Paint Me Happy

Chapter One

A cold chill chased down Jillian’s spine when she realized that she had not passed a single vehicle in more than thirty minutes, not even a slow-moving tractor.

For several days she had made lists and gone over the pros and cons of her first-ever vacation choices: the beach or the woods.

She had loved the pretty white sands of the beach when she flew there for a gallery showing.

The tranquility and peace were beyond words.

Now that she was only ten minutes from the cabin she had rented, she wanted to turn around and head south to the cool emerald-green ocean water.

Then she remembered that the next couple of weeks were right in the middle of spring break.

According to everything she had read, the beach would be crowded and noisy.

She needed peace and quiet to complete at least three more pictures for her gallery show in Dallas coming up soon.

She had been in a bit of a slump lately, but she could finish up the last four or five paintings in two weeks if she had no distractions.

With what she had already done, that should give her a nice showing, and hopefully she would sell every single one of them.

Her playlist started over again, so she turned off the music and rolled down the window to allow a little fresh air inside the SUV.

The earthy aroma of decaying wood and leaves from fall and winter filled the vehicle.

The high humidity of spring created a damp, fresh scent, making the air feel alive and vibrant.

“This is the atmosphere I need,” she told Molly, her aging cat that was sleeping in the passenger’s seat.

She passed a green sign that simply said Wamba.

No population listed on the sign like usual, nothing from a local church welcoming her to the town.

She had done her research, so she wasn’t surprised.

The tiny little berg was more or less a suburb of Texarkana, which was only five miles away, and the last count only had a population of seventy people—and that was twenty-six years ago.

She had brought staples with her, so she didn’t have to go to the grocery store for a few days.

Even though the nearest place to buy groceries was only a five-minute drive away from her cabin—or maybe ten if she had to drive slow down a winding road—she wanted to be ready to dive right into her work and not waste time shopping.

The lady’s voice on th eGPS told her to take the next left onto Bridal Veil Road and follow that road for a quarter of a mile.

The woman did not tell her that it was a gravel road with potholes big enough to hide army tanks in, or to watch out for oncoming traffic since it was one lane with very little space on either side to get past another car.

That five- or ten-minute trip to the nearest market was quickly turning into much longer. A pothole that she couldn’t avoid rattled the SUV so hard that her cat, Molly, woke up, gave her a sideways dirty look, and began cleaning herself.

“Okay, okay,” Jillian muttered. “I’ll roll the window up so the dust doesn’t drift in and make your pretty fur all dirty.”

Ms. GPS told her to turn right in fifty feet.

Jillian raised her voice. “There’s nothing but trees …”

Molly jumped into the back seat.

She lowered her voice and leaned over the steering wheel to get a better view.

“Sorry about that, but how can there be a road that close?” Then she saw two ruts with grass growing up in the middle.

Back alleys in Beaumont, the town where she lived, were in better condition.

She made the turn and immediately saw a dead-end sign.

The GPS lady told her that her destination was one quarter of a mile on the right.

“Well, the rental company said the place was remote. We’re almost there, Molly.” She wasn’t sure if she was consoling herself or the cat.

She drove around a hairpin curve, and there it was, right there in front of her.

The cabin was billed as rustic, but she wasn’t expecting a weathered wood log cabin.

“Molly, we should have gone to the beach. I’m almost afraid to go inside.

If I see a spider or a mouse, we are out of here.

” She braked and parked as close to the porch as possible.

She grabbed her purse and told Molly that she would be back to get her as soon as she unlocked the door.

She stepped out of the vehicle and got a whiff of that same damp, fresh aroma that she had enjoyed earlier.

“The fresh air could be the only nice thing about this place,” she muttered. “And maybe those two oversized rocking chairs that need a new coat of yellow paint.”

She opened the door and stepped into a large room.

Dim light flowed in from a tiny window above a sink in the tiny kitchen area to her right.

A full-sized iron bedstead with a bare mattress on top of metal springs was to her left.

A window with only blinds and no drapes above the bed looked out at another cabin right next door.

No lights were coming from the place and no vehicles were parked anywhere, so it must’ve been closed up and uninhabited, which suited her just fine.

She didn’t come out to the woods to socialize.

Straight in front of her was a stone fireplace flanked with stacked wood on either side and a well-worn sofa facing it.

“Holy smoke!” She quickly scanned the rest of the one-room place and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a tiny kitchenette with a stove and small refrigerator. She might have starved or eaten lots of burned meals if she had to build and cook over an open fire.

“What have I done?” she asked her cat as she unloaded the carrier and took her inside.

“Thank goodness I was told to bring my own sheets and towels, but where is the washing machine?” She wandered over to a door to the left of the kitchen and found the bathroom.

“Not big enough to cuss a cat in without getting a hair in my mouth.” That was a quote from her deceased grandmother.

She pulled back the curtain on the corner shower. She might as well use a garden hose because there was no pulsating head—or any kind of showerhead at all—attached to the pipe bringing water into the place.

“I’ll consider this an adventure and be glad that I don’t have to use an outdoor toilet, and I suppose I’ll go into town to do laundry.”

The back door opened out onto a porch with one of those old wringer washers pushed off to the side, a rusty barbecue grill on the other end, and two mismatched rocking chairs between them.

Neither of them was like the ones on the front porch.

These came right out of the seventies—made of metal with rust spots in red paint.

“I could google that washer if I get desperate enough not to want to drive in to town. I remember helping put out a washing on one when I was a kid, but that was a long time ago.”

The cat sent up a howl, but Jillian assured her that she would only have to stay in the carrier until she could unload all her things.

Half an hour later, her easel was set up in the space beside the bed with half a dozen of her half-finished canvases leaning against the wall.

Big plastic totes lined with bedding and towels made a makeshift coffee table in front of the sofa.

Since there was no dresser, she left her clothing in suitcases and parked them behind the sofa.

“It’s a tight fit, but we’ll survive,” she told Molly as she opened the door to the carrier.

Molly marched out like she was the queen of the universe and immediately began to snoop. She hopped up on the small area around the kitchen sink and stared out the window as Jillian filled her water and food bowls and set them on the floor.

“This is not at all what I pictured or what the description gave me, but at least the cabin next door is unoccupied,” she said.

“We’ll have all the peace and quiet we need to get some work done …

” She let the sentence hang when she heard a vehicle getting closer.

“Hopefully, someone has lost their way,” she whispered.

“This is a place that a person goes to, not passes by.”

Molly opened one eye from her new napping place on top of one of the wood piles. Evidently, she wasn’t too worried because she went back to sleep.

The rumble of a truck roared around the curve and came to a stop between the two cabins.

Country music blared so loud that it seemed to make the stones around the fireplace quiver.

Then it stopped so abruptly that the silence was deafening.

Molly had left her perch and scooted under the bed.

So many birds fluttered out of the trees that it darkened the kitchen window.

Wyatt slapped the steering wheel when he saw the bright red SUV sitting in front of the cabin next to his. “Dammit!” he groaned.

He hoped that whoever was his new neighbor would only be there for the weekend and then be on their way.

Had he wanted someone in his life to talk to, he would not have rented a cabin so far back in the boondocks only inhabited by wild animals, snakes, and birds.

His newest book, and hopefully another bestseller, was due to the publisher by the first of May—less than four weeks away.

That gave him plenty of time if he had nothing but peace and quiet and no nosy neighbors who wanted to sit on the porch and talk, or worse yet, pop in and out all day.

Or even worse than that, fuss about his loud music.

He got out of his truck, stomped across the yard and porch, and opened the door. Rascal, his dog, ran outside and peed on the new neighbor’s vehicle tires. After he had scratched up some dirt to add to the wet spot, he marched back into the cabin with his tail and head raised high.