The Colors of Love (27 page)

He paced back into her house, through the tiny collection of rooms. Not enough room, too small for pacing. What would she think of his place? Sterile, he decided, she'd think it sterile and cold. If she brought an easel and her paints, would it still be sterile? He didn't have an ocean view, but one of his spare rooms had a big skylight.

No, she needed the ocean. He'd find her a home hanging over the ocean; somewhere with a yard, grass, and room for children. Room for them to take a walk on the beach at night. Over on Bainbridge Island, perhaps, although he'd never told her about his dream of a house on Bainbridge.

He felt something at his ankles, looked down, and found Squiggles rubbing against him. He picked the kitten up, and as Squiggles purred against his chest, he realized he'd have neither time nor money for new houses if the Thurston Foundation denied him a grant for the treatment center, as seemed likely now.

We'll find, a way. We'll find another way.
Of course it was a figure of speech, but her words had done something to his heart. Something that felt permanent.

Believing the Thurston Foundation was the answer to his fight for a treatment center, he'd let himself forget the alternatives. Tomorrow he'd call Gordon at All Saints' again. Maybe the hospitals couldn't give money, but they could damned well use their influence in other ways.

His steps quickened, fueled by new ideas, the embryonic shape of a new plan.

In Jamie's kitchen, he sat down and pulled out his pen and appointment book, flipped to tomorrow's date, and jotted down a series of names—telephone calls he'd make over lunch tomorrow.

As he was putting his organizer back in his pocket, he felt a piece of paper and pulled out the pink slip on which Vanda had noted his mother's number. From the area code, she was probably in San Francisco.

He picked up Jamie's phone and dialed the number. He wasn't surprised when a hotel switchboard answered. Alisha Kent had been living in hotels for years, ever since she divorced her second husband and decided to pursue her music career again.

He gave his mother's name to the desk clerk, only to learn that she'd checked out an hour ago. Typical of his mother to give a number, then fail to be there. He shrugged and dropped the phone back into its cradle. She'd phone tomorrow, or perhaps there'd be silence for another three months. She'd always been unreliable.

Restless again, Alex prowled into Jamie's bedroom. He was calling her Jamie again. She liked to be called Jamie, but he knew that when he loved her, she would become Jamila in his mind, a passionate and exotic mystery.

What was taking her so long? How long could it take to drive a child across the bridge and over to Magnolia Bluff, to walk her to her apartment? She
would
walk Sara upstairs to her apartment, wouldn't she? Surely she wouldn't drop the child off outside the building assuming someone would be there to look after her.

He prowled back into her studio and stared at the low easel where Sara's picture of Squiggles had rested only half an hour ago. Didn't this easel show that Jamie was different, that she took care, that her own desires and needs didn't swallow up her sense of responsibility?

She'd done a lot for Sara, taking Squiggles into her home, teaching the child about the world of pictures.

He studied the portrait of Sara. Jamie had captured something magical in this picture, dreams in the child's eyes, the tender innocence of the very young, the feline wildness lying dormant in the cat's narrowed eyes.

He thought of the young boy in the portrait he'd purchased from Northern Images The picture had reminded Alex so much of his brother, and he'd known the moment he first saw it that he wanted those dreaming eyes in his living room. The trouble was, when he'd got the picture home, he'd realized it didn't fit the living room.

Alex himself didn't seem to fit that living room anymore. Until he met Jamie, he'd never seen the sterility of his life and his house. He couldn't call it a home.
This
was a home, this house with a studio for a living room, and a warm, living woman's personality imprinted everywhere throughout the tiny structure.

Slowly, he walked to the far wall where several paintings stood drying on a rack she'd built, or had built for her, especially to hold them. Whenever he'd been in this house, his mind had been so focused on the woman that he hadn't really
looked
at these paintings.

He stood in front of a dark swirl of red and black, feeling his heart pound with the memory of her naked body joined with his. He couldn't locate sex, lust, passion in the splashes of red and black, but he
felt
them.

Shaken, he moved to the next painting, became trapped in a yearning so intense it seemed too much to bear. Did she feel these emotions as she placed color on canvas? How could she create feelings so intense with only color and line, without identifiable form?

What had the banner at the gallery claimed?
A Strong Young Northwestern Talent.
Jamila Ferguson was more than that. She saw more than the ordinary person, somehow used her own passion to transfer her vision to canvas.

On the next canvas, a man walked through the rain, head down, hurrying home. How had she managed to show the faceless man's eagerness? What line or splash of gray told Alex that this man was hurrying home, that his mind was not on the wet raindrops, but on the warm home waiting, the woman whose arms would welcome him, the fire in the fireplace?

Yet the picture showed only a rainy street and a faceless man.

The next three paintings were covered with white cloth. Alex lifted the first cloth, found himself staring at another image of Sara. While the painting resting on Jamie's easel showed a child full of dreams and innocence, this portrait revealed sorrow. Sara stood on the balcony, staring out over the water, oblivious of the kitten rubbing against her leg. Grief lived in the curve of the child's shoulder, in the stance that revealed hope even in the midst of hopelessness.

Without Mother,
he thought, the portrait of a motherless child's grief. Sara had shown Jamie her grief, her loneliness, and Jamie had painted it, immortalizing pain on canvas. He dropped the cloth, wondering if Jamie had covered it as some part of the drying process, or because the painting would disturb Sara if she saw it.

What did she plan to do with it? Show it in the gallery when she had her fall showing, revealing the child's private pain to the world?

Disturbed, he covered the image of a grieving Sara, reached for the cloth over the next painting and flipped it back.

Alex himself, sitting up in a bed... the bed where they'd first made love.

He swallowed, backing away from the painting. The man on the canvas reached out, stretching his hand toward a woman out of sight His eyes, his face... a man helplessly entrapped in the spell of love, eyes yearning and filled with worship.

Jamila had reached inside him, had pried into his most secret place to grasp the vulnerability, the love he himself had only just discovered. Then she'd used it to create his image on canvas, to immortalize his weakness. She'd used him, teaching him to need her, taking his need and his—his love, exposing it on canvas.

Her fall showing. She'd hang this painting in Liz's gallery, exposing—to anyone who walked by—the need against which he was helpless to fight.
A powerful new talent.
The critics would stare at Alex's soul, exposed here on canvas, and write words in their columns.

"Alex?"

He turned his head. Jamila Ferguson, powerful new talent. He hadn't heard her returning. She stood in the doorway to the corridor, her eyes tangled with an emotion he decided must be nervousness. Or guilt.

His head swiveled back to the paintings. He stepped forward and pulled away the covering over Sara's painting once again. Sara and Alex immortalized on canvas, souls exposed.

"Alex?" Her voice grew closer. "What are you—Those are private."

He laughed bitterly. "These are private?" he turned his head and saw her eyes feigning innocence. "This is why you wanted Sara, isn't it?"

She stepped back. "I painted Sara. I painted you. It's what I do, Alex. I'm a painter, an artist."

"Oh, yes." He focused on Sara's image. "You saw this in her, didn't you, that first night? You saw her sadness, this terrible weight of grief."

Jamie—no,
Jamila
walked to the painting of the child, stood in front of it as if considering it for the first time. "I saw a hint," she said slowly. "I knew she was lonely."

"So you brought her here, where you could exploit her grief to create a painting that would get you a good review."

"Exploit?" She turned to stare at him, one fist pressed against her chest between her breasts. Suddenly, graphically, he saw his own hands on the naked flesh of her breasts, saw her eyes lose focus as he loved her. But when they loved, she'd remained aware enough—had
seen
enough to paint him like
that,
to place the bewitched man on her canvas.

"When did you plan the painting?"

"Plan?" She shook her head. "I painted Sara—I saw her standing there, Squiggles rubbing against her. I knew she was remembering her mother, yearning for her mother and knowing she would never return. I—" She spread her hands expressively. "The painting just—I saw her and I needed to paint her."

"And me?" He jerked his head to the canvas behind her. "When did you see that? When did you see me like that? Did you see a
hint
at the beginning? Did you want it for your canvas? You made the suggestion, Jamila. You told me you wanted an affair. You were the one who selected the hotel." He forced a laugh. "I should have known, shouldn't I?"

"Should have known what?" Her cooling voice fueled his anger.

"I should have known you wanted an
artistic experience.
Did you get what you wanted?" He wanted to pace, wouldn't let himself because he wasn't sure what he might do if he got close to her. He wanted to shake her, to bury his mouth in hers—even now. "Did you give your virginity to expose the part of me you needed for a good painting?" He stepped closer, couldn't stop himself. "Is it enough, or do you need more? Two paintings? Six? How many will it take to satisfy your lust?"

"I love you, Alex." Her hand touched his chest and he stared at it, a thing separate from him, inanimate and powerless.

"Of course you love me. You love everything, everyone. You love Sara, you'll go on loving her until you've sucked her dry of emotion, until you've got her guts on canvas. You love me—oh, yes, you really get into the part, and I have to admit you're good, damned good in bed. But I don't think I'll stick around for the rest of the show."

"You're wrong."

"No, I'm not wrong." He'd intended to step back but came closer instead, hating himself because he had to slide his hand into her hair and angle her head for his lips. He thought she would fight him, wanted her to fight, but she seemed plastic in his grip and he kissed her once, hard, then released her as if she'd burned him.

"You use everyone, Jamila. Me, Sara, that poor fool walking down the street, even the cat. When you look at us, if you can see a painting, you pull us into your life for as long as it takes, then you drop us."

"It's not like that."

"Isn't it? Can you deny that when we're together, you're thinking how it will be on canvas?" He caught something in her eyes, an admission.

"Alex, do you think because I'm passionate a
bout my
painting, that means my passion for you is
invalid?"

He smiled, and in that instant wondered how she would paint his travesty of a smile. "This time, Jamila Ferguson, I'm walking away, and I don't give a damn if you're finished having your passionate artistic experience."

Her lips parted but he knew he mustn't listen to her words.

"If you show that painting," he growled, "if you show
any
painting of me, I'll sue you. I'll take every damned cent you've earned from your art and I'll ruin you."

Her head went back at his words, her eyes catching fire. Suddenly he felt the energy, the rage flaming in her.

"I warn you, Jamila. I'll sue."

She spun and jerked her hand out, pointing at the red and black swirl on canvas. "That's us, Alex, making love. When I show that painting this fall, they'll talk about power and passion, and you can sue all you damned well like, you won't win." She smiled bitterly. "I'm going to call it
Alex."

"You'll be sorry." Jesus! Now he was reduced to childish threats!

"Is that your objective, Alex, to make me sorry? I knew from the beginning that I would be. You've got a nerve, you know, standing there accusing
me
of devious dealing. What about you? You took one look at me and disapproved. Before you knew anything about me, you didn't like me. But you lusted, didn't you, Alex? So you took me."

"Took you? You damned well
offered."

Her smile grew colder. "How convenient for you. And now that you've had me, you're looking for a way out and you want to blame it on me. That's what you've done from the beginning, isn't it, Alex? You've blamed every damned thing in the world on me. When you go back to Diana, will you tell yourself you've stopped wanting me? Don't believe it, Alex. If you go to Diana Thurston's arms, if you marry her, you'll spend your life wanting me."

For the first time in his life since his brother's death, he was in danger of doing physical violence to another human being. He reached for her, caught himself, and clenched his fists at his sides.

"Jamila—"

"Get out." She crammed her hands into her pockets. "Get out of my house."

He spun and walked away, throwing her front door open and striding out, fighting his need to grasp her by the shoulders, to shake her within an inch of her life, to bury his mouth in hers and kiss her until the madness left him.

Somehow, he got to his car, yanked open the car door.

He would go back, take that canvas, and tear it to bits, destroy what she'd created. At the very least, he should go back and close her front door. Anyone could see that open door and walk in.