Sandpiper Way (Cedar Cove #8)(82)

James kissed the top of her head.

“Do you and Bobby ever talk about when you were young?”

“No. It’s in the past.” His chest heaved. “I choose to live as I do. Bobby needs me and he was a friend when I needed one.”

“What about your family?”

He shrugged. “I was their ticket to wealth and fame. They never forgave me. And they never spoke to me again.”

“Oh, James. I’m so sorry.”

“My parents are both dead. Bobby is all the family I have. Bobby and now Teri.”

Christie longed to tell him that she loved him and wanted to be his family, too.

But she knew instinctively that it was too soon. James wasn’t ready for that kind of intimacy. The habits of reserve and self-protection were too ingrained. Slowly, though, very slowly, he’d come to love her as much as she loved him.

She was counting on it.

Twenty-Eight

As soon as the end-of-day bell rang, Tanni Bliss hurried out to the parking lot where Shaw was waiting for her. She climbed into the passenger seat of his old blue station wagon and leaned toward him. Shaw didn’t hesitate to kiss her.

“How was school?” he asked as he checked his rearview mirror before pulling into the heavy flow of traffic.

“The usual.” With only a week before the holiday break, no one was concentrating on schoolwork. Even the teachers seemed distracted and eager to escape.

“How was work?” she asked, already knowing how much Shaw disliked his job at the coffee shop. He was grateful to his aunt and uncle, grateful to be employed but it didn’t help him advance toward what he really wanted, and that was a career in art.

Living at home allowed him to put away funds for art school. He’d applied for scholarships but had been turned down because of his lack of a high school diploma. His father, an attorney, had pressured him to follow in his footsteps. Shaw had rebelled, and the friction at home had become intolerable. It was because of his father and the constant battle of wills between them that Shaw had dropped out of high school just weeks before graduation. When the art school was unable to accept him, the registrar encouraged him to obtain his GED and apply again as a mature student. He was taking the test in January.

“All right, I guess.”

He rarely said anything more about his job or what he did there.

“Did you do any work?” The question didn’t refer to Mocha Mama’s, but his current art project.

“Some.”

“Are you going to show me?” Shaw generally didn’t until he was satisfied his drawing or painting was the best he could make it.

He momentarily looked away from the traffic and grinned at her. “Maybe.”

“Shaw!” she said. “Please?”

His grin broadened. “I might.”

For a week or two now, he’d been working on something he wouldn’t even tell her about. He usually did his sketches at the coffee shop, because doing them at the house seemed to infuriate his father.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Shaw asked.

Tanni had a surprise of her own. “Not yet.”

“Where to, then?”

Tanni studied him, anticipating his reaction. “The Harbor Street Art Gallery.”

His eyes left the road as he glanced in her direction. “Why?”

Holding back this particular surprise had been difficult; she’d nearly told him a hundred times. “I have a meeting with the new owner, Mr. Jefferson.”

“You didn’t mention that before, did you?” In other words, Shaw would have remembered.

“No.”

“What’s the meeting about?”

“You.”

“Me?” he exploded in disbelief.

“Yes, you. Or rather, your portrait work. He’s got the ones of Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and James Dean.” Shaw had chosen people, public figures, who’d lived—and died—on the edge.

“Tanni…”

“I showed my mom a few of your other portraits, too, and she took them to Mr. Jefferson.”

“Your mom did that for me?”

Tanni nodded. “Mr. Jefferson met with Mom and asked for ideas about the gallery.” Her mother had come back, excited about the change in ownership and the new possibilities. “He asked her how to get the community involved, and one thing she recommended was showing the work of young artists.”

“Cool.”

Tanni smiled over at him, knowing he must be curious as to what Mr. Jefferson had said about his portraits. At the same time, he was probably afraid to ask.

“So…what did he think?” Shaw spoke casually as he turned onto Harbor Street.

“He wants to meet you,” she breathed.

Shaw paled. “Tanni, I can’t!”

“What do you mean, you can’t?” She was dismayed by his response, which was the last thing she’d expected. “You’re good, Shaw! You have real talent, and more than that, you have a vision.”

“You go talk to him for me, all right?”

Shaw was serious. She was astonished by his lack of confidence, but she would do this for him without a qualm. After all, he’d helped her in ways she couldn’t begin to calculate. For the first time since her father’s death, she didn’t feel like she wanted to die, too. Some days were better than others. She still grieved, still longed for him, but she could imagine a future now. A future without him. And that was largely thanks to Shaw. So if he needed her to do this, then she would. No questions asked.