Her Heart's Desire (Sunflower Series Book 1) (14 page)

“Hello?” she tried to sound cheery. She
couldn’t handle a scolding from him. If she’d allowed him to bring
her to the city, the theft probably would’ve never happened. Her
conscience managed to heap continuous self-recrimination, but for
how long could she keep the loss a secret?

“You made it okay? You promised to call
me.”

“I’m sorry. I was swept away when I arrived.
The art gallery has expanded. The new wing will perfectly showcase
my artwork.” Had she successfully controlled the warble in her
voice? “I didn’t forget.” She managed not to lie. At least she
retained some measure of integrity.

“Well, let me know when you’re back. I think
we should talk about the argument Craig and I are having.”

“Sure. As soon as I get back. I need to go.
The gallery owner has some paperwork for me.” She had to get him
off the call. Hearing his soothing voice made it much harder not to
break down and cry, not to share the misery of her loss.

“I’m taking that as a promise. Call me when
you get back. As soon as you do.”

“Promise. Got to go. Bye.”

Jan walked back into the room and handed her
the list.

“Thanks.” She reviewed the list quickly.

“Let me know when you’ll deliver the new set
of paintings. The sooner, the better. Today?”

“I have a few at my studio here in town. The
rest...I’ll try to make it tomorrow,” Lia said heading out of the
room. She tucked the paper in her purse for a quick escape from the
gallery.

Jack barked when she climbed in the truck. At
least she wasn’t totally alone.

“Good boy,” she said turning around and
stretching back to hug him. “Wish I were you right now. You’ll
always have a home with me. Good food and a warm place to sleep.
And even if you can’t run loose at the farm, there’s a great
off-the-leash park in the city. At least I can make you happy,” she
said, releasing his neck. Scrunching her eyes, she willed tears not
to flow.

She made her way through the streets of
Kansas City and over to the Crossroads Arts district. The first
Friday of each month, all the galleries opened their doors to show
off works of local artists. The free event pulled in big crowds,
especially during the warm-weather months when restaurants offered
free
hors d'oeuvres
and bands played on street corners. But
with no crowds around, navigating the trailer proved to be easy.
She pulled into a parking spot along the curb, next to the brick
building housing her studio.

“Focus, Lia. You can’t give up.” She
straightened her hunched shoulders. “The show will go on, just not
an A-plus rated one.” Never before had she worried about what
critics might say about her work. This time, reviews would be
crucial to her future. Local newspapers and magazines, online and
in print, would carry opinions from the area’s most acclaimed
critics. What if they trashed her art? A lump knotted in her
stomach. Humiliation would eat her alive. No one would buy her
work, which would mean she couldn’t make the expenses for the farm,
which would mean...

Jack nudged her.

“I know. I’m spiraling down the rabbit
hole.”

“
Woof
.”

“You don’t have to agree with me.” She
sighed. “You stay here and guard the truck,” she told Jack. “I’m
going to bring the paintings down on a dolly. Then we’re headed
right back to the gallery.” She hadn’t thought to find a hardware
store and buy another padlock. Luckily, only three of the paintings
on Jan’s request list were housed in the studio. She could load and
leave promptly, unless something else went wrong.

Hiking up three flights of stairs, Lia
unlocked the deadbolt and the door lock. She rolled open the large
hanging, solid-wood door. The rollers creaked. She made a mental
note to spray lubricant on them.

Sunlight flooded the studio, and she couldn’t
help but smile. Craig had provided her with a wonderful place to
paint. Brick walls. High wooden beam ceiling. Open metal ductwork.
Perfect lighting. Everything at her fingertips. She breathed
deeply. The energy wrapped around her like a protective security
blanket.

Sliding the keys into her pocket, she stepped
inside, held out her arms, and turned a full circle. Maybe she
needed to consider hosting an open house in her studio when she had
new paintings to show. Invite a group of local gallery owners over
for a wine and cheese tasting. Maybe that would generate some
interest in her work...if Jan’s show turned out to be a flop.

She pulled the list of paintings from her
purse and scanned it. In her mind’s eye, each painting appeared
with perfect clarity. Her heart pounded. Grief. Joy. Love. Emotions
she had experienced when painting. Then, her goal had been to
capture those feelings on canvas. Now, reflecting on the artwork
collection soothed her mind some, but her heart bounced as though
jumping on a trampoline.

“
Maize Nocturne
,” Lia said, flipping
through the canvases in the storage rack. She grabbed it and leaned
it against her hip. “
Daze of Maize. Fields of Folly
.” Once
she had located all three, she placed a towel on the metal dolly
before setting the paintings on their sides. The towel offered
protection to the canvases. Since luck had abandoned her when she
left Kansas, she took every precaution to protect her art.

Exiting the building, she approached the
trailer from the rear. Jack barked like a two-alarm fire warning.
The hair on the back of Lia’s neck stood up. On the sidewalk, she
slowly approached the truck on the passenger side. A man in a suit
stood in the street attempting to put his hand through the barely
open window. The very reason she left them open only a crack—so no
one could harm her four-legged boy. Quickly she leaned the handles
of the dolly against the truck.

“Jack, quiet! May I help you?” Lia asked,
intimidated by the stranger. Did he want to hurt Jack? There had
been reports in the news about someone feeding pets poison. The
police surmised the culprit wanted to punish pet owners who left
their animals in vehicles. The day had been bad enough, trauma to
last her forever. If anything happened to Jack... Her anger shot
up. No one would hurt Jack! Not here or anyplace else.

Snapping her fingers, she pointed to the
backseat of the truck. Thankfully, Jack obeyed, and he laid
down.

She kept the truck between her and the man,
rather than going around to confront him. He had ten inches and at
least fifty pounds on her.

“Do you need something?” She reached into her
purse and pulled out her phone. “Is there someone I can call for
you?” A quick glance up and down the mostly empty street let her
know that unless someone watched from windows above, anything about
to happen could be a crime without a witness.

Focusing on her phone, she hit the speed-dial
button for Lucas. He would hear anything that happened. Besides, it
wouldn’t seem weird since Lucas was waiting for her call.

“I wanted to pet him. Handsome guy. I hunt.”
The man tugged on his suit coat. “I also raise Brittany
Spaniels.”

“Okay. Well, have a nice day.” What else do
you say to a stranger in a business suit loitering beside your
truck?

“Hello?” Lucas’s voice startled her from the
other end of the phone.

“Oh! Lucas,” she said, lifting the phone to
her ear. Maybe the stranger before her would take a hint and walk
away. She could hope. Her mind whirled with ideas about everything
she’d learned regarding self-defense, but that didn’t stop fear
from making her nerves tingle.

When the man started toward her, she quickly
darted her eyes from side to side to scan the area. She licked her
lips. Her pulse raced. Her brain screamed,
don’t show
fear
.

“Lucas, you’re coming to meet me? Five
minutes? That soon?”

“Amelia? Are you all right?” Lucas
replied.

The man reached into his suit coat. Lia
wanted to unlock the truck, hop inside, and drive off. Missouri
allowed conceal and carry. Did the guy have a gun?

“Sorry to interrupt your call, but here’s my
card,” the man said. “I like the look of Jack. I’ll leave you to
your business. If you have papers on him, I’d like to talk with you
about breeding. I’ve got a sweet female. Together, they’d make some
very handsome pups.”

“Lucas, please hang on a minute.” Lia took
the card. Robert Brooks. Realtor.

Her guard dropped a bit, her rising fear
leveled off. She thanked him. “Sorry, but Jack’s a tenor.” All she
wanted was the man gone.

As though he’d read her mind, he nodded
slightly, crossed the street and walked down the sidewalk in the
opposite direction.

The uneasiness swirling inside her had more
to do with the earlier theft rather than the stature of the man and
the oddity of their meeting. However, she didn’t dare turn her back
completely on him while continuing her call.

“Lucas, sorry about that. I’m parked on the
street beside the building of my studio. A strange man was trying
to pet Jack through the truck window. I got worried. I didn’t know
who else to call.”

“Is he still there? Are you safe? Is there
anyone else around?” Lucas’s questions came rapid fire.

“He’s gone now.” Lia let out a deep sigh. “I
confess I’ll be glad to be home. As much as I love my studio space,
I just can’t live in the city anymore. I have an errand to run.
After that, I’m going to start packing things up. I’ve got a
proposition for Craig, one I hope he’ll accept.”

“You’re coming back tonight?”

“No. Remember? I said I’d be spending the
night. I’ll call you tomorrow when I get home.” The less Lucas and
Craig knew about what had taken place today, the better. “I’m on my
way back to the gallery now.”

At the gallery, Lia waited while Jan took
photographs of the three pieces. They weren’t her best, but better
than some sold in the past.

“The colors aren’t as bold as the stolen
ones,” Jan said matter-of-factly, inspecting the art resting
against the white gallery wall. “However, the perspective is
fresh.”

“These were painted before my parents died.
The ones you originally selected are mostly more recent works.”

“I can’t paint,” Jan said. “But I’d love to
collaborate with you and see what happens with a multimedia
piece.”

Lia paused. Not that again. Insulting Jan was
the last thing she wanted to do, but mixed media wasn’t her thing.
Art speaks to people differently and trying to collaborate on the
technical might work, but she could never take someone else’s
emotions, make them her own, and translate it into a painting. It
just wasn’t how she worked, not how she connected to the flow of
creativity. “All I can say is maybe. It’s been a rough day.”

“Oh. Right. What was I thinking?” Jan said
apologetically. “You’ve got to be in shock, so I hate to ask, but
will you deliver the rest of the work tomorrow?”

“Before you close.”

Lia flashed a half-hearted smile. The show
had to be a success. Otherwise, lack of funds would mean closing
the door to the history of her whole life and doing what Craig
wanted all along—selling the farm.

While uncertainty had her in a chokehold, two
things became crystal clear. One—she would take a risk, a big risk
and show Lucas her heart. Two—the time had come to give up the
lease on her art studio. She didn’t need it as a safety net. No
matter what happened with Lucas or with the farm, she wouldn’t
return to the city to paint, even if it meant living in a trailer
in a sunflower field.

With her decisions made, she climbed into the
truck and mentally compared the day to scaling a daunting mountain.
She’d tumbled into a deep emotional bottom, free-fall style. The
climb up promised a treacherous route.

She still had everything to lose.

Chapter 11

Votive candles blazed from every ledge in the
art studio. Soft white light danced against the brick walls. Under
other circumstances, the loft bathed in candlelight looked
romantic. Now, dim lighting set the mood Lia needed for wallowing,
indulging in a pity party.

“You’ve got until the sun comes up,” she
muttered, “to get on with life.” She prided herself in being a
glass-half-f sort of person. She had never ventured down the
dark path of self-pity, not before or since her parents passed
away. It would be like falling down the rabbit hole as Alice did in
Wonderland, or waking up in Oz like Dorothy. There had to be
something positive in the cloud of doom following her around. Many
folks were worse off than she was. Poor Megan, for example, still
stung from abandonment, and her parents lived only several states
away, but to Megan it was as though they were dead. They claimed
they couldn’t bear losing the farm and breaking up the family, yet
they ignored their teen-aged daughter? It made no sense. That had
to be worse, right? But Megan was doing fine.

Love in the Britton household had been as
plentiful as the kernels of corn on all the cobs in Kansas. She
loved her parents that much and more. The ache of missing them beat
stronger sometimes more than others. This was one of those times.
While she was no longer the little girl who had climbed into her
father’s lap waiting for him to rock her pain away or who cuddled
next to her mother and cried on her shoulder, she missed hashing
out adult problems with them. They had always helped her find her
own solutions, something Craig wasn’t good at.

The scent of cinnamon drifted through the
air, reminding her of her mom’s famous cookies and breakfast rolls,
the ones her mom made to cheer her up. Cinnamon equaled
Mom
in her memories. Stimulating her olfactory senses was the best way
to connect with her mom. The pain of wanting her close thumped an
echoing beat in the hollow emptiness of her chest.

Lia sat on the paint-stained wooden floor in
old sweat pants and a worn t-shirt borrowed from Karen who’d sublet
the studio. She painted black onto a small canvas, the color
mirrored her mood. Tears dribbled down her cheeks. She brushed them
away with the back of her hand. One escaped and dropped onto the
painting, her rendition of grief. Having the show paintings
disappear, brazenly stolen in broad daylight while she walked Jack
only feet away, hurt as though someone had taken a box cutter to
her heart. She cherished each painting and mourned their loss.
Whenever a painting sold, she consoled herself with the belief that
the person buying it had an emotional connection to it, loved it as
she did, otherwise, they wouldn’t be laying down cash. Buying art
wasn’t like buying a bathroom rug, something easily expendable.