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“All right,” she said. “Don’t open your eyes yet. Hold onto your pictures, right there in your head. Art comes from within. We’re not making copies. We’re not using someone else’s idea. It’s your idea. Inside your mind.”
A few seconds of silence went by. “Slowly now,” she said, her voice ebbing closer to him. “Open your eyes.”
He did what she said, but not too slowly. She stood only a few feet from him, her radiant smile just begging to be kissed back into a straight line. Kyle didn’t move a muscle as his desire shot through him.
“Are you staying to paint, Mister Stewart?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.” He tipped his hat at her and then the kids. “Just walkin’ by and heard your voice.” Not entirely true. He’d come this way specifically to see her in her element, and boy, had he.
He pushed away from the doorframe. “I have to get out to the barn to help with the fields.”
“See you later, then.” She gave him a flirtatious grin with her chin all tipped up and then turned back to the classroom. “Monica is going to help me pass out the paper and paints. You can choose if you’d like to use a brush or your fingers.”
Fingerpainting. Yikes. Kyle was definitely leaving. He didn’t particularly like getting dirty, and his mama had never approved of writing on hands, arms, or legs. Only Adam had a tattoo, and Kyle was fairly certain Mama didn’t know about it.
He left, the sound of Maddy’s voice in his ears, and went down the hall to the staff break room, then around the corner. His mother still worked at the lodge part-time, keeping all the finances in line. He went past the other offices back here, only Becks and Blake sitting in theirs, and poked his head into Mama’s.
She too sat at her desk, looking at a pile of folders in front of her. she looked up as he entered. “Kyle,” she said pleasantly. “How are you, son?”
“Good,” he said. “Real good.”
A pair of chairs stood in front of her desk, and he approached them. He pulled one back and sank into it while her fingers tapped on the keyboard. She picked up the paper and flipped it over as she moved it from one pile to another.
He’d gone back to jeans and plaids today, because they ran a commercial dude ranch, and he had a part to play just walking around. Mama wore black slacks and a white blouse with flowers on it. She and Daddy ate dinner at the lodge every single night, always within the first hour, and they schmoozed with guests before going home early.
“How’s Daddy feelin’?” His father had woken up a day or three ago with a sore throat, and Mama had always said if there was anything worse than a sick cow, it was a sick husband. Kyle wouldn’t know, because he’d never been married, and it wouldn’t have been to a man anyway.
“He’s fine,” Mama said dryly. “Doesn’t get out of bed until ten or so. Putters around with coffee for an hour.” She looked up from the folders. “You’ve seen what he does all day.”
Kyle had, yes, and it wasn’t much more than Mama had just described. Maybe he’d normally get up long before ten, so he said, “He must need the rest if he’s sleeping that late.”
“Yes,” Mama murmured.
Kyle wasn’t sure why he’d wandered this way. Maybe he simply didn’t want to face the Texas heat. Maybe he figured if he was late getting to the equipment shed, he wouldn’t get a mowing assignment for that afternoon. One was true, the other false. Todd would just text him to let him know what he needed to do.
“Mama,” Kyle said, his throat turning coarse and dry. “If I get a contract from Black Hill, should I take it?”
That brought his mother’s full attention to him, her light brown eyes widening. He’d inherited a lot of his lighter features from her, and he was one of the “golden Stewarts,” while most of the others had taken after Daddy’s dark looks.
“Are you going to get a contract from Black Hill?”
“Hypothetically,” he said.
Mama’s eyes narrowed, because she’d raised eight children to adulthood. Nothing happened “hypothetically,” or “to a friend.”
“Kyle,” she said again, and he hated how she could take his single-syllable name and draw it out into two or three. “Are you hidin’ something from your mama?”
“No, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “I’ve been talking to a producer there for a few weeks now. I think a contract is imminent. She’s taking my demo to the board this week.” He shifted in his seat, his stomach suddenly rolling at the thought of anyone hearing his work. At the same time, that was what he wanted—the world to listen to his music. Sing along to it. Dance to it. Propose with it.
Even now, sitting in front of his mother, lyrics came to his mind. He pushed against them, because he didn’t have time to pay for them right now.
Mama appraised him, and Kyle squirmed then. “Stop it, Mama.”
She went back to her folders and papers, her eyes no longer boring into his. “You’ll leave the ranch again?” She spoke in a casual tone—too casual—the pitch just a bit off. She didn’t want him to leave again.
“If the opportunity is right,” he said. He shifted and sat up as tall as he could. “You wouldn’t be happy for me?”
“Of course I would be.” Her eyes came back to his. “Kyle, I just don’t want to get back another shattered heart. Another shredded soul. Another man I don’t recognize.” She wore earnestness in her expression now, and Kyle had to take a few seconds to absorb her words.
