cocked his head at her. “What’s the thing about painters and morning light? I’ve heard it before.”
“The air is usually clearer in the morning so the light is purer. As the day goes on the light shifts to more golds and reds. It’s not actually a necessity, but a preference, depending on what you want to accomplish. I know artists who paint by artificial light in their studios. It works. And honestly,” she said with a wry smile, “not many people are ever going to see the painting in fresh morning light.”
He laughed at that.
“If you want realism in a painting, those things can become really important. I’m more impressionistic, and don’t worry about it as much. But there comes a point when I feel like I don’t have enough contrast and perspective, and that’s when I stop. Like right now outside. I could paint it, even though it’s flat and gray out there. I’m sure I’d come up with a good enough impression of what I can see, but it wouldn’t speak to me.”
“Speak to you?”
“That’s hard. Um...” She thought about it. “Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Flat light doesn’t give me the sense of energy I want. For others it might work fine.”
“So it’s something you feel as well as what you see?”
“Definitely.”
He nodded slowly, clearly thinking it over. “I guess that’s what makes an artist.”
She had no idea how to answer that. If she came right down to it, she found it difficult to express what drove her, what satisfied her, what had always driven her to paint in a certain way.
“I’ll bet you didn’t have many light problems where you come from.”
“That depends. For a lot of the summer the light is harsh and glaring. It softens in the fall, though. The Tampa area, where I live, feels really tropical. Looks tropical. The Gulf Coast is mostly a serene sort of place in terms of weather, water, beaches, palm trees. Then you go over to the east coast and the Atlantic, and it’s very different, especially in the northern part of the state. A whole lot more energetic, in terms of the water and weather.”
“I guess it’s like the difference between the mountains and the prairie out here.”
“Maybe. I haven’t been around enough to know.”
“So,” he said, resting his elbows on the table and fixing her with his incredible gray eyes, eyes that now looked dark and mysterious in the dim light, “what brought you this way for your vacation? We’re out of the way for most people.”
“I was looking for out of the way. And I wanted mountains. Really big, huge mountains. Someone suggested western Montana, but then I found this forest online and it looked perfect.”
“I need to show you around some,” he said decisively. “There’s a whole lot to see in these mountains. Great places to paint or take photos that I think you’d like.”
Neither of them mentioned Buddy or that problem. She realized they were chatting as if this really were a vacation for both of them. But at the back of her mind hovered the awareness that he intended to do a recon over at Buddy’s, probably tonight. That would be no vacation.
She definitely wasn’t going to let him go alone, although if he rode out of here on Dusty, she had no idea how she could catch up. Didn’t matter, she’d find a way. He absolutely shouldn’t go alone.
Rain came sweeping through, a deafening drumbeat on the roof, heavy enough that the world beyond the window nearly disappeared. Craig made another pot of coffee for them and brought out a small stack of boxes that contained puzzles.
“You have your choice. There’s one of those 3-D puzzles that I can guarantee we won’t finish today. In fact,” he added, looking at the boxes, “I can virtually guarantee we won’t finish any of them in a day. Will that bother you?”
“Why should it?”
“Because some people don’t like to do things they know they can’t finish.”
“I’m not one of them. But why so many puzzles?”
He set the boxes on the table and started spreading them out so she could see the collection. “Some researchers can stay here for weeks at a time. It gives them something to do on long evenings or when the weather’s too bad. These have accumulated over a few years, from the look of it.”
She selected the three-dimensional puzzle that looked like a castle on the Rhine. “I always wanted to do one of these but I