One Man's Art, Page 5

  obvious. Lightly, she touched her lips with color—not too much, she reflected, just enough to tempt. With a lazy smile, she dabbed her scent behind her ears. Oh, she intended to tempt him all right. And when he was on his knees, she’d stroll blithely away.

  A pity she couldn’t wear something a bit sexier, she thought as she pursed her lips and turned sideways in the mirror. But the painting did come first, after all. One couldn’t wear something slinky to sit on a rock. The jeans and narrow little top would have to do. Pleased with the day’s prospects, Gennie started back for her gear when the sound of an approaching car distracted her.

  Her first thought was Grant, her first reaction a flood of nerves. Annoyed, Gennie told herself it was simply the anticipation of the contest that had her heart pounding. When she went to the window, she saw it wasn’t Grant’s pickup, but a small, battered station wagon. The Widow Lawrence stepped out, neat and prim, carrying a covered plate. Surprised, and a bit uncomfortable, Gennie opened the door to her landlady.

  “Good morning.” She smiled, trying to ignore the oddness of inviting the woman inside a cottage where she had lived, slept, and worked for years.

  “See you’re up and about.” The widow hovered at the threshold with her tiny, dark eyes on Gennie’s face.

  “Yes.” Gennie would have taken her hand instinctively if the widow hadn’t been gripping the plate with both of them. “Please, come in, Mrs. Lawrence.”

  “Don’t want to bother you. Thought maybe you’d like some muffins.”

  “I would.” Gennie forgot her plans for an early start and opened the door wider. “Especially if you’d have some coffee with me.”

  “Wouldn’t mind.” The widow hesitated almost imperceptibly, then stepped inside. “Can’t stay long, I’m needed at the post office.” But her gaze skimmed over the room as she stood in front of the door.

  “They smell wonderful.” Gennie took the plate and headed back toward the kitchen, hoping to dispel some of the awkwardness. “You know, I can never drum up much energy for cooking when it’s only for me.”

  “Ayah. There’s more pleasure when you’ve a family to feed.”

  Gennie felt another well of sympathy, but didn’t offer it. She faced the stove as she measured out coffee in the little pot she’d bought in town. The widow would be looking at her kitchen, Gennie thought, and remembering.

  “You settled in all right, then.”

  “Yes.” Gennie took two plates and set them on the narrow drop-leaf table. “The cottage is just what I needed. It’s beautiful, Mrs. Lawrence.” She hesitated as she took down cups and saucers, then turned to face the woman again. “You must have hated to leave here.”

  Mrs. Lawrence shifted her shoulders in what might have been a shrug. “Things change. Roof hold up all right in the storm the other night?”

  Gennie gave her a blank look, but caught herself before she said she hadn’t been there to notice. “I didn’t have any trouble,” she said instead. Gennie saw the gaze wander around the room. Perhaps it would be best if she talked about it. Everyone had told Gennie that about Angela, but she hadn’t believed them then. Now she began to wonder if it would help to talk about a loss instead of submerging it.

  “Did you live here long, Mrs. Lawrence?” She brought the cups to the table as she asked, then went for the cream.

  “Twenty-six years,” the woman said after a moment. “Moved in after my second boy was born. A doctor he is, a resident in Bangor.” Stiff New England pride showed in the jut of her chin. “His brother’s got himself a job on an oil rig—couldn’t keep away from the sea.”

  Gennie came to join her at the table. “You must be very proud of them.”

  “Ayah.”

  “Was your husband a fisherman?”

  “Lobsterman.” She didn’t smile, but Gennie heard it in her voice. “A good one. Died on his boat. Stroke they tell me.” She added a dab of cream to her coffee, hardly enough to change the color. “He’d’ve wanted to die on his boat.”

  She wanted to ask how long ago, but couldn’t. Perhaps the time would come when she would be able to speak of the loss of her sister in such simple terms of acceptance. “Do you like living in town?”

  “Used to it now. There be friends there, and this road …” For the first time, Gennie saw the wisp of a smile that made the hard, lined face almost pretty. “My Matthew could curse this road six ways to Sunday.”

  “I believe it.” Tempted by the aroma, Gennie removed the checkered dishcloth from the plate. “Blueberry!” She grinned, pleased. “I saw wild blueberry bushes along the road from town.”

  “Ayah, they’ll be around a little while more.” She watched, satisfied as Gennie bit into one. “Young girl like you might get lonely away out here.”

  Gennie shook her head as she swallowed. “No, I like the solitude for painting.”

  “You do the pictures hanging in the front room?”

  “Yes, I hope you don’t mind that I hung them.”

  “Always had a partiality for pictures. You do good work.”

  Gennie grinned, as pleased with the simple statement as she would have been with a rave review. “Thank you. I plan to do quite a bit of painting around Windy Point—more than I had expected at first,” she added, thinking of Grant. “If I decided to stay an extra few weeks—”

  “You just let me know.”

  “Good.” Gennie watched as the widow broke off a small piece of muffin. “You must know the lighthouse …” Still nibbling, Gennie toyed with exactly what information she wanted and how to get it.

  “Charlie Dees used to keep that station,” Mrs. Lawrence told her. “Him and his missus had it since I was a girl. Use radar now, but my father and his father had that light to keep them off the rocks.”

  There were stories here, Gennie thought. Ones she’d like to hear, but for now it was the present keeper who interested her.

  “I met the man who lives there now,” she said casually over the rim of her coffee cup. “I’m going to do some painting out there. It’s a wonderful spot.”

  The widow’s stiff straight brows rose. “You tell him?”

  So they knew him in town, Gennie thought with a mental sniff. “We came to an … agreement of sorts.”

  “Young Campbell’s been there near on to five years.” The widow speculated on the gleam in Gennie’s eyes, but didn’t comment on it. “Keeps to himself. Sent a few out-of-towners on their way quick enough.”

  “No doubt,” Gennie murmured. “He’s not a friendly sort.”

  “Stays out of trouble.” The widow gave Gennie a quick, shrewd look. “Nice-looking boy. Hear he’s been out with the men on the boats a time or two, but does more watching than talking.”

  Confused, Gennie swallowed the last of the muffin. “Doesn’t he fish for a living?”

  “Don’t know what he does, but he pays his bills right enough.”

  Gennie frowned, more intrigued than she wanted to be. “That’s odd, I got the impression …” Of what? she asked herself. “I don’t suppose he gets a lot of mail,” she hazarded.

  The widow gave her wispy smile again. “Gets his due,” she said simply. “I thank you for the coffee, Miss Grandeau,” she added, rising. “And I’m happy to have you stay here as you please.”

  “Thank you.” Knowing she had to be satisfied with the bare snips of information, Gennie rose with her. “I hope you’ll come back again, Mrs. Lawrence.”

  Nodding, the widow made her way back to the front door. “You let me know if you have any problems. When the weather turns, you’ll be needing the furnace. It’s sound enough mind, but noisier than some.”

  “I’ll remember. Thanks.”

  Gennie watched her walk to her car and thought about Grant. He wasn’t one of them, she mused, but she had sensed a certain reserved affection for him in Mrs. Lawrence’s tone. He kept to himself, and that was something the people of Windy Point would respect. Five years, she thought as she wandered back for her paints. A long time to
seclude yourself in a lighthouse … doing what?

  With a shrug, she gathered her gear. What he did wasn’t her concern. Making him crawl a bit was.

  * * *

  The only meal Grant ate with regularity was breakfast. After that, he grabbed what he wanted when he wanted—or when his work permitted. He’d eaten at dawn only because he couldn’t sleep, then had gone out on his boat only because he couldn’t work. Gennie, tucked into bed two miles away, had managed to interfere with his two most basic activities.

  Normally, he would have enjoyed the early run at sea, catching the rosy light with the fishermen and facing the chill dawn air. He would try his luck, and if it was good, have his catch for dinner. If it was bad, he’d broil a steak or open a can. He hadn’t enjoyed his outing this morning, because he had wanted to sleep—then he’d wanted to work. His mood hadn’t been tuned to fishing, and the diversion hadn’t been a success. The sun had still been low in the sky when he’d returned.

  It was high now, but Grant’s mood was little better than it had been. Only the discipline he’d imposed on himself over the years kept him at his drawing board, perfecting and refining the strip he’d started the day before.

  She’d thrown him off schedule, he thought grimly. And she was running around inside his head. Grant often let people do just that, but they were his people, and he controlled them. Gennie refused to stay in character.

  Genviève, he thought, as he meticulously inked in Veronica’s long, lush hair. He’d admired her work, its lack of gimmickry, its basic class. She painted with style, and the hint, always the hint of a raging passion underneath a misty overlay of fancy. Her paintings asked you to pretend, to imagine, to believe in something lovely. Grant had never found any fault with that.

  He remembered seeing one of her landscapes, one of the bayou scenes that often figured prominently in her showings. The shadows had promised secrets, the dusky blue light a night full of possibilities. There’d been a fog over the water that had made him think of muffled whispers. The tiny house hanging over the river hadn’t seemed ramshackle, but lovely in a faded, yesterday way. The serenity of the painting had appealed to him, the clever lighting she’d used had amused him. He could remember being disappointed that the work had already been sold. He wouldn’t have even asked the price.

  The passion that often lurked around the edges of her works was a subtle contrast to the serenity of her subjects. The fancy had always been uppermost.

  She got enough passion in her personal life, he remembered as his mouth tightened. If he hadn’t met her, hadn’t touched her, he would have kept to the opinion that ninety percent of the things printed about her were just what she had said. Tripe.

  But now all he could think was that any man who could get close to Genviève Grandeau would want her. And that the passion that simmered in her paintings, simmered in her equally. She knew she could make a slave out of a man, he thought, and forced himself to complete his drawing of Veronica. She knew it and enjoyed it.

  Grant set down his brush a moment and flexed his fingers. Still, he had the satisfaction of knowing he’d turned her aside.

  Turned her aside, hell, he thought with a mirthless laugh. If he’d done that he wouldn’t be sitting here remembering how she’d been like a fire in his arms—hot, restless, dangerous. He wouldn’t be remembering how his mind had gone blank one instant and then had been filled—with only her.

  A siren? By God, yes, he thought savagely. It was easy to imagine her smiling and singing and luring a man toward some rocky coast. But not him. He wasn’t a man to be bewitched by a seductive voice and a pair of alluring eyes. After his parting shot, he doubted she’d be back in any case. Though he glanced toward the window, Grant refused to go to it. He picked up his brush and worked for another hour, with Gennie teasing the back of his mind.

  Satisfied that he had finished the strip on schedule after all, Grant cleaned his brushes. Because the next one was already formed in his mind, his mood was better. With a meticulousness that carried over into no other area of his life, he set his studio to rights. Tools were replaced in a precise manner in and on the glass-topped cabinet beside him. Bottles and jars were wiped clean, tightly capped, and stored. His copy would remain on the drawing board until well dried.

  Taking his time, Grant went down to rummage in the kitchen for some food while he kept the portable radio on, filling him in on whatever was going on in the outside world.

  A mention of the Ethics Committee, and a senator Grant could never resist satirizing, gave him an angle for another strip. It was true that his use of recognizable names and faces, often in politics, caused some papers to place his work on the editorial page. Grant didn’t care where they put it, as long as his point got across. Caricaturing politicians had become a habit when he’d been a child—one he’d never had the least inclination to break.

  Leaning against the counter, idly depleting a bag of peanut butter cookies, Grant listened to the rest of the report. An awareness of trends, of moods, of events was as essential to his art as pen and ink. He’d remember what he’d need when the time came to use it. For now it was filed and stored in the back of his mind and he wanted air and sunshine.

  He’d go out, Grant told himself, not because he expected to see Gennie—but because he expected not to.

  Of course, she was there, but he wanted to believe the surge he felt was annoyance. It was always annoyance—never pleasure—that he felt when he found someone infringing on his solitude.

  It wouldn’t be much trouble to ignore her….The wind had her hair caught in its dragging fingers, lifting it from her neck. He could simply go the other way and walk north on the beach….The sun slanted over the skin of her bare arms and face and had it gleaming. If he turned his back and moved down the other side of the cliff, he’d forget she was even there.

  Swearing under his breath, Grant went toward her.

  Gennie had seen him, of course, the moment he stepped out. Her brush had only hesitated for a moment before she’d continued to paint. If her pulse had scrambled a bit, she told herself it was only the anticipation of the battle she was looking forward to engaging in—and winning. Because she knew she couldn’t afford to keep going now that her concentration was broken, she tapped the handle of her brush to her lips and viewed what she’d done that morning.

  The sketch on the canvas gave her precisely what she wanted. The colors she’d already mixed satisfied her. She began to hum, lightly, as she heard Grant draw closer.

  “So …” Gennie tilted her head, as if to study the canvas from a different angle. “You decided to come out of your cave.”

  Grant stuck his hands in his pockets and deliberately stood where he couldn’t see her work. “You didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who asked for trouble.”

  Barely moving the angle of her head, Gennie slid her eyes up to his. Her smile was very faint, and very taunting. “I suppose that makes you a poor judge of character, doesn’t it?”

  The look was calculated to arouse, but knowing it didn’t make any difference. He felt the first kindling of desire spread low in his stomach. “Or you a fool,” he murmured.

  “I told you I’d be back, Grant.” She allowed her gaze to drift briefly to his mouth. “Generally I try to—follow through. Would you like to see what I’ve done?”

  He told himself he didn’t give a hang about the painting or about her. “No.”

  Gennie moved her mouth into a pout. “Oh, and I thought you were such an art connoisseur.” She set down her brush and ran a hand leisurely through her hair. “What are you, Grant Campbell?” Her eyes were mocking and alluring.

  “What I choose to be.”

  “Fortunate for you.” She rose. Taking her time, she drew off the short-sleeved smock and dropped it on the rock beside her. She watched his face as his eyes traveled over her, then ran a lazy finger down his shirtfront. “Shall I tell you what I see?” He didn’t answer, but his eyes stayed on hers. Gennie wondered if she pressed her
hand to his heart if the beat would be fast and unsteady. “A loner,” she continued, “with the face of a buccaneer and the hands of a poet. And the manners,” she added with a soft laugh, “of a lout. It seems to me that the manners are all you’ve had the choice about.”

  It was difficult to resist the gleam of challenge in her eyes or the promise in those soft, full lips that smiled with calculated feminine insolence. “If you like,” Grant said mildly while he kept the hands that itched to touch her firmly in his pockets.

  “I can’t say I do.” Gennie walked a few steps away, close enough to the cliff edge so that the spray nearly reached her. “Then again, your manners add a rather rough-and-ready appeal.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I don’t suppose a woman always wants a gentleman. You wouldn’t be a man who looks for a lady.”

  With the sea behind her, reflecting the color of her eyes, she looked more a part of it than ever. “Is that what you are, Genviève?”

  She laughed, pleased with the frustration and fury she read in his eyes. “It depends,” she said, deliberately mimicking him, “on whether it’s useful or not.”

  Grant came to her then but resisted the desire to shake her until her teeth rattled. Their bodies were close, so that little more than the wind could pass between them. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

  She gave him an innocent stare. “Why, have a conversation. I suppose you’re out of practice.”

  He glared, narrow-eyed, then turned away. “I’m going for a walk,” he muttered.

  “Lovely.” Gennie slipped her arm through his. “I’ll go with you.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” Grant said flatly, stopping again.

  “Oh.” Gennie batted her eyes. “You’re trying to charm me by being rude again. It’s so difficult to resist.”

  A grin tugged at his mouth before he controlled it. There was no one he laughed at more easily than himself. “All right, then.” There was a gleam in his eyes she didn’t quite trust. “Come on.”

  Grant walked swiftly, without deference to the difference in their strides. Determined to make him suffer before the afternoon was over, Gennie trotted to keep up. After they’d circled the lighthouse, Grant started down the cliff with the confidence of long experience. Gennie took a long look at the steep drop, at the rock ledges Grant walked down with no more care than if they’d been steps. Below, the surf churned and battered at the shoreline. She wasn’t about to be intimidated, Gennie reminded herself. He’d just love that. Taking a deep breath, she started after him.

  For the first few feet her heart was in her throat. She’d really make him suffer if she fell and broke her neck. Then she began to enjoy it. The sea grew louder with the descent. Salt spray tingled along her skin. Doubtless there was a simpler way down, but at the moment she wouldn’t have looked for it.

  Grant reached the bottom in time to turn and see Gennie scrambling down the last few feet. He’d wanted to believe she’d still be up on the cliff, yet somehow he’d known better. She was no hothouse magnolia no matter how much he’d like to have tossed her in that category. She was much too vital to be admired from a distance.

  Instinctively, he reached for her hand to help her down. Gennie brushed against him on the landing, then stood, head tilted back, daring him to do something about it. Her scent rushed to his senses. Before, she’d only smelled of the rain. This was just as subtle, but infinitely more sensuous. She smelled of night in the full light of the afternoon, and of all those whispering, murmuring promises that bloomed after sundown.

  Infuriated that he could be lured by such an obvious tactic, Grant released her. Without a word he started down the narrow, rocky beach where the sea boomed and echoed and the gulls screamed. Smug and confident with her early success, Gennie moved with him.

  Oh, I’m getting to you, Grant Campbell. And I haven’t even started.

  “Is this what you do with your time when you’re not locked in your secret tower?”

  “Is this what you do with your time when you’re not hitting the hot spots on Bourbon Street?”

  Tossing back her hair, Gennie deliberately slipped her arm through his again. “Oh, we talked enough about me yesterday. Tell me about Grant Campbell. Are you a mad scientist conducting terrifying experiments under secret government contract?”

  He turned his head, then gave her an odd smile. “At the moment I’m stamp collecting.”

  That puzzled her enough that she forgot the game and frowned. “Why do I feel there’s some grain of truth in that?”

  With a shrug, Grant continued to walk, wondering why he didn’t shake her off and go on his way alone. When he came here, he always came alone. Walks along this desolate, rocky beach were the only time other than sleep that he allowed his mind to empty. There where the waves crashed like thunder and the ground was hard and unforgiving was his haven against his own thoughts and self-imposed pressure. He’d never allowed anyone to join him there, not even his own creations. He wanted to feel the sense of intrusion he’d expected with Gennie at his side; instead he felt something very close to contentment.

  “A secret place,” Gennie murmured.

  Distracted, Grant glanced down at her. “What?”

  “This.” Gennie gestured with her free hand. “This is a secret place.” Bending, she picked up a shell, pitted by the ocean, dried like a bone in the sun. “My grandmother has a beautiful old plantation house filled with antiques and silk pillows. There’s a room off the attic upstairs. It’s gloomy and dusty. There’s a broken rocker in there and a box full of perfectly useless things. I could sit up there for hours.” Bringing her gaze back to his, she smiled. “I’ve never been able to resist a secret place.”

  Grant remembered, suddenly and vividly, a tiny storeroom in his parents’ home in Georgetown. He’d closeted himself in there for hours at a stretch with stacks of comic books and a sketch pad. “It’s only a secret if nobody knows about it.”

  She laughed, slipping her hand into his without any thought. “Oh, no, it can still be a secret with two—sometimes a better secret.” She stopped to watch a gull swoop low over the water. “What are those islands out there?”

  Disturbed, because her hand felt as though it belonged in his, Grant scowled out to sea. “Hunks of rock mostly.”

  “Oh.” Gennie sent him a desolate look. “No bleached bones or pieces of eight?”

  The grin snuck up on him. “There be talk of a skull that moans when a storm’s brewing,” he told her, slipping into a thick Down East cadence.

  “Whose?” Gennie demanded, ready for whatever story he could conjure.

  “A seaman’s,” Grant improvised. “He lusted after his captain’s woman. She had the eyes of a sea-witch and hair like midnight.” Despite himself Grant took a handful of Gennie’s while the rest tossed in the wind. “She tempted him, made him