Hummingbird Lake Page 0,29
appointment with Celeste she’d been immersed in a fanciful piece of pixies and rainbows and having a wonderful time. Afterward, when she picked up her brush to complete the painting, she’d lost all enthusiasm for the subject.
It was all Colt Rafferty’s fault.
She’d wanted to melt through the floor when she’d looked up to see the man. Twice now he’d witnessed her attacks. He’d almost been arrested because of her! It was mortifying, humiliating, and discouraging. And what was his response?
“My work is nice,” she grumbled for probably the hundredth time since leaving the upstairs parlor at Angel’s Rest. Oh, she hadn’t missed that teasing glint in his eyes. Actually, it was better than the anger they’d reflected when he put her into the taxi in Fort Worth. But why did he have to latch on to her work as a way to annoy her? Why did she care? She didn’t have a thin creative skin. She could take criticism. So why hadn’t she stood up for herself? Why hadn’t she said that what was “nice” were the checks she received from her “nice” paintings? Why was it that she always thought of what she wanted to say to him after the moment for saying it had passed?
That man had been a thorn in her side even before she’d met him. As a hobbyist wood-carver, he did do lovely things with wood, but she still didn’t think it was right that he’d won first prize in the local-artists category at last year’s art show. Not that she cared about the contest, because she didn’t. Not too much, anyway. It was only a little, local thing, after all.
Okay, maybe she did care. Some. She possessed a competitive personality, but it wasn’t that she expected to win the contest every year because she didn’t. The nature photographer who’d moved to town last fall did some amazing work, and if he were to win this year’s blue ribbon, well, so be it. But Marcus Burnes lived here. He paid taxes here. That should be the rule for anyone whose work was entered in the local-artists category.
“And why am I thinking about that, anyway?”
Was it because she didn’t want to consider the real question—which was why, as she’d climbed into her car at the Angel’s Rest parking lot, a few tears had slipped down her cheek? What was it about Rafferty? Why could he make her cry when she couldn’t manage the feat herself?
At the end of an hour of wasted effort at the easel, she finally threw in the paintbrush and decided to call it a day. It was time to go home. She was tired and cranky and she wanted to curl up on her couch before the fireplace in her cozy little cottage and read. Maybe drift off to sleep. Sleep. Glorious sleep.
She couldn’t wait to get home. She loved her lakeside place. When she’d first moved to Eternity Springs, she had lived and worked in the loft apartment above the gallery. Last year when the cottage’s absentee owner listed it for sale, she’d jumped at the opportunity to buy it. Having a second studio was a luxury, but being able to set up her easel beside the lake to work on good weather days was worth every penny. Besides, she made enough income off her “nice” paintings to easily afford it. “So there, Mr. Wood-carver.”
Although, come to think of it, she probably shouldn’t indulge in a book tonight. At quilt group last week, she’d promised to complete her assigned task before this week’s meeting. If she showed up without her finished squares, Sarah and Nic were bound to give her grief.
Of course, if—when—the nightmares woke her up tonight, maybe she could quilt instead of paint. On second thought, considering what she did with a paintbrush after her dreams, the idea of what she might do with a needle was terrifying.
Okay, then, she’d build a fire, put an audiobook on her iPod, and work on her squares. “Excellent compromise, Dr. Anderson,” she murmured to herself.
Dr. Anderson? Whoa. Sage gave an internal shudder. Where had that come from?
“I so very much need one—just one—good night’s sleep.”
At the turnoff to her home, she noted tire tracks in the snow and recalled that Celeste had mentioned that her next-door neighbors, the Landrys, were having a visitor this week. The Texans regularly shared their vacation home with friends, so this wasn’t an unusual occurrence, although it happened less frequently during winter than during the rest of