Dance Away with Me(111)

“Study what?”

Kelly was as patient with him as she was unbending. “I’m taking some refresher courses this summer so I’ll be ready to go to school full-time in the fall.”

Since Kelly had her own money, Brad was smart enough not to debate her decision to go to college, but not smart enough to back off entirely. “I understand that this college thing is important to you, but you need to be back home where you belong instead of living here in this—this—” He waved a hand around the cabin.

“Hovel?” Tess helpfully provided.

Brad had tried to cover his gaffe in his typical clumsy way. “I’m only saying, without you there, who’s going to look after the house?”

Tess rolled her eyes. “And it gets better and better.”

“I’m not concerned about the house, Brad,” Kelly had said firmly. “I realize this is difficult for you to understand, but I’m evolving. I don’t know who I’m going to be. You’re free to go your own way or wait and see what unfolds.”

He had no intention of going his own way, and he’d looked for a new angle of attack. “I— I like your hair.” He was obviously lying, but Tess gave him props for trying.

Kelly touched one of the blue streaks Ava had added around her mother’s face. “I’m not sure it’s me, but then I’m not sure it’s not me, either.”

In addition to the new blue streaks, Kelly had taken to distressed jeans, Ava’s cast-off T-shirts, and a pair of cherry-red Chuck Taylors. Each change unsettled Brad more than the last. “You’ll be comfortable at home. I’ll—I’ll sleep in the guest room. Tell her, Tess.”

“I’m not telling her anything,” Tess retorted. “I’m scared of her.”

Wren thought that was funny, but Brad didn’t. “What do I have to do to get you to come home, Kelly? I can change, too. Tell me what you want?”

“Right now? I want you to lobby your friends for broader sex education in all our schools. Tess has been right about that from the beginning, and you know it.”

Brad stared at his feet. “It’s not that easy. They’re a bunch of stubborn bastards.”

“You are, too,” Tess pointed out, “so you know exactly how to talk to them.”

Kelly gently reprimanded her. “That’s not nice, Tess. Brad has a lot to deal with.”

Tess maintained a straight face. “You’re right. Apologies, Senator. You’re not nearly as much of a bastard as you used to be.”

“Tess!” Kelly exclaimed.

Tess made a zipping motion across her lips. She was falling in love with Kelly Winchester, and thanks to his offer of rent-free space, she’d also grown a lot fonder of her blustering husband.

*

A pounding on the schoolhouse door awakened Tess early the next morning. She stumbled downstairs in her pajama bottoms with Ian’s red-and-black flannel shirt on top. Mercifully, the knocking hadn’t awakened Wren.

Tess expected to see someone who needed medical help on the other side of the door. Instead, Freddy Davis stood there.

“Your phone’s not working,” he said accusingly.

She shoved her hair out of her eyes. “Big surprise.”

“You need to come down to the police station.”

“What have I done now?

“Not you. It’s your husband?”

“My husband?”

“He’s in jail.”





Chapter Twenty-Four




Tess nearly rear-ended a Jeep Wrangler when she saw what Ian had done.

He’d painted the town.

Color was everywhere: the front of the Broken Chimney, above the sign for The Rooster, the side wall of the Angels of Fire Apostolic Church, and the western half of the Brad Winchester Recreational Center. Then there were the painted streetlamp posts and utility boxes.

She parked her car, strapped Wren to her chest, and got out. She didn’t know where to look first. At the animals on the rec center—a luminous bird with dissolving wings, a cartoon mouse, a house fly? What about the zeppelin on The Rooster or the faith symbols embedded in the streams of color on the church?

Beautiful, funny, grotesque, and thought provoking . . . It was all here. Most of it had been done with stencils, but regardless, no man could have achieved all this in a single night. He’d had help.

She turned, taking it in again. But as she absorbed more of what lay in front of her, she grew increasingly puzzled. She’d seen dozens of photographs of Ian’s street art. The concepts were his, but something about the execution didn’t seem familiar.

Except at the Broken Chimney.

She could have picked out his work from a thousand artists. His use of color, his precision, the scale.

Wrapped around the front of the Broken Chimney was a stenciled rendering of a woman. A woman who was most definitely not Tess. This was a wind-whipped amazon with ropes of blond hair and the muscles of a warrior. She was strong. Beautiful. Determined. The personification of a tempest. Near her foot, in small letters, was his tag, IHN4.

Mesmerized, Tess absorbed the work in its entirety and then section by section. The eyes and nose. The strength of the jaw. The twisting locks of hair. The—

Her gaze shot to a muscular calf. To a knee. An elbow. An earlobe.