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“Yeah, what’s that?”
He slipped on his sunglasses and smiled. “I forgot to thank you for defending Riley against the old lady.”
And then he was gone.
Riley barely touched the dinner Blue fixed that evening. “It’ll probably be Frankie who comes to get me,” she said, pushing aside a fig Blue had added to the chicken and dumplings. “He’s my dad’s favorite bodyguard.”
April reached across the table and pressed her hand over Riley’s. “I’m sorry I had to tell them you were here.”
Riley ducked her head. One more disappointment in her young life. Earlier, Blue had tried to distract her with an invitation to bake brownies, but that had gone sour when Dean had come in and brusquely refused Riley’s eager plea to look at her scrapbook. He thought he was doing the right thing, but Riley was his flesh and blood, and Blue wished he’d spare a small corner of his life for her. She knew what he’d say if she pressed him. He’d say Riley wanted more than a small corner, and he’d be right.
It was just as well he’d driven off. Now she had space to get her equilibrium back and straighten out her priorities. Her life was complicated enough right now without putting herself at more of a disadvantage by becoming another of Dean Robillard’s easy conquests.
Riley reached for the plate of brownies Blue had ended up baking alone, then stopped herself. “That woman was right,” she said softly. “I am fat.”
April set down her fork with a clink. “People need to concentrate on what’s right about themselves. If you only think about what’s wrong, or about all the mistakes you’ve made, you get paralyzed. Are you going to fill up your head with garbage—everything you don’t like about yourself—or are you going to be proud of who you are?”
April’s intensity made Riley’s lip tremble. “I’m only eleven,” she said in a tiny voice.
April made a business of wadding her napkin. “That’s right. I’m sorry. I guess I was thinking about someone else.” She gave Blue an overly bright
smile. “Riley and I’ll clean up while you relax.”
They ended up working together. April tried to distract Riley with talk of clothes and movie stars. One of Riley’s offhand remarks revealed that Marli had deliberately bought Riley’s clothes too small, hoping to shame her into losing weight. Soon after, April excused herself to go to the cottage. She tried to convince Riley to come with her until her father’s assistant arrived, but Riley was still hoping Dean would return.
Blue set Riley up at the kitchen table with a set of watercolors. Riley studied the blank paper. “Would you draw some dogs for me so I can paint them?”
“Wouldn’t you rather draw them yourself?”
“I don’t think I have enough time for that.”
Blue squeezed her arm and drew four different dogs. As Riley started to paint, Blue grabbed some clothes upstairs and took them out to the caravan. On her way back inside, she stopped in the dining room and gazed at the four blank walls. She imagined them covered with dreamy landscape murals, the kind of work her art professors had so tactfully criticized her for painting.
“A bit derivative, don’t you think, Blue?”
“You need to start stretching yourself. Pushing the boundaries.”
“I’m sure an interior decorator would love what you’ve done,” her only female professor had said, more bluntly. “But sofa paintings don’t make good art. This isn’t a real statement. It’s sentimental claptrap, an insecure girl looking for a romanticized world to hide in.”
Her words made Blue feel as though she’d been stripped naked. She’d given up her dreamy landscapes and begun producing bold mixed-media pieces using motor oil and Plexiglas, latex and broken beer bottles, hot wax and even her own hair. Her professors were delighted, but Blue knew the work was phony, and she left school at the beginning of her junior year.
Now the blank dining room walls wanted to lure her back to those dreamy places where life was simple, where people stayed in place, where only good things happened, and where she would finally feel safe. Disgusted with herself, she went outside to sit on the porch steps and watch the sunset. Maybe painting kids’ portraits didn’t inspire her, but she was good at it, and she could have built up a respectable business in any of the cities where she’d lived. She never did, though. Sooner or later, she started feeling panicky, and she knew the time had come to move.
The porch post felt warm against her cheek. The sun reminded her of a shimmering copper globe hanging low over the hills. She thought about Dean and their kiss. If the timing were different…If she had a job, an apartment, money in the bank…If he were more ordinary…But none of that was true, and she’d spent too many years living at the mercy of others to put herself any further under his control. As long as she resisted, she had power. If she gave in, she’d have nothing.
The noise of an engine intruded on her thoughts. Shielding her eyes, she saw two cars approaching down the lane. Neither of them was Dean’s Vanquish.
Chapter Eleven
Two SUVs with tinted windows pulled up in front of the farmhouse. The back door of the lead vehicle opened, and a man dressed entirely in black stepped out.
His shaggy dark hair was threaded with gray, his weather-beaten face creased from too many long nights riding the glory trail. As he moved away from the car, his gunslinger’s arms hung loosely at his sides ready to draw—not a six-shooter—but the blazing Fender Custom Telecaster he’d used to conquer the world. If Blue hadn’t already been sitting, her knees would have buckled. As it was, she couldn’t squeeze a single particle of air into her lungs.
Jack Patriot.
Car doors began to open behind him, and men in sunglasses spilled out, along with a long-haired woman carrying a designer purse and a water bottle. They stayed by the cars. His boot heels hit the brick walk, and Blue turned into every screaming fan who’d knotted her fingers through a chain-link fence, pressed her body against a police barricade, chased a stretch limo, or stood vigil outside a five-star hotel praying for a glimpse of her rock idol. Except, instead of screaming, she couldn’t make a sound.
He stopped less than eight feet away. Small silver skulls adorned his earlobes. Beneath the cuff of his black, open-neck shirt, she saw a leather bracelet with a beaten silver sleeve. He nodded. “I’m looking for Riley.”
