Masterpiece (5 page)

“Easy, Travis,” Fleur says to him, kissing his jaw, which is chiseled and rough with his five o’clock shadow.
Damn.
You just don’t see his type in New Y
ork. Sun-tanned and
muscly and glamorously mussed-up.
Maybe
there are more of his kind around. Maybe
he could introduce me to a few of his rugged friends
during my short visit to the frontier.

“I can guarantee I’ll get you the highest possible prices for your paintings,” I say.

Travis eyes me with sneering
skepticism. “What kind of prices
?”

“Fifty thousand each,” I say. “And for the best five out of twenty I’ll run an auction starting at a hundred thousand each.
Which could go sky high if we play our cards right.
”

Travis whistles and Fleur’s eyebrows shoot up
.

“Seriously?” Fleur says.
“How?
These painting are only selling for
fifteen. Some are listed for
ten.”

“They’re worth a lot more,” I tell her. “You’re underselling yourself. You’ve got talent to burn, Fleur. If you’d let me, I could put you right in the middle of
the New York spotlight. Which is the only spotlight that matters.” Sure,
I occasionally come across as a little arrogant when it comes to my home town, but it’
s true. New York
is
the center of the art world.
I live
and breathe art every day. It’s my job and my obsession.
If there’s one thing I know
, it’s how to spot a winner. And these are winners.

“I’ll have to think about it,” she says. “I’ve had a lot of other offers.”

I like Fleur. She seems
grounded, and smart. “Of course.
But none of them will even be in this ballpark, I can assure you. Take your time, though. Talk to some of the others, but I can tell you that Alistair over there
wi
ll probably offer you twenty each. Roxanne will go one better, possibly promising twenty-five. I can more than double
whatever they offer you. And if you were interested in signing with me for October I’ll fill you in on exactly what we’d need to do to launch you into the big league.
The sooner we start
, the higher the prices will probably go.” I realize I’ve already made a crucial decision: I’m not planning on signing Fleur for Powers. Not at all.

I’m signing her for me.
And I’m going to kick ass setting up my gallery and marketing my artists.

All I need to do is find a prime space in Soho, get a few advance offers on Fleur’s paintings, apply for a bank loan and,
holy shit
… I’ll be a fully-fledged gallery owner!
My life-long dream.

“You’re one of the best I’ve ever seen, Fleur,” I tell her honestly.
“I’ll get you featured in a few of the big magazines
. We’ll run an ad in the New York Times, and
one in the New Yorker
.
I’ve got some fabulous connections and I know a c
ouple of top editors.
We’ll offer them invites to the exhibition opening
for cut rates.
We’ll spread the word that you’re the new It girl. And we’ll create a buzz, so people get hungry
.
Once they start talking about your paintings around town your prices will start to skyrocket.”

“I like this girl,” Travis says to Fleur.

It’s slightly pathetic how flattered I am that Travis likes me, or at least likes my offer. I’m starting to realize just how starved I am for some alpha male company. Not that I’ve ever
had
much alpha male company (or
any
, come to think of it). Most men in the New York art scene are either ego-inflated dickheads like Powers or very gay. Maybe that’s why my imagination has been running away with me lately.
Maybe that’
s why I’ve been dreaming about dark and dirty cowboy studmuffins.
Able to bestow mind-blowing orgasms with one
slow, hot kiss …

“Elle?”

Oh. Fleur
said something. “Sorry, what?”

“I said we’re heading back to my place for dinner. Would you like to come? Then we could talk a little more about your offer.”

“I would love to,” I say.

Maybe Fleur has a brother. Or maybe Travis does.

Chapter Five

I dab the last few strokes of red paint onto the canvas and stand back to look at it.

It’s done.

It’s fucking perfect. Possibly the best one I’ve done yet.

I don’t know
much about this stuff but I have a feeling these are pretty good. Not that I’ll
ever bother finding out. I can just imagine what Hogan would do with that kind of
information.
Max Cash, our favorite rodeo hero, has a secret little hobby he never told us about. Who knew our champion was a closet Picasso?
Apparently,
that’s
what he’s been doing behind closed doors when he was out of commission on the rodeo circuit. Painting pretty pictures.

It’s the last thing I want anyone finding out about. I’m not s
ure why. Maybe because it feels
personal. Like I’m finally tuning into some of the emotion that went along with losing my parents. They were amazing people. They were the kind of parents everyone wishes they had
. Or
maybe it has something to do with almost dying when I got trampled by a two-and-a-half-ton bull. Or finally realizing that I’m twenty-six years old and I’ve never had a relationship
that lasted more than a week. Or
suddenly feeling like I want more out of life than blowjobs from bimbos I can’t actually stand to have a conversation with.

Fuck.

Maybe I’m getting weak.

Maybe that fall fucked me up more than I realized.

It pisses me off that my secret’s out
.
Travis turned up a week or so ago and ran upstairs before I could stop him – I was so immersed in the music and the paint I hadn’t noticed until it was too late.
He saw
my paintings and laughed about it, which is exactly what I expected him to do.
I
would’ve fucking laughed at
him
if the tables were turned.

      
We work on the ranch. We ride and train and sell horses. We conquer bulls in the ring.
We drink whiskey and get dusty and dirty and we swear a lot.

We don’t paint goddamn pictures.

I have no idea why I feel so compelled to do exactly that.

It’s like there’s this current inside me that wants out. It almost hurts sometimes if I don’t let it have it’s way. It’s like
lust
, this urge
.
Hot, necessary need, funneling out of the end of my paintbrush. When I slide the paint along the surface of that canvas, i
t feels so fucking good to just go with it.

And the stuff that ends up on the canvas when I’m done is … crazy. There’s no other way to describe it.

Maybe because his girlfriend is an artist
Travis thinks he knows something about art. “You know, man,” he said
, after staring around my loft at the hundred or so paintings I have stacked against the walls. “These are actually pretty fucking good. Let me show some to Fleur.”

“No fucking way,” I said. “I paint to let off
steam. When I couldn’t work after the fall it gave me something to do.
And now I’m gonna
burn them all before I go catch Blaze and ride over to Canyon to fix the fence where that hole is. Where the cattle’ve been getting through.”

“Beau fixed that yesterday,” he said.
And before I knew it there was a knock on the door
downstairs and Fleur was calling out to us. Before I could stop him, Travis yelled, “
Come on up here, Fleur. You
got to check this out.”

Of course I was pissed off as hell but I was hardly going to
have a goddamn tantrum about it. So I swore them to secrecy. “No one,” I said, “finds out about this. Or I’ll fucking skin you alive
right before I beat
you to a bloody pulp.”
I meant that. “This is between the three of us and no one else
.” Travis knows I can take him in a fight. I’ve done it once or twice when we’ve had a difference of opinion. Usually I let
him off easy because I’m a nice guy. I’m an inch taller than him and stronger, even though he’s quicker.

“Jesus, Max,” Fleur said, staring at one of the paintings. It was the one of a charging bull. My paintings are sort of abstract, so you could’ve guessed it was a
charging bull but you might not have been entirely sure. “These are incredible. You could exhibit these.”

“No,” I said, impatiently. “I already said I’m not showing anyone. It’s just something I do when I ‘m alone. I don’t want all of goddamn Montana in on it, all right?”

Fleur was stubborn about it but I was more stubborn. She insisted on taking a couple of paintings for her house, which I only allowed once she promised she wouldn’t tell anyone who the artist was
. I really don’t care. If she wants some she can have them. I’ll probably end up burning them anyway.

I know I can trust those two, so after they’d given me their word and left my house, I paced around for a while
.
I would’ve burned the paintings then but
I decide to do it later.
I’ve sort of gotten attached to a few of them. They remind me things. Of thoughts
I’ve had, and memories. Dreams. Hopes, even. I’m thinking about doing a series but it would involve some outside help.

A model.

Fuck that. The last thing I need is another bimbo wanting me to pleasure her all the time while I’m trying to paint a goddamn picture.

Jesus, listen to me. I
am
becoming
a pussy.

I toss the paintbrushes into some water and run down the stairs to go and find my horse
.

I need some air and good long ride, alone under the big sky.

Chapter Six

I feel like a freak in my tiny car but I follow Travis’s truck
to Fleur’s house. It takes about forty minutes and the last
ten minutes of the drive is along
a dirt road. It’s getting dark and I
almost go off the road twice. I
manage to avoid killing myself only because I drive at around twenty miles an hour the entire
way. But we finally make it.

“Jesus Christ, where’d you learn how to drive?” asks Travis as I’m getting out of my car.

“Oh. Yeah, sorry about that. I usually take the subway.”

Travis stares at me then just shakes his head and walks away. Fleur’s a lot nicer. She invites me into her cute little cottage, which is made almost entirely of wood and stone. It’s rustic but also modern. Any New Yorker would kill
to have a space like this.
I decide I like Montana. A lot.

“Travis is going to fry up some steaks while you and I talk,” says Fleur. She invites me to sit on one of the leather couches arranged in
front of the stone fireplace. “Honey,” she says to Travis. “Could you open a bottle of wine?”

Hot, surly, rugged
and
a cook? Kill me now. I have
got
to find myself one of these.

Travis pours three glasses of red wine and then disappears into the kitchen.

“I love your house,” I tell her.

“Thanks. My parents live in the big house, on the other side of the ranch. So I get the cottage. I love it. I don’t think I could ever move.”

“I can see why,” I say.

I’m looking around for more of Fleur’s art and she seems to read my mind. “If you’re looking for more of my paintings, I used them
all for the exhibition. Which is something I wanted to talk to you about. I like the sound of your offer,
and I’d love to go with it, but there’s no way I’ll be able to paint twenty paintings by October.
The best I can probably do i
s February.
Maybe January
, but even that would be pushing it.”