Teardrop Lane (8 page)

When the newcomer’s gaze shifted from Rose to him, curiosity replaced the concern she’d displayed. Seeing it, Rose said, “Have you two not met?”

“No, but I know who you are.” She gave him a brilliant smile and offered her hand. “I’ve been wanting to come by your studio and talk business. I love your work. I’m Sage Rafferty, Cicero. I own the art gallery in town.”

“Allow me to return the compliment. I was familiar with your work, too, even before Gabi showed me the painting you gave her for the retail shop. It’s fabulous, and perfect for the store. You have a gift for mood and color.”

Sage brightened at the compliment from a fellow artist. “Thank you. I thought a shop named Whimsies should have a fairy or two on its walls.”

“You also did that landscape at the medical clinic.”

Sage nodded, and Rose explained, “Sage is my sister.”

“I see the resemblance in your smiles.”

“You’ve actually seen her smile?” Sage asked, her attention returning to her sibling. “Lately?”

“Sage,” Rose said in a warning tone. “I’m fine.”

“Honey, you are so not fooling me. I know what it’s like to let the work drag you into dark places. Let me help you. Lean on me. Heaven knows it’s my turn.”

Cicero’s expression must have betrayed his curiosity at those remarks because Rose gave him a wry smile and said, “My sister is a physician, too.” Then to Sage, she added, “He doesn’t like doctors.”

“Oh. One of
those
.”

Her disdain so matched her sister’s that he had to laugh.

“I know when it’s time to make a strategic retreat. I think it’s time I wandered home. Sage, it was a pleasure to meet you. Dr. Anderson, I’ll let you know when it’s time for me to collect our wager. G’night, ladies.”

He tipped an imaginary hat, left bills on the bar for the drinks, then departed Murphy’s Pub. He walked home on the bitter cold February night feeling pleasantly warm, and he dreamed about stethoscopes and little black dresses.

The following day he had the studio to himself since Gabi was off to Denver with her mother shopping for a wedding gown. Cicero sat in his office with a stack of bills, a few checks, and his adding machine, hoping he’d managed to keep his head above water for another month. His computer sounded an incoming video call. Mitch. Calling from Bella Vita Isle.

Please, don’t let this be bad news
.

The young man’s expression relieved him. “Your mom is okay?” Cicero asked, in lieu of hello.

“So far so good, mon. Praise be. They’ve scheduled bypass surgery for tomorrow.”

“At the hospital in Miami? The place Flynn recommended?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then.” Cicero exhaled a slow breath. Mitch’s family was his family, too, and his mother’s heart attack in late January had scared them all. Cicero had been so worried that he’d actually overcome his fury with physicians long enough to find the name of a heart specialist for her to consult.

After a little more discussion about his mother, Mitch asked about the Galveston studio, and Cicero caught him up with the progress on that front. “We’re still negotiating,”
he said. “I’m beginning to think that lawyers can give doctors a run for their money when it comes to being asses.”

The offer for the building housing his studio in Galveston had been the one bright spot in an otherwise bleak January. The week after his sister’s death, a developer had swooped in with a plan to build a resort hotel that required the destruction of the old building Cicero had purchased for a studio the previous year. With Jayne gone, and since the Parnells didn’t want him underfoot and offering child-rearing opinions as they worked to form their new family, he’d had no reason to stay in Texas. He’d be close enough in Colorado should the little demons need him, and he stood to turn a tidy profit from the sale. Those funds would go a long way toward paying the medical debts he’d assumed when he’d signed paperwork that ensured that his sister got to see the very best, out-of-her-insurance-network doctors. Those bills hadn’t died with his sister.

Talk about the Texas studio evolved into conversation about the Colorado one. Cicero was relieved to learn that Mitch still intended to spend June through September in Eternity Springs, barring any unpleasant surprises concerning his mother. As the conversation wound down, Mitch asked, “So, just how cold is it in your little mountain metropolis today?”

Cicero thought of Doctor Delicious. “Not as cold as I expected, actually. You’ll call me after the procedure?”

“I will.”

“From the hospital. Use your cell. Don’t make me wait until you get home to your computer.”

“Yes, boss.”

Cicero returned to his figures, and after a few more calculations and projections, he decided he could afford to wait out the developer a little while longer. He honestly believed that if he remained patient, he could milk
the man for another fifteen percent. With any luck, by the end of summer, he’d find himself free of the financial rough patch he’d been slogging through for months. It would be so nice to throw this yoke off his shoulders.

After all, since he’d promised Jayne and the Parnells that he’d help with financial support for the kids, he had college to save for.

He came close to banging his head on the table at that thought.

Sighing, he took out his checkbook and began tackling invoices. He was halfway through the stack when he heard the front door open. Happy for the distraction, he looked up to see his friend and Gabi’s fiancé, Flynn Brogan, stride into the studio.

Cicero took a good look at his friend’s expression and rolled out an old joke. “A horse walks into a bar—”

“And the bartender asks, ‘Why the long face?’ Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re right. I’m not a happy man.”

Not an unhappy one, either, Cicero decided. More disgruntled. He took a guess at why. “You have a fight with Gabriella?”

“You mean Ms. Hard Head? I don’t want to talk about it.”

Cicero leaned back in his chair, ready to be amused. He knew his friend. “Of course you want to talk about it. You wouldn’t have come here and plopped down in a chair otherwise.”

“You’re wrong. I’m here because I have something to discuss with you that doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that my beloved fiancée refuses to move in with me.”

“She’s cut you off?”

“I didn’t say she won’t sleep with me, but she won’t spend the night. She won’t move in. She wants to wait until after we’re married, and that’s not happening for months yet because it takes months to plan a wedding.”

“Oh, the horror.”

Flynn flipped him the bird.

Cicero laughed. “Gabi’s a girly girl. Of course she wants a wedding.”

“There should be some compromise here,” Flynn grumbled. “If she’s so determined not to live with me until we’re married, then why can’t we quietly get it done at the courthouse now, then have the wedding like she wants this summer?”

“Makes perfect sense to me.”

“Me, too!” Flynn’s voice rang with righteousness. “But when I suggested it, you’d have thought I proposed that we rounded up some kittens to dye purple and sprinkle with glitter.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, man. In my experience, once Legs takes a position, it takes an earthquake to move her off of it.”

Flynn nodded his agreement and sighed. “True enough. By the way, don’t you think it’s time you dropped that nickname you have for my wife-to-be?”

Cicero considered the question. He knew the term needled Flynn. That’s why he used it every chance he got. What were friends for if not to give one another grief? He shook his head. “Maybe after the wedding. So, you mentioned another reason for visiting this morning?”

“Oh, yeah.” Flynn rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m here to give you a heads-up. Ms. Granite Head is bummed that she’s not here to give you this news herself, and don’t think I refrained from pointing out that the nuptial extravaganza is the cause. Anyway, the way she tells it, sometime last fall, she decided you should participate in this thing, but she knew you’d say no, so she took it upon herself to throw your hat into the ring.”

Warily, Cicero asked, “What ring?”

“Have you ever heard of the Albritton Fellowship?”

Cicero shook his head.

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“I didn’t think it would. You’re not the type to bother with competitions.”

“Competitions?” A seed of anger sprouted within him. “What has Gabi done?”

“She submitted your work for consideration for the Albritton, and they’re announcing the three finalists this morning. You’re one of them. Gabi had put her cell number on the application, but she was halfway to Denver when they called. She told them you wouldn’t be available to speak with them until this afternoon in order to give me time to come by here and clue you in. She’s afraid you would blow off the phone call if you didn’t know what it’s about.”

“I will blow them off. I don’t do competitions.”

“You really should do this one, Cicero,” Flynn said with a knowing smirk. “The prizes are substantial. As a finalist, you’re already assured of a cash award—if you participate, that is. If you were to win, there’s a fellowship that pays an additional stipend for a year. Not to mention the boost you’d surely get from all the publicity. The Albritton is a big hairy deal, and apparently, you’re the first glass artist to ever make the finalist cut.”

“I don’t enter contests.”

“Then you’ll be throwing away a minimum of fifty grand.”

Fifty grand?
Cicero sat up straight. “What did you say?”

“Second place is one hundred and first place is a cool quarter mil.”

“Mil—what? Million? The winner’s prize is two hundred fifty thousand dollars?”

“Plus the stipend of the same amount.”

“Holy hell. What do you have to do to win? Kill someone?”

“Actually, I think you’d have to create something in your medium.”

“How many somethings?”

“Just one, I think. I don’t know all the details. That’s the information you’ll be given in the phone call. You can get online and read about it, too. Now, back to Gabi. You’re a ladies’ man. Do you have any ideas for me about how to win her over to my way of thinking?”

Cicero couldn’t drag his attention away from the half-million-dollar dangle. Distractedly, he said, “Try sex.”

“What do you mean, try sex? That’s the whole problem here. I want to have more of it, and that means she needs to be there.”

“That’s all I have, Brogan. Frankly, it’s all I ever need. Not that I’ve ever wanted a woman to move in with me, mind you. I tend to have the opposite problem. Once I take them to bed, I have a hard time getting them to leave.”

“You are such an egotistical ass, Cicero.”

“Just telling the truth, my man. Just telling the truth.”

They traded insults a bit more in the manner of good male friends, before Flynn took his leave. The moment the door shut behind his friend, Cicero opened his laptop and keyed in a search for Albritton Fellowship.

It was a biennial contest for artists of any medium. And the prizes really were what Brogan had claimed. He scanned the home page, then followed a link to read about the most recent winner and finalists. Two painters and a potter. They’d been given a theme and asked to produce a representative work by a deadline. The board of directors of the Albritton Foundation chose the winner.

Cicero read the artists’ bios and studied the photos of the work they’d produced for the contest. Impressive. And he was a finalist? Not that he wasn’t confident of his own talent, because he knew he was good. But still.

His mind spun. Worst-case scenario, he made fifty big ones and could pay off a chunk of the medical bills.
Best-case scenario, I make sick bank. Sick
. He continued reading from the website. There were shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas, attended by everybody who’s anybody in the art world.

Now that he’d thought about it, Cicero realized he had heard about this competition, but he’d never considered entering. Why had Gabi? How had she done it without his knowledge? What had she submitted? He clicked around some more and discovered further details about the entry requirements. Then he remembered the photographs she’d asked him to email last fall.

“She put together a catalog,” he murmured to himself.

He would have chewed her out if he’d known. He didn’t go in for this sort of stuff. But now—he owed her. Big. He’d have to do something nice for her. Make a grand gesture. She wouldn’t expect that from him. Cicero didn’t make grand gestures to his apprentices—but then he didn’t enter contests, either.

“Live and learn,” he said, tossing his checkbook back into his desk drawer. Financial matters could wait. He needed to think, and he did his best thinking with a punty in his hands. Besides, working would help him pass the time until he received the phone call. If
I receive the phone call
. He knew that Gabi and Flynn wouldn’t B.S. him about something this big, but until he actually spoke to the Albritton people himself, he’d worry that a mistake had been made. His luck had been running just that way.

He’d taken two steps out of his office when the phone rang. He glanced at the wall clock. Only ten after eleven. Caller ID showed an unfamiliar number. Ordinarily, he would have ignored the call, but now, he picked up. “Hello?”

“Am I speaking with Mr. Hunter Cicero?”

His heart thudded. “You are.”

“Excellent. I’m glad to have reached you. It just occurred to me that you’re in the mountain time zone and I’m calling a little early. My name is Elliott Goodson. I am the Executive Director of the Albritton Foundation. I am pleased to inform you that you are a finalist for this year’s fellowship competition.”

Damned if Cicero didn’t go a little bit weak in the knees. He propped a hip on the corner of his desk for support and said, “I’m honored, Mr. Goodson. Thank you so much.”

By the time he hung up the phone fifteen minutes later, all thought of working had disappeared. His thoughts spun like a waterspout off Bella Vita Isle. He had a deadline—August 31. He had a theme—a quote from a poem by Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers
.
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all
.