Chapter Eight
“See the initials?” Riley asked the boy, who nodded.
He was studying the large painting that hung in the living room, his face scrunched up in concentration. And Riley was hit with the realization that if she could have been guaranteed a boy like this, one this smart, this caring, this lively, she might have taken the idea of kids more seriously.
Too late now.
She brushed off the twinge of regret. Told herself that having a kid at forty-two wasn’t feasible, even if it were physically possible for her. But that bout of severe endometriosis she’d had in her twenties had seen the end of that.
Riley glanced at the man standing behind Jeremy, studying the painting himself. Just as she looked, she saw him tilt his head and make a slight gesture with his hands, a twisting motion, as if he were telling himself to mentally turn the painting around. She knew he’d gotten it then.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
His head snapped around, as if she’d startled him. Or as if he’d been so deep in looking at the painting he’d lost track of everything else. He smiled, apparently realizing what she’d meant.
Dang, that’s a killer smile. No wonder people open their bank accounts for him.
His gaze shifted back to the painting, then down to Jeremy.
“Figure it out yet, Jeremy?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” the boy said, his forehead still scrunched.
Miles leaned out slightly and pointed at the big rock on the right side of the image. “Does it look familiar?”
“Sort of,” Jeremy said slowly, “but it’s not…it’s…it’s backwards.”
“Exactly. How do you suppose that happened?”
Riley smiled inwardly now, liking the way he was leading the boy to think it through, not just telling him.
“That rock’s awful big to move,” Jeremy said.
“That it is. So, where would you have to be to make it look like that?”
It was only two seconds, maybe three, before Jeremy’s brow cleared and he exclaimed, “On the other side! You’d have to be down the hill. An’ then look back.” He looked at Riley then. “So he painted it from both sides, and you have one and Uncle Miles has one.”
“So it seems,” she confirmed.
“What are the odds?” Miles murmured.
“The painting you have,” she asked, before she really thought about it, “you said it inspired Stonewall? How?”
He shrugged. “I spent a lot of time on my couch looking at it, wondering about the people who lived there, which got me into the history of the area, and…I don’t know, it just lit a fire.”
“A fire that became one of the biggest hits ever.”
“Yeah.”
“That your star walked away from, and essentially killed—” She stopped herself when Miles winced and his gaze flicked to Jeremy, who was looking at the painting again.
She closed her eyes for a moment, angry with herself.
She hoped Jeremy was adept, as most kids his age were, at tuning out the adults when they weren’t talking directly to him.
“That was thoughtless of me,” she said quietly to Miles, nodding toward Jeremy. “I’m sorry.”
He let out a compressed breath. “At least you realized. Too many don’t. At least, too many in my world.”
“Because they would never do it? At least, for that reason?” She nodded very slightly toward Jeremy who had moved closer to look at the KR in the lower right corner of the painting.
“Some would, more wouldn’t,” Miles said.
“And you’ve had to deal with a few of the latter, I’m guessing.”
He let out a snort of laughter. “Oh, yeah.”
“I understand a Mr. Swiff is one of them?”
His eyes widened, but one corner of his mouth quirked upward. “Been talking to Jackson?”
“Nic, actually. She doesn’t much care for him.”
“Nor does most anyone who has to deal with him.”
“Got a bit of an ego, does he?”
“When they were handing them out he got a bit of everyone’s, I think.”
She grinned at that. “My dad’s got a saying about guys like that. He says he’d like to buy him for what he’s worth and sell him for what he thinks he’s worth.”
An undeniably genuine laugh broke from him. “I’ll have to remember that one.”
“Was he awful about Jackson leaving?”
He hesitated, then said simply, “Yeah. He was. Still is.”
She studied him for a moment. “Well, I get the feeling not many in your position would be as gracious about it as you’ve been.”
To her surprise he looked a little embarrassed. Was acknowledging he’d acted like a caring human being and not a Hollywood power broker so rare for him? If so, that made it even more special. To her, anyway.
“You said you had two?” Jeremy asked, clearly bored with the adult talk now.
“Yes, I do have two Kyle Rafferty pieces, although the other one isn’t a painting, it’s a charcoal drawing.”
“You can draw with charcoal?” Jeremy asked, looking puzzled. “Isn’t that for barbecues and stuff?”
“Well, why don’t we look at it and you can see,” Miles said.
A much too belated realization hit Riley.
She’d automatically mentioned having two pieces by the revered local artist, but hadn’t really thought about ushering visitors in to see the second one.
Jeremy would be fine, in fact the charcoal drawing would be perfect to show him now that she’d seen his fledgling talent as an artist himself.
But she was feeling a sudden qualm about showing it to Miles Flint. Not because she didn’t want him to see it, or because it wasn’t, in its own way, just as brilliant. It was because of where it was. And that was the biggest warning she’d had yet about her reaction to this man.
Because that charcoal sketch was in her bedroom.