Emerald Fire (Christian Romance) (The Jewel Series) (18 page)

SUNDAY
afternoon after Christmas, Maxine went back to her apartment to get ready for evening services at church. Weary, she got out of Derrick’s primer gray Shelby Mustang and watched him squeal down her street. She had not come home in more than a week. First, on the Vegas trip with Barry, then spending the nights at Robin’s house while Sarah worked the third shift and Tony worked out of town.

She spent Christmas Eve with Robin and Tony, Sarah, and Derrick and they all woke up Christmas morning to full stockings, compliments of Santa Tony, and a huge waffle breakfast, compliments of Chef Maxine.

Christmas evening, Derrick, Sarah, and Maxine went to the movies and back to Sarah’s apartment for coffee and gingerbread cookies made by Sarah’s adopted mom. By the time they finished their third round of Trivial Pursuit, during which Derrick and Sarah traded insults with alarming regularity, Maxine felt exhausted. Derrick offered to drive her home, but they quickly discovered that the rain which had started that evening had turned into an ice storm that trapped them. Sarah’s roommate was stuck at the hospital working the third shift, so Maxine took her room. Derrick, who seemed uncharacteristically angry at the situation, took the couch.

All she wanted was her bathtub with the jets and whirlpools and some loud music drowning out any thoughts she might have the energy to think. As Maxine wearily climbed the steps to the entrance of her apartment, balancing boxes and bags of Christmas presents, an overnight bag slung over her shoulder, she saw a movement out of the corner of her eye. Startled, she turned and saw Barry walking toward her. He wore a heavy wool coat the color of burnt charcoal and a black ski cap pulled low over his ears. Her heart skipped a little beat at the sight of him. She hadn’t seen him since the hallway of the hotel. “Barry. Hi.”

He stopped at the base of her steps. From the middle step, she met him at eye level. “Where have you been?”

She frowned. “Been?”

“I’ve been trying to call you since last night.”

“Oh. We got trapped by the ice.”

“We?”

Maxine looked down the street where Derrick’s car had disappeared and back to Barry’s scowling face. “What’s going on?”

“I’m a little curious about who just dropped you off.”

Maxine felt her jaw clench in reaction to the supposition. “Oh. Well that would be that ‘none of your business’ person.” She whirled around and reached into her pocket to grab her keys to the outer door of her building when she heard the sound of the throttle of the engine of the Mustang pause behind her and Derrick’s voice call out to her.

“Maxi!”

Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she turned and smiled. “Did I forget something?”

“You might need these,” he said as he held her keys out through the open window. “They must have fallen out of your coat. I found them on the front seat.” He looked at Barry. “Hey man. Check out the Christmas present from Tony!” He grinned as he revved the engine.

Barry nodded back. “He told me he was on the lookout for one but never came back with whether he’d found it or not. It sounds fantastic.”

“Needs a paint job and a little bit of work. She’ll be a beaut’ when she’s done.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Looking at Barry with her lips tight, Maxine shoved her boxes and bags toward him. With surprise on his face, he grabbed them to keep them from falling to the snowy ground while she carefully stepped down from the steps and walked to the curb. “Thank you for turning around. It would have been a cold afternoon waiting for someone to bring me keys.”

Derrick laughed. “I bet. Merry Christmas again, and thanks for the jacket.”

“Bye.”

She turned around and glared again at Barry. “What were you asking again?”

“Nothing.” He cleared his throat while she unlocked her door. “Always good to see Derrick None of My Business DiNunzio.”

Maxine glared at him and fumbled with her keys with gloved hands. Barry said, “Hey, I’m sorry. I just …”

“Sorry? You just? What kind of girl do you think I am, exactly?” She pushed open the door and started up the staircase to her apartment. Her voice echoed against the blank walls. “Never mind. You don’t need to answer that.” She stopped outside of her apartment door and turned to look at him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I’m just worn out.” She took the strap of her overnight bag from his shoulder. Setting the bag at her feet, she reached for the boxes he held. “I’ll take these.”

Barry shifted so that she couldn’t take anything from him. “I’ll carry them inside.

With a shrug, Maxine opened the door. “How was your Christmas?”

“Christmas?” Barry followed her into her apartment. She led the way to the living room, where she tossed her keys and purse on the black coffee table and gestured toward the tree. “You can set those things there, if you want. I’ll sort through it all later.” While he completed that small task, she noticed the light blinking on her answering machine. “Did you leave me a message?”

Barry turned and took his cap off as he did so. “No. I called your cell. Several times.”

Snapping her fingers as if she just remembered something, she took her cell phone out of her purse. “I turned it off at the movies yesterday and forgot to turn it back on.” As she pressed the button to power up the phone, she went to her desk and hit the “play” button on her answering machine.

“Maxine. Hi. This is Henry. From the office.” Maxine shook her head. As if she wouldn’t recognize or place the team member from a huge project she’s been working on. “Listen, our meeting with Crow has been moved up to Monday morning. Vic is counting on you to make story boards. Just go with the last good idea we had. Thanks. Nine a.m. Looking forward to it. Hope you have a good Christmas.”

Maxine froze. The last good idea they had was to discard everything and start fresh Monday morning. She had missed a full week of work. She snatched the phone out of the cradle and checked recent calls. This message had been left Thursday evening – the day before Christmas Eve.

“Maxi …”

Remembering Barry, she slowly turned. “Barry, I can’t talk right now.”

She couldn’t avoid doing the presentation. Crow Chicken was the biggest client to cross her firm’s threshold ever. Daniel Crow had searched the city high and low for an agency that could present him with fresh new ideas, and he had chewed up and spit out nearly everyone on the block. Mitchell & Associates had an opportunity to step up to the big leagues, here. She didn’t think Crow would accept the excuse of a junior associate who ran off to Vegas to watch a football game as a good enough excuse to postpone this meeting.

The only problem was she had nothing. Her mind drew a blank on any good idea she might have. Knowing how many firms he’d dismissed made any idea she could come up with in those terrifying first few minutes seem tired, used, unsellable. The right presentation would land her the much sought after partnership. The wrong one, well …

Her phone rang, startling her. Recognizing Sarah’s number, she distractedly answered.

“Just checking to make sure you got home okay. Derrick drives like an idiot, and the roads are still so bad.”

“I’m fine. Listen.” Groaning out loud, she decided desperate times called for desperate measures. “Sarah, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of fried chicken?”

“The hapless genocidal slaughter of innocent hormone-fed fowl for the sake of human convenience and the almighty dollar. Oh! And greasy fried food clogging arteries and raising cholesterol leading to high-blood pressure, Type II Diabetes, and heart failure. Why do you ask?”

Realizing the folly of asking her vegan sister’s opinion on the matter, she snapped back. “Oh, give me a break. You couldn’t help me out just a little here, could you?”

“Sorry, sis. Best I can give you. Want to talk about spinach?”

“Gee, thanks.” She rubbed a sudden ache in the center of her forehead. “My entire career may be at stake, and now the only thing in my head is a gruesome picture of chickens running in terror from carnage while innocent diners drop dead from coronaries. Really appreciate it.”

“Just keep thinking of it the next time you’re trying to decide between the Caesar salad and the chicken salad. Then I’ll know I’ve accomplished something.”

Maxine blinked. “Sarah, you wouldn’t pick the Caesar salad, either, because it has cheese in it, and, horror of horrors, dressing made from dairy products and salty little fish.”

Sarah chuckled. “Well, for you, being that you are an unrepentant carnivore, we’re taking it slow. Baby steps, hon. Baby steps.”

Maxine rolled her eyes and ended the call abruptly. “Never mind. I’ve got to go. I love you.” She turned to Barry, who was unbuttoning his coat. “What about you?

“Me?”

“What’s the first thing you think of when you hear the words fried chicken?”

He responded without thinking. “Sunshine.”

“Sunshine?” Her brow wrinkled in concentration. She still looked in his direction, but she didn’t see him anymore. She saw sunshine. “Sunshine. Okay. What else?”

“Gingham checkered table cloth on lush green grass, blue skies, summertime, white dresses, potato salad.” He shifted the coat from his shoulders and removed the envelope from the inner pocket.

The full power of her green eyes suddenly hit him once more, accompanied with a smile that warmed him more than that sunshine he’d just alluded to ever could. “Barry, you are wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”

She abruptly left the room, and he gave in to the impulse to follow her. “I think we need to talk, Maxine.” He followed her through the apartment and through a door that led to her studio. He stopped suddenly, enveloped in a whole new world.

The studio was the size of an entire apartment. Bright light from the fluorescent lights she turned on lit the room with a white glow. Along one wall, supplies filled the shelves; paints and brushes and pencils and containers. A huge basket of clean rags sat on a shelf and a large basket of dirty rags overflowed below. One bookshelf held book after book after book of sketch pads. Against every wall, on every surface, she had stacked canvases; some empty, most completed.

Maxine went to a closet in the corner and opened it. Even more supplies lined the shelves in the closet. She drew out a stack of white drafting boards and shut the closet with her heel. “I know we need to talk, Barry. But I really need to work.” She looked at him while she set the boards on her drafting table.

“Yes. But give me five minutes to show you this paperwork and we can meet for lunch tomorrow to go over it.”

Maxine reached behind her head and started gathering up her long black tresses. Barry remembered the silky feel of her hair against his skin and suddenly and inexplicably missed it. “It will have to wait. I need to get this down before I lose it.”

She grabbed a pencil from the holder in front of her and started sketching more quickly than he’d ever seen. It looked like her hand moved in double time.

Barry moved up behind her and watched a nearly identical scene to the one he had imagined unfold onto the blank space before her. A wrinkle of concentration appeared between her brow, and he found himself wanting to kiss it away. Within minutes she had the basic outline of people picnicking in a sunny field. The rough sketch looked perfect, and he watched as she set it aside and started working on a new scene on a fresh board.

“Snoop around all you want. I’ll be done in a few minutes,” Maxine said, her voice completely distracted, her mind elsewhere.

Curious, he moved toward a stack of canvases propped next to the window and began to inspect them. He started out just absently thumbing through the paintings, but ended up engrossed in them. They ranged in styles from abstract images, to portraits of photographic perfection, to landscapes. She had beautifully crafted each painting, filled them with detail, and imparted a range of strong emotions.

He moved to the shelf of sketch pads. Hundreds of them, he was sure it was hundreds, were stacked neatly and labeled with dates. Some ranged months at a time, some covered only a day. Deciding to fully accept her permission to snoop, Barry picked one out at random. The date on the spine went back five years, and he found sketch after sketch of Robin and Sarah. Another one chronicled Robin and Tony’s wedding, detailing the elegance and grandness Tony had insisted upon. Book after book started giving Barry a view of her life from her eyes, something so few people could convey.

Three sketch pads were out of place under a box of paints. They were all over a decade old, and each had only one date on them. His hand trembled slightly as he opened the cover of the first one, instinctively suspecting the horror that would greet his eyes.

This drawing wasn’t as – controlled – as the one he’d seen in Tony’s apartment. The emotions of the artist poured out onto the page, making the lines almost jerky, the background details not as important. However, the details of the man were excruciatingly exact, down to a frayed buttonhole. The tattoo of the eagle on his chest was more exposed, and Barry saw that the tip of the wing headed toward the man’s shoulder. His eyes moved lower on the page, but where Maxine should have been was just a shadow; no details at all.

He knelt on the floor next to the shelves and turned page after page as the image haunted him over and over again. Different rooms, different clothing, showing him that this wasn’t a one time incident. On drawing after drawing, the girl remained shadowed.

“I used to have nightmares about it. I’d wake up and draw and draw until I couldn’t even move my hand anymore.” Her voice startled him. She stood directly behind him, her chin almost resting on his shoulder. “I burned most of the books, but eventually, I learned to keep them. I try to think of them as therapy. It was years before I could put myself in the picture.”

Barry cleared his throat. “Who is he?”

“His name’s Monty Jordan.” She settled onto the floor next to him. “He was a foster parent when I was fourteen.” She drew her legs up and rested her chin on her knees.

“Fourteen?” His voice came out sounding like a harsh whisper, almost pulled from him.