Page 15 of Gabriel's Angel

“You could imagine one.”

“I may.” He tilted her head a fraction to the left before he stood back. “This feels right, so I’m going to draw it on canvas. I’ve wasted enough time on rough sketches.”

“Three whole days.”

“I’ve completed paintings in half that time when things clicked.”

She could see it, him sitting on a tall stool at an easel, working feverishly, brows lowered, eyes narrowed, those long, narrow hands creating. “There are some in here you haven’t finished at all.”

“Mood changed.” He was already making broad strokes on canvas with his pencil. “Do you finish everything you start?”

She thought about that. “I suppose not, but people are always saying you should.”

“When something’s not right, why drag it out to the bitter end?”

“Sometimes you promise,” she murmured, thinking of her marriage vows.

Because he was watching her closely, he saw the swift look of regret. As always, though he tried to block it, her emotions touched a chord in him. “Sometimes promises can’t be kept.”

“No. But they should be,” she said quietly. Then she fell silent.

He worked for nearly an hour, defining, refining, perfecting. She was giving him the mood he wanted. Pensive, patient, sensuous. He already knew, even before the first brush stroke, that this would be one of his best. Perhaps his very best. And he knew he would have to paint her again, in other moods, in other poses.

But that was for tomorrow. Today, now, he needed to capture the tone of her, the feel, the simplicity. That was pencil lines and curves. Black against white, and a few shades of gray. Tomorrow he would begin filling in, adding the color, the complexities. When he had finished he would have the whole of her on canvas, and he would know her fully, as no one had ever before or would ever again.

“Will you let me see it as you go along?”

“What?”

“The painting.” Laura kept her head still but shifted her eyes from the window to him. “I know artists are supposed to be temperamental about showing their work before it’s finished.”

“I’m not temperamental.” He lifted his gaze to hers, as if inviting her to disagree.

“Anyone could see that.” Though she kept her expression sober, he could hear the amusement in her voice. “So will you let me see it?”

“Doesn’t matter to me. As long as you realize that if you see something you don’t like I won’t change it.”

This time she did laugh, more freely, more richly than before. His fingers tightened on the pencil. “You mean if I see something that wounds my vanity? You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not vain.”

“All beautiful women are vain. They’re entitled.”

“People are only vain if their looks matter to them.”

This time he laughed, but cynically. He set down his pencil. “And yours don’t matter to you?”

“I didn’t do anything to earn them, did I? An accident of fate, or a stroke of luck. If I were terribly smart or talented somehow I’d probably be annoyed with my looks, because people look at them and nothing else.” She shrugged, then settled with perfect ease into the pose again. “But since I’m neither of those, I’ve learned to accept that looking a certain way is... I don’t know, a gift that makes up for a lack of other things.”

“What would you trade your beauty for?”

“Any number of things. But then, a trade isn’t earning, either, so it wouldn’t count. Will you tell me something?”

“Probably.” He took a rag out of his back pocket and dusted off his hands.

“Which are you more vain about, your looks or your work?”

He tossed the rag aside. It was odd that she could look so sad, so serious, and still make him laugh. “No one’s ever accused me of being beautiful, so there’s no contest.” He started to turn the easel. When she began to rise, he motioned her back. “No, relax. Look from there and tell me what you think.”

Laura settled back and studied. It was only a sketch, less detailed than many of the others he’d done. It was her face and torso, her right hand resting lightly just below her left shoulder. For some reason it seemed a protective pose, not defensive, but cautious.

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