Dance Away with Me(31)

“Don’t expect anything flattering.”

She wiggled self-consciously. “I’m surprised you can actually draw. I thought it was all paint rollers, stencils, and spray cans.”

“I didn’t say I was good at it. Move your legs to the left.”

She felt big and awkward, but she did as he asked. “If you give me purple horns or a word balloon, I’m suing.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Can I have it afterward so I can sell it on eBay?”

He cocked his head at her, a shaggy curl falling over his forehead, but didn’t reply.

“How much money do you think it’d bring?”

He moved a second straight-back chair under a skylight and sat. “Turn your torso so you’re facing me.”

“I’ve never imagined you using a sketch pad. Maybe a blowtorch, but . . .”

He set an ankle on his opposite knee, propped the sketchbook on his thigh, and studied her. She gazed uncomfortably at the wall behind his head. “I’m serious about eBay. I could use a new car. A yacht would be okay, too.”

His pencil began moving over the paper.

She crossed and uncrossed her legs. “Or a house in Tuscany. Maybe in an olive orchard. Or a vineyard.”

More long strokes of the pencil. A pause.

He ripped the paper from his sketchbook, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it on the floor. She watched it roll toward the purple couch. “Bianca said you weren’t working. That you were blocked.”

“Did she?” He flipped the sketchbook to a fresh page and began to draw again.

“You could at least have let me comb my hair first. The great Ian North wants to draw me, and my hair’s a rat’s nest. You’re going to put a mustache on me, aren’t you?”

“Uncross your legs.”

She wasn’t aware she’d crossed them.

She couldn’t stand the tension any longer, and she gazed down at Wren. She took in her tiny movements—the twitches and sighs. Once again, she heard the rip of paper and watched another crumpled wad hit the floor. She refocused on the baby’s little frog-face. Matched her breath . . .

She jerked as his fingers touched her cheekbone. She hadn’t heard him move. He gently tipped her chin. His touch was light, merely a brush, but something inside her prickled, like an unhatched chick pecking the tiniest hole in its shell. No one had touched her face in so long. Not since . . .

Her throat constricted. The shawl slipped down on her breast. She drew it back.

He dropped his hand and turned away from her. “Wren’s father is a man named Simon Denning. He’s a photojournalist. Specializes in covering the world’s hot spots.”

The pressure in her throat eased. “I’m glad.”

“About what?”

“That you’re not her father.”

He began drawing again, his attention on the sketch pad. “Bianca and I were never lovers.”

She mulled that over. “That’s hard to believe. She loved you.”

“Yes. And hated me, too.”

“Because you didn’t love her back.”

“No more talking. I’m concentrating.”

“You were so protective of her. Overprotective. Trying to keep her away from me. What were you afraid I’d do to her?” The moment the words were out, her throat constricted. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Quiet. I’m trying to focus here.” He’d cut her off. Given her a reprieve.

She turned her head. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to hold Wren.”

She didn’t expect him to answer, but he did, speaking so quietly she barely heard him. “Being around fragile things isn’t good for me.”

The way he said it . . . So stoically. It almost made her feel sorry for him. Almost. “If you didn’t love her, why was she with you?”

His hand stabbed at the sketch pad. “Because I was all she could count on. Enough questions.”

She rearranged Wren’s dark hair into a baby Mohawk. “So here we are, the two of us, taking care of a child who doesn’t belong to either one.”

He flipped to a fresh page. “My lawyer’s trying to find Denning. I should know more in a couple of days.”

Wren mewed. Tess brushed the tip of the baby’s earlobe sticking out from beneath her cap. “I’m getting a cramp.”

He grunted. “Great art requires sacrifice.”

“That’s not great art. It’s a sketch of an ordinary person with a mustache, and you need to change Wren’s diaper.”

That actually made him laugh. For the first time. She sighed and stood. “Come on, Wren. Off to the ladies’ room we go.”

“I’m not done.”

“I am.”

“Do you have any idea how many women want me to draw them?”

“Zillions?”

“Maybe not that many. But a solid half a dozen, at least.”

She laughed, then realized she didn’t like seeing this easier side of him. It made him more human than she wanted him to be.

As she began to shut the door behind her, she heard the sound of paper being torn in two . . . three . . . four pieces.

*

On the drive back home from Knoxville the next day, after Wren’s first well-baby checkup, she skittered around remembering that moment he’d touched her face. The feeling she’d had . . . A hyperawareness of her own body—a startling reminder that she was still a sexual being. Remarkable, considering how tired she was from lack of sleep. She’d felt—not exactly strong, but . . . strong-ish. Not so much like a wounded animal. It was as if she’d dipped her toe into a fresh version of her old self—tougher and a tad cynical.