Brush Strokes by Dee Carney Page B

grew as he rounded the corner
where her paintings hung. He slowed to a stop when she looked up,
the astonishment on her face not good news.
    “ Joe? How—”
    Oh, Christ, he’d forgotten. “I meant
to explain, but got carried away earlier. Back at the condo.” The
illicit reminder had the desired effect. Her eyes lost some of the
stun arcing in them long enough for heat to flare in them for a few
seconds.
    She stopped looking at him, and stared
once again at the paintings she hadn’t expected to be there. The
ones whose charred edges and black overlay seemed a part of the
design and not the result of a horrible fire. “Why did you do
this?”
    Joe had convinced Tanya to stay at
home and let him deliver her paintings because of this hasty
decision. He’d considered letting her in on his plan, but he’d
wanted to spare her from the crushing blow if her hope had been
raised but then dashed to pieces if Mr. Killian had said
no.
    He’d saved what he could. Working
quickly, praying like hell for more time and a steady hand, he
extracted the best portions of her paintings with a straight edged
knife. That she’d never actually completed them all had been a kind
of help. The paintings on the outside of the stack were toast, but
the ones nearer the walls, parts of them deserved to be framed. And
he found a shop willing to do the rush job. The resultant display
made it look like she painted only portions of her model on
purpose. Getting Mr. Killian to agree to their showcase took a
little more work, but in the end, he’d relented.
    “ I should have told you
about it. I really don’t have an excuse.”
    Speaking of, the devil sauntered up
before Joe could finish. “Here you are, Tanya. I should have
expected you to be right here. Ah, and with the ever charming Mr.
Boyd.” The smile splitting Mr. Killian’s face made him seem less
like the enemy and more like a dark-skinned Santa Claus. “I thought
you should be the first to know, my dear, that your work has
generated some great interest.”
    Tanya shot Joe a look. It didn’t fill
him with the warm and fuzzies. “That’s good to hear,” she said
between tight lips.
    He studied the paintings as he spoke.
“I wasn’t so keen on the series, the look you were going after, but
that’s the good thing about art. Just because I don’t like it,
doesn’t mean someone else won’t love it. And girl, they love
it.”
    She tried to smile, Joe had to give
her credit, but what happened to her face didn’t make her look
friendlier at all. “Well, you know what they say about taking
lemons and making lemonade and all that.”
    Mr. Killian shrugged. “I suppose.
Although now I’m torn as to whether we should sell them
individually or as a true series not to be separated. Do you have a
preference?”
    “ Not this second, but if
you don’t mind, I need to talk to Joe in private. Could you give us
a minute? I’ll get back to you, I promise.”
    “ Well, sure!”
    Tanya waited for a respectable
distance to separate them before meeting his eyes. “You decided on
your own to salvage my art?”
    Damn, this wasn’t good. “Yeah, I’m
sorry. I should have asked you first.”
    “ You’re right. You should
have.” A minute of silence passed before she spoke again. “Why did
you do it?”
    He had to pause to think of a
satisfactory answer. The real one sounded crazy. “Because I like
seeing you happy. I told you.”
    She stepped closer, her hand reaching
up to clasp his shoulder. “Now tell me the truth about why you did
it.”
    “ What?”
    “ The truth, Joe. I want to
know what compelled you to do this.”
    “ You don’t like
it?”
    “ I am so grateful to you
for it, but I want to know why.”
    “ Does it really matter why
then? I did it and hopefully your partnership with Mr. Killian is
salvaged. It sounds like you have sales coming your way as a
result…”
    Her hand traveled to his face, stroked
his jaw. A voice as smooth as silk blanketed him. “Please…Tell