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“Really?” The word came out as a soft gasp.
“I don’t have the details worked out, but we’re going to L.A. together. We’ll find a good school for you out there. Not a boarding school, either. I want you around where I can keep my eye on you. We’ll hire a housekeeper both of us like so you’ll have somebody to keep you company when I have to travel. You’ll get to see April sometimes—I’m still working on that part. What do you think?”
“I think—I think it’s the best thing ever!”
“So do I.”
As he climbed in his car, he smiled to himself. Rock and roll might keep you young, but there was something to be said for finally growing up.
Chapter Twenty-four
Blue arrived at the farm an hour late. She’d traded in this afternoon’s yellow sundress for a plain white tank and a new pair of khaki shorts, both of which actually fit her. Dean hoped Jack and Riley would stay away like they were supposed to. “I don’t want to do this,” Blue said as she came into the foyer.
Dean resisted kissing her and closed the front door instead. “My advice is to get it over with fast. Go into the dining room ahead of me and turn on all the lights so I get the full miserable effect as soon as I walk in.”
He couldn’t coax even the shadow of a smile from her. It was strange to see Blue so undone.
“You’re right.” She and her new purple sandals strode past him into the dining room. He wanted to pitch those shoes into the trash and make her wear those ugly black biker boots. The dining room lights went on. “You’re going to hate them,” she said from inside.
“I think you’ve mentioned that before.” He smiled. “Maybe I should get drunk first.” He walked around the corner and into the dining room. His smile faded.
He’d been prepared for a lot of things, but not for what he saw. Blue had created a woodland glade of mist and fantasy. Straws of pale custard light peeked through the leaves of gossamer trees. A swing made of flowering vines swayed from a curving branch. Blooms never seen in nature grew in a bright carpet around a gypsy caravan perched by the side of a fantasy pond. He couldn’t think of one thing to say. Except the wrong thing. “Is that a fairy?”
“J—just a small one.” She gazed up at the tiny creature peering down at them from above the front window. Then she buried her face in her hands. “I know! It’s awful! I should never have done it, but my brush got away from me. I should have painted her out. And…the others, too.”
“There are more?”
“It takes awhile to see them all.” She sagged into a chair between the windows and spoke in a small, stricken voice. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do it. This is a dining room. These murals belong in a—a kid’s bedroom or a—a preschool. But the walls were so perfect, and the light was exquisite, and I didn’t know how much I wanted to paint like this.”
He couldn’t seem to take it in. Wherever he looked, he saw something new. A bird with a beribboned basket in its beak flew across the sky. A rainbow arched near the doorframe, and a cloud with the face of an apple-cheeked old woman gazed down on the gypsy caravan. On the longest wall, a unicorn dipped its nose into the water at the edge of the pond. No wonder Riley loved these murals so much. And no wonder April had looked worried when he’d asked her about them. How could his tough, razor-tongued Blue have created something so soft, so magical?
Because she wasn’t tough at all. Blue’s toughness was merely the armor she’d drawn around herself to make it through life. Inside, she was as fragile as the dewdrops she’d painted on a spray of floral bells.
Her fingers poked through her curls as she dropped her forehead in her hands. “They’re terrible. I knew how wrong they were while I was painting them, but I couldn’t stop myself. It was like something broke loose inside me, and all this poured out. I’ll return your check, and if you give me a few months, I’ll reimburse you for whatever it costs to have the room repainted.”
He knelt in front of her and pulled her hands from her face. “Nobody’s repainting anything,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “I love them.”
And I love you.
The knowledge passed through him as easily as a breath of air. He’d met his destiny when he’d stopped on that highway outside Denver. Blue challenged him, fascinated him, turned him on—God, did she ever turn him on. She also understood him, and he understood her. These murals let him see the dreamer inside, the woman who was determined to run away from him on Monday morning.
“You don’t have to pretend,” she said. “I’ve told you how much I hate it when you’re nice. If your friends saw this—”
“When my friends see this, I won’t have to worry about any lags in the dinner conversation, that’s for sure.”
“They’ll think you’ve lost your mind.”
Not after they meet you.
Looking as serious as he’d ever seen her, she slipped her hand into his hair. “You have a flawless sense of style, Dean. This house is masculine. Everything in it. You know how wrong these murals are.”
“They’re completely wrong. An
d incredibly beautiful.” Just like you. “Have I told you how amazing you are?”
She searched his face. She’d always been able to see through him, and her expression gradually turned to wonder. “You really do like them, don’t you? You’re not just saying it to be kind.”
“I’d never lie to you about anything important. They’re wonderful. You’re wonderful.” He began kissing her—the corners of her eyes, the curve of her cheek, the bow at the top of her lip. The room cast a spell over them, and soon she was in his arms. He picked her up and carried her outside, moving from one magical world into another—the haven of the gypsy caravan. Under the painted vines and fanciful flowers, they made love. Silently. Tenderly. Perfectly. Blue was finally his.
