Page 84 of Close Match
“And?”
“He’d sold it to a couple from the West Coast who were looking for something for the foyer of their vineyard after I left. I was devastated. To this day, I still want to find out what vineyard so that I can go and see it.”
Curiously, I ask, “Have you found it online?”
He shakes his head. “Either they don’t have it publicly displayed, or it’s been resold.”
“Did it have a name?” My heart aches. As an artist, this is precisely the kind of emotion we want to elicit—an ongoing love affair.
“Yeah. It was calledForgiveness. I always wondered if the artist named it that because of the storm or for some other reason.”
“I know some people…” I begin, but Monty lays a finger across my lips.
“I appreciate that, sweetheart. But I wasn’t going to let Ev buy it for me. I knew then, and I know now, to own something like that is something I’d have to earn. If it ends up in my hands, it’s because it was meant to.”
I accept what he’s saying, but I wish I could hand it to him. It takes someone with such emotional fortitude to want something so badly and to not accept it out of hand. It takes a sense of honor that I’ve never brushed up against before. It makes me want to stay where I am.
Here. With Monty. Figuring all the rest out.
Because maybe with his strength to lean on, I won’t collapse as I try.
Forty-Seven
Montague
Her skin feels like a bolt of satin beneath my worn hands. I’m afraid my fingers are going to catch and snag against my fingertips as I brush them up and down her arms, her hips, her stomach. It’s terrifying and intoxicating to hold a woman so delicate, so perfect.
I bury my face in her hair the color of dark mink, inhaling the scent of lemon. Shyly, she explained she only washes her hair every few days, so she hoped I wouldn’t be grossed out by it. I’m selfish for wanting to wake her so I can see if her eyes will be as bright as the grass or as dark as the fir trees when the long lashes flutter open. Is it daylight that changes them? Her mood?
Everything about her is perfect. Everything that is, except her feet, which are hard and calloused as they rub against my legs in her sleep. It’s a relief, to be honest, to know there are parts of her that aren’t, that she won’t expect me to be that way.
That there are imperfections within her just as there are in me.
I want to take her breath away. I want to shatter her soul. I want to become her purpose.
But then I catch sight of myself in the mirror across the room and realize I still haven’t earned the right for all of that.
The ache and pain begin to settle in for their nightly visit. My eyes drift to the one thing I know can chase it all away. I start to shift away until a slender thigh pins me to the bed.
Trapping me.
Holding me back.
Imprisoning me simultaneously in heaven and hell, unable to move, unable to breathe.
Unable to escape.
It doesn’t matter to me how she makes me feel; it’s how I can’t be without the burn.
Unburdened.
Forty-Eight
Evangeline
“Igrew up in a world where vows of fidelity wilted due to pressure to perform. There was a race to stay ahead because of age and ego required for both. The constant temptations of drugs and booze to enhance the highs and bounce from the lows.”
“How did you handle it?”
