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“Sure.” She hitched a thumb toward the back of the house. “Do you still want to see the studio before you go? It’ll only take a minute.”
He wanted to kiss her feet for changing the subject. “Of course.”
“Okay, give me a sec. I’ll be right back.”
“Don’t feel like you need to clean anything up for me.”
“I’m just going to go flip on the space heater and hide that nude self-portrait I’ve been working on.”
He choked a little bit on the coffee, coughing.
She grinned. “Kidding. It’s really a photography series.”
“Sadist.”
“Yep!” she said happily and strode off.
He watched her go and even though they’d just talked about his embarrassing college jerking off, abusive boyfriends, and his dead wife, he found his lips curving into the unfamiliar shape of a smile.
Somehow this girl knew how to force sunshine through the clouds no matter how dark and threatening they were.
He should leave right now. This was getting more dangerous by the minute.
He poured himself another cup of coffee.
FOUR
Maggie hurried to slip one of the canvases she had laying out behind a leaning pile of farm animal portraits. She’d nearly had a panic attack in the car when he’d agreed to come in and she’d remembered what she had sitting out in the studio. She straightened a few more things, though getting the area neat was too lofty of a goal, and tried to settle herself.
After hearing about Theo’s wife, her heart had broken for him. The guy had been through more than she could imagine, and it explained a lot about how he acted. How tightly reined in he kept his emotions, all the boundaries he set. He was the only client she’d ever had who didn’t allow himself a release at the end of her sessions. Theo would get aroused, but it was almost as if he wanted to punish himself by not getting any relief. She’d thought it just a deep masochistic streak, but maybe it was more than that. Maybe there was some lingering loyalty to his wife. The sessions were about the pain, the catharsis, not the pleasure.
After seeing him at The Ranch, she’d often lie in bed at night, fantasizing about how he would look in release, what he’d be like when he really let go, what it’d be like to be the one giving him that moment. Maybe he wasn’t capable of that. Maybe his heart and his desire would always belong to another.
“Am I allowed to come back there now?” a voice called from the hall.
“Yep. Come on in.”
Theo stepped in, his looming height more obvious in the low-ceiling room, and gazed around. She had paintings-in-progress set up on two easels, other completed artwork hanging on the walls, and more canvases leaning in piles against the wall. The sleet was battering the wraparound windows and the tin roof, making it sound like they were in a rain barrel, but the space was warming up from the heater, and having Theo there with her made it feel almost unbearably intimate.
She’d long gotten over the anxiety of showing her work to others. But for some reason, knowing Theo was going to look at them had her heart picking up speed. He’d probably think her stuff was too bright, too whimsical. He probably had staid portraits of British nobles on his walls or something.
He strolled over to a series of three paintings of barnyard animals. She’d used bold colors and had tried to capture the quirky expressions of each animal—a goat giving a head tilt, a chicken eyeballing the observer with suspicion, and a cow looking pointedly bored (which she’d named Udderly Bored because she hadn’t been able to resist). Those were the works she did when she wanted to simply have fun and play with her paints.
She stepped up behind Theo, who seemed to be taking in every detail. “That’s Curly, Moe, and Larry.”
He looked over his shoulder and smiled. “You named the paintings after The Three Stooges?”
“No, I named the animals that. They live on my friend’s farm down the road. I use them as subjects often, so she let me name them. This series just sold online to a lady in Montana.”
“They’re great. You’ve captured a lot of personality in each of them. You’re really talented, Maggie.” He turned to her, the expression on his face impressed. “Do you exclusively focus on animals?”
“I like live subjects, so it’s usually animals or people.”
“People?” She could tell the second he caught sight of the wall behind her where she displayed her real income generator—the nudes. His entire face went slack with what she could only hope was awe and not horror. “Oh my God, Maggie, those are … Wow.”
He walked past her to take a closer look, and she tried to ignore the warm feeling that moved through her at his genuine appreciation of her work. She knew she was good. The fact that people paid her big chunks of money to have her paintings told her that. But hearing Theo say it affected her in a different way. He wasn’t a guy who would blow smoke up her ass. Had he not liked her work, he would’ve been polite but wouldn’t have offered false praise.
Theo leaned forward, examining one she’d done of two of her female friends at The Ranch. The couple had happily agreed to pose for her. She’d captured them in a naked embrace as they stood in a row of grapevines at The Ranch. She’d painted more grapevines climbing across the ground and swirling up their legs to lock them together.
