sharp, sweet surge of response she’d felt when his mouth had been on hers. It made it easy to forget the fact that she’d wanted him—blindly, urgently—as she’d never wanted any man before. Temper was much more satisfying than depression, and Gennie rolled with it. She’d take her revenge coolly; it would taste better that way.

  Satisfied that her gear was in order, Gennie walked through the cottage to her bedroom. Critically, she studied herself in the mirror over the old bureau. She was artist enough to recognize good bone structure and coloring. Perhaps suppressed anger suited her, she considered, as it added a faint rose flush to the honey tone of her skin.

  As grimly as a warrior preparing for battle, she picked up a pot of muted green eyeshadow. When you had an unusual feature, she thought as she smudged it on her lids, you played it up. The result pleased her—a bit exotic, but not