One Bossy Offer (28)

“If you’d like a forest scene,” I say, offering a real smile.

“India,” he says suddenly. “I was there once.”

My parents actually visited the entire subcontinent dozens of times, but I don’t correct him.

I’m searching for my own muse, buried somewhere in the buffalo-brained fog of a night at Murphy’s where I made a beautiful, obstinate young woman run off in tears.

An entirely reckless, preventable episode.

The only reason I care, I tell myself.

Except a man can only lie to himself so much before it gnaws at his bones.

Fuck, this is miserable.

On the surface, there’s nothing special about that redheaded spitfire, and I’d better remember it. Auburn sirens with looks and brains damn near grow on trees.

But not all women with hair borrowed from the sun and emeralds for eyes are so good at turning me into an absolute gibbering imbecile.

And that’s what I am now as I try to form a scene with my father, slowly bringing out a lush jungle landscape in six shades of green.

Dad smiles again, tapping his brush lightly over a fern. “I saw this once with her.”

Hello, agony.

It’s a good day. Hell, an excellent one. He hasn’t mentioned Mom in months. I was starting to worry she was gone from his mind for good, just another distant shadow of the past he can’t quite remember.

A few more strokes while he hums to himself, some old fifties tune I can’t place. Blue Velvet, maybe?

Dad’s halting, strange melody jumps around, possibly blurring lines between entire songs.

I hate that it makes me think of a woman who glows green and red, not blue.

What would have happened if I’d let her know that dance wasn’t just about the goddamned property?

How would she have reacted if she knew I had another reason for running off that oaf with the grizzly paws?

How could we keep working together if she thought I enjoyed every second of her skin fused to mine too fucking much?

And how the hell could I live with myself after demolishing Lottie’s granddaughter?

I wish I could just blame it on the handyman clown and the way he blundered after her.

What kind of grown-ass man walks around named after a playing card, anyway? It sounds like some junior high football nickname he never outgrew.

And she was over there, lapping it up, eating out of his fat fucking hand.

I know, I know. I shouldn’t care.

Shouldn’t give a damn that around me, she’s a tiger, tooth and claw and blood on her breath.

With Ace, she’s like a little kitten, all smiles and play.

And here I am.

My brushstrokes get angrier before I catch myself, smearing my paint into a whirling storm. I’m not sure if Dad notices when I mix up a brilliant orange-yellow hue. He just watches me with his mouth slightly open.

“Dad? You game for more or do you want to watch TV?”

He shakes his head slowly. He looks like a bird that’s seen too much shit, his feathers rustled and missing, the white tufts of hair he has left standing from the sides of his head.

“Is she here today? My Colleen?” His gaze locks onto me with a mindfulness I haven’t seen in ages.

Fucking hell.

I’m so ready to hurl this canvas across the room, damages be damned.

Of course, I can’t.

“She’s still on vacation, Dad,” I offer, the only answer that doesn’t rip my heart out and leave it a grizzled mess on the floor. “I’m sure you’re on her mind. You always were.”

I throw myself back in my seat next to him, pondering the scene before I attack it again with new colors and a subconscious plan.

I’ve been stewing about this girl for too long.

Our next few minutes of quiet, peaceful brushwork helps, shaping an orange mass that’s too low to be the sun through the trees. I have something else in mind.

“A tiger?” Dad asks, pausing to suck some water from the bottle I hold up.

“Sure enough.”

Without fully realizing it, I’ve painted a regal tiger prowling through dark reeds.

Well, technically it’s just a huge orange mess with a white muzzle and dark specks for eyes, but the outline is there.

Jennifer Landers shouldn’t still be on my mind, dammit.

There are far more important things than what some junior marketer thinks of me.

This isn’t me. I’ve spent thirty-five years on this warped planet and I’m not in the business of losing my head.

When my hands return to work, they aren’t steady, messing up the stripes I try to detail.

I hide my frustration, chuckling at my errors.

Dad laughs along with me, at least. He’s still got his humor, even if he has so little else.

Just incredible.

She’s even ruining the very thing she inspired.

I turn the brush over, grumbling to myself as I try to use the end to cut through the excess paint. All I succeed in doing is smearing black paint on my hand, severing the neater lines.

Now I have two connected stripes, and they’re both off.

A quick swipe and the animal has the beginnings of a hunter’s scowl, though.

At least its mood matches my own.

Dad sighs. I look over to see his head slumping and his eyes fluttering.

“Mind if I finish? I can bring it back next week to show you,” I whisper.