And certainly not now when she was mere minutes past having been attacked.

Without another word, she shut the car door and quickly made her way to the café. After unlocking the back door, she annoyed the hell out of me by leaving it wide open so anyone could follow her inside. The alarm I could hear beeping even through the Range Rover’s tinted glass finally shut off, and she reappeared two seconds later in the darkened entrance. She gave me a small, almost bashful wave before finally closing the door.

I sat there, fighting a silent war. My body and mind were in deep debate. Go. Stay. Wash my hands of her. Demand she do anything but remain in that building alone.

A light appeared in a narrow window above the dumpster on the left.

Should I shut off the engine and wait until another employee showed up? Should I mind my own business and head home to the quiet of my house?

Neither felt like a choice I could live with.

My gallery was on the opposite side of the street from The Tea Spot, angled in such a way that if I was in my studio on the third floor, I might be able to see the front windows of the café.

Decision made, I backed out of the alley and drove along the wet cobblestones glistening in the beam of the lantern-like streetlights. The fog that had been in the cemetery was nonexistent here—just the dark damp of a nighttime storm and the quiet of a small-town Main Street in the wee hours.

I parked in front of the gallery, ducked my head, and made a run for the front door with its red-and-white striped awning over the glazed-glass windows. The colors and pattern were more appropriate for the bath shop that had been in the unit before I’d bought it than an upscale art studio. It was on my list of things to replace once I had an actual direction for the gallery in mind.

As I stepped inside, instead of the lavender I’d been smelling for days as a bath store leftover, browned butter and sugar flooded my senses. The sweet smell of Willow had followed me from the car and it irritated me all over again. I didn’t want to be enticed by another woman, damn it, and certainly not one standing in harm’s way, shielded by nothing but a pretty smile. All I wanted to do was find myself and my art again. Figure out who the hell Lincoln Matherton was without the baggage of ghosts and grief and remorse.

Even doing that seemed almost impossible at times.

I relocked the door and made my way through a handful of crates I’d brought with me from D.C., taking the wide stairs leading to the loft two at a time. They creaked and groaned with age but held with the sturdiness of hardwood and skilled craftsmanship.

The bath shop owner had, unimaginatively, used the loft as an office, even leaving an ugly metal desk behind. I envisioned it as the second floor of an elegant showroom. I’d keep the eighteenth-century architecture with its wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling and add a chandelier dripping with crystals. The rich planks of the floor would be refinished, and the brass birdcage elevator would be buffed and polished until it glowed. When I was done, both floors of the gallery would scream of an old-world grace that matched the cobblestone streets and gingerbread facades of downtown.

At the back of the loft, another set of stairs, much narrower and darker, led to an attic room in the rafters. Instead of being gloomy and dim as it might have been, a pair of floor-to-ceiling, circular windows on either side of the room filled the space with natural light during the day. The skylights I planned to add would guarantee even more. In the middle of the wee hours, like now, I had to rely on oversized photography lights to chase the dark away.

With Willow on my mind, I made my way directly to the front window made of paneled, antique glass. As I’d expected, I had an angled view to the front doors of The Tea Spot. The windows were dark, and my chest tightened.

The battle continued to wage inside me, concern fighting with annoyance. I didn’t know Willow. I didn’t know Poco. She’d never even said what either of them was doing in the cemetery at this hour. It wasn’t my place to look after her, to worry about her, and yet I couldn’t seem to stop. At this distance, I would be no help if Poco showed up at the café while she was alone. And yet, sitting in my car in the alley wasn’t an option either. It felt entirely too stalkerish. Too close to how I’d been hounded by Felicity.

My teeth ground together as chaotic emotions seesawed through me.

I turned my back on the window, eyeing the blank canvases and easels sitting along one wall and the dozen or so boxes with my supplies inside them.

When was the last time I’d actually used them?

When was the last time I’d been proud of something I’d created?

The answer spun quickly into my mind. A painting of a dark-haired rock star in a burnt-orange, organza dress with rows ofbracelets jangling down her arm and bells dancing on hoops in her ears. I’d spent a multitude of nights with that image of my friend Leya Singh playing on repeat in my head before I’d finally put it down on canvas.

I shrugged out of my jacket, letting it drop to the floor. I opened box after box until I found the charcoal pencils I was searching for and then eyed the different-sized, pre-hung canvases. I’d need a trio of tall, skinny ones to reveal the scene filling my head now.

A cemetery shrouded in fog.

The cliché I’d scoffed at the other night.

But it would be different. It would tell a different story.

It would be Willow. Complicated sunshine caught in the shadows.

I lined the canvases along the wall, charcoal already moving, casting a dark sooty stain upon the white surface. Colors would appear amongst the blacks and grays. Pastels that turned vibrant like the sky awakening. But first, the dark had to exist. Otherwise, the light would never truly be appreciated.

The pencil flew over the linen.

Line after line.

Stroke after stroke.