Her Unexpected Admirer Page 0,62
takes care of the gardens. I can’t believe I found the couple. She loves to cook and vacuuming soothes her, or so she says. While Jimmy would rather be out gardening than anything else in the world. The two of them take care of the house, making sure everything runs smoothly while I’m gone.”
“It must be nice to come home to a clean, dust free house and a warm meal,” she said, thinking of her apartment that was probably covered with dust by now. She’d been gone for about two weeks and that was more than enough time to create a layer of dust over everything, not to mention time for mold to grow on everything in her fridge.
“You’ll get used to it,” he promised her and led her through an iron gate. “Look out over this hill,” he said, referring to a grassy knoll right in front of them.
“Yes, what about it? It looks lovely.”
He stepped behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. “How about if I built a small house with windows on all sides, skylights in the roof and gave Jimmy free reign to establish a garden around it. Do you think that would be a good place to paint?” He felt her stiffen in his arms but held her so she couldn’t move away from him. “I’ve heard that artists need lots of light in their studios.”
He heard a sniffle but wasn’t sure what was happening. It wasn’t until she spun around in his arms that he grasped that she was crying. “Thank you,” she whispered, burying her face in his chest. “Thank you!”
He bent down, trying to read her expression. “Hey, Kate. I didn’t mean to make you cry. I thought the idea would make you happy.”
She nodded through her tears, thinking she must look like a complete mess after all the crying she’d done today. “I am. I’m so happy I can barely believe you’re real.”
He chuckled softly, still not sure why she was crying. “Okay, then.” He leaned back and wrapped his arms around her. “I have something else to show you. I’m not sure if I’m completely right, but I’d like to…” he paused, still hoping against hope that his dates and his guess was on the mark. “Well, I don’t care if you’re not the one who painted these, but I just want you to know that, before I saw these paintings,” he explained, taking her hands once more and leading her through the garden again towards the back door of the house, “well, I didn’t really like art. Or more accurately, I didn’t appreciate art except as a business transaction.”
Her eyes narrowed as she listened, not liking what she was hearing. “Davis, are you telling me that you’re one of those people who buys art simply to wait for it to appreciate in value and then you sell it at a profit?” She’d never respected people like that. They seemed too mercenary for her taste.
“Honestly? Yes. I used to be. Until I went to this art gallery in New York back in August. I gave myself a time limit. I’d promised a friend that I would be there but I wasn’t going to stay long. Just an in and out, pretend to drink the horrible wine, say a few pithy words to the press about the paintings and be out of there.”
She smacked his arm, not hard, but enough to show that she completely disapproved of his attitude. “You are one of those people.”
“Only until that day.” He opened the door and led her inside. “And then I discovered these paintings,” he said, standing in the great room of his house which he’d had painted white so his newest acquisitions would stand out more. “I walked into the gallery and bought every single painting by this artist.”
Kate stood very still, her eyes moving from one wall to the next. It was a two story room with windows bringing in the outside world, but what struck her were the paintings on the wall. Her paintings. Every painting she’d allowed to go to her friend in New York. They were all here, hanging on Davis’ wall.
“You bought all of them,” she whispered, afraid to voice what she was seeing.
“Every single painting. I loved them. I couldn’t let them go to anyone else,” he said with reverence. He turned to look down at her and saw the emotion in her crystal blue eyes, but couldn’t identify it. “Your art struck me deeply,