“I should go back to Hoyt Harbor,” she pouted her lips, and then just as quickly dismissed the idea. She had come this far, and there was a reason. For despite the clothes, the makeup and anything else she did, what could not be concealed was the transparent sparkle of eagerness in her eyes.
She simply had to see him again.
24.
Blake heard the crunch of tires on gravel and looked up with a puzzled frown from underneath the open hood of the old truck. His hands were black with grease. He plucked a dirty rag from his back pocket and wiped at them. The car pulled up just a few yards away and Connie stepped out into the bright sunshine.
His pleasure to see her again was transparent, and his smile a handsome welcome for her. Connie was suddenly very glad she had come. Blake straightened and drew the back of his hand across his forehead. He was sweating under the warm sun. The front of his shirt clung wet to the contours of his chest and Connie saw his chin was blued with a day’s growth of stubble. She hooded her eyes and had a tantalizing image of him leaning close to kiss her, and then fantasized how his whiskers would feel bristling and electric against her cheek. She caught her breath.
“What a waste,” she said.
Blake furrowed his brow.
“It’s a beautiful day and you’re working on a truck,” she said around a warm smile. “Your hands were made for painting, and a day like this was made for swimming.”
Blake nodded. “Well the truck won’t fix itself,” he said laconically. “And I don’t paint any more. I don’t go in the water, either.”
Connie looked stunned, not understanding. “You live on a beautiful beach, and you don’t go in the water?”
“That’s right,” Blake said with an edge of dry finality. He turned towards the house then and got to the porch steps before he glanced over his shoulder, back to where Connie was standing. “Come on,” he said. “I need to wash my hands, and I don’t think you drove all this way to talk about the beach. I feel like I’m going to need to be sitting down before I hear the rest of what you have to say.” He smiled widely then, and the pleasure in his face smoothed away the edge to his words so that Connie was helpless to do anything other than to smile impishly back.
Connie came into the living room, her eyes adjusting to the shaded gloom while Blake went to the sink and scrubbed his hands. Ned was asleep on his bed. Connie crouched down and scratched the big dog behind his ear. Ned’s eyes opened and the Great Dane yawned. He thumped his tail against the mattress and then rolled over. Connie scratched under the dog’s chin and his huge brown eyes rolled back with pleasure.
When Blake returned to the living room he had cold drinks in either hand. He offered a glass to Connie and gestured for her to sit. She propped herself on the edge of the sofa like she was poised to take flight. Her eyes were bright and glittering.
“So…” Blake said. “I never thought I was going to see you again.”
Connie smiled. She reached into her pocket and produced the roll of bank notes. She handed them across to Blake. “It’s the five hundred dollars you loaned me,” she explained. “I came to pay you back.”
Blake nodded. He set the money aside and watched Connie as he sipped at his drink. She was beautiful in a way he couldn’t describe. It was something intangible that transcended the physical appeal of her, he realized. It was something more – a special quality about her that seemed to make her body hum with a vitality and energy he found infectious. He lowered himself into the chair across from the sofa and spent a moment just admiring her, remembering every feature that he had burned into his memory. Artists, by training, have a keen eye for detail, and Blake compared his recollections of this young woman against the reality now that she was here again. Her nose was slim, and there was a sensuality about her mouth and chin that seemed to radiate inner strength and yet soft femininity. Her eyes were alive and bewitching, and her hair that hung down over her shoulders seemed to shimmer as she turned her head. She was very beautiful, but also very appealing, he decided. There was substance behind the stunning façade of face and figure.
“What are you thinking?” Connie asked at last, and Blake’s thoughts came bubbling back to the surface like a drowning man reluctant to be saved.
“I was just thinking about your car,” he concealed the truth. “Did you get it repaired?”
Connie nodded. “I took it to the mechanic at Hoyt Harbor,” she said.
“And you sold both of the paintings, I assume?”
“Yes.”
He lapsed back into reflective silence and Connie felt compelled to say something – to fill the contemplative void. “I also left New York,” she blurted.
He arched his eyebrows in genuine surprise. “What about your job at the art gallery?”
“I kind of got fired,” she confessed.
“Kind of?” Blake became bemused. “Why?”
Connie gestured with her hands. “It’s a long story, but it basically boiled down to the fact that the gallery director wanted to know where you were living and how I came across the paintings. When I refused to tell him…”
“He fired you?”
She nodded.
“But you sold the paintings?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re right for money for many years to come, no doubt.”
Connie shook her head. “No,” she said. “I have five thousand dollars. The rest of the money from the sale went towards taking care of my mother, and I also gave Mr. Ryan at the grocery store more money for the paintings.”
Blake sat back in the chair, taking everything in. He narrowed his eyes with curiosity. “So where are you living?”
Connie gave a bitter laugh of wry self-depreciation. “I have another week left in my vacation rental at Hoyt Harbor. After that,” she shrugged. “I’ll probably be sleeping in my car.”
She paused and wondered if she had been too dramatic. She saw Blake’s eyes become darker and there was a deepening scowl on his face.
She laughed the moment off lightly. “I’m sure I’ll find somewhere to live,” she said quickly. “It’s the price I am willing to pay.”
“Pay? For what?”
“For following my dream,” Connie’s voice became soft as a shy whisper. “My dream of owning a little art gallery somewhere here in Maine.”
They stared at each other in the pointed silence. Connie’s words hung in the air between them like an omen to the next stage of the conversation. Blake said nothing for a long time and then sat forward in the chair.
“There are two things that define a person,” he said levelly. “Your patience when you have nothing, and your attitude when you have everything.”
Connie watched Blake’s mouth, listened to the deep rumble of his voice. She felt delicious little shivers dance up her spine. She understood the importance of what he was saying, but she wanted desperately to keep the atmosphere between them happy. She grinned. “Well I have nothing,” she said, “And I’ll try to be patient. Hopefully one day, I’ll have everything and a good attitude to go with it.”
Blake smiled despite himself, a wry curl of his lips. “Everything isn’t necessarily measured in terms of money,” he cautioned. “For some people, their everything is family and loved ones.”
Connie nodded and glanced away. She had been shocked at how pleased she was to see him again, and how intensely she had missed being near this man. Her pulse was thumping like a drum in her ears. She plucked at the leg of her jeans and licked her lips, as though to bolster her reserves of determination.
When Connie glanced back, she saw that Blake was studying her with an intriguing look in his eyes that might have been amusement, or perhaps wariness.
Or maybe something else entirely.
The smile faltered on Connie’s face, and she felt a hot flush of blood burn on her cheeks.
“Blake, I want to do an exhibition of your old paintings,” she blurted before her resolve deserted her entirely. Her throat felt suddenly swollen, and the
words came out in a choke. “I want to be your agent.”
For a long tense moment Blake said nothing. His features seemed carved in stone. “I don’t need an agent.”
She nodded, took a deep breath. “But I need a client,” she said at last. “And you told me to follow my dream and not let anyone stop me. So please,” her face became pleading, “Give me this chance to turn my dream into reality.”
Blake rose stony faced from the chair and walked wordlessly into the kitchen. Connie followed him with her eyes, her heart full of dread.
“Do you despise me?” she called to him softly. Her expression was stricken.
Blake turned back to her, left her question unanswered.
“What exactly did you have in mind?” he asked. His voice was flat.
“I would like to show your paintings – not sell them, nor profit from them. Just exhibit them, so that they can be seen.”
“I wondered why you came back,” he admitted, and then cut his words off, as though what he said next was important and needed to be measured. “I had hoped it… it was for personal reasons.”
Connie leaped up from her chair. There was too much space between them and she went to him, unsure of how he would react. She stood in the kitchen and her eyes became huge and somber.
“It was,” she admitted. Her legs were trembling and she felt herself teeter. She clutched at the doorframe to hold herself upright. “I wanted to come back to see you.”
He looked unconvinced. There was a cynical arch to his eyebrow. “And you wanted to get my permission to show the paintings.”
Connie lowered her head and stared down at the floor. Her hair hung down over her face like a veil. She took a deep shuddering breath and felt as though she was on the edge of an abyss with the ground beneath her quickly crumbling away. She lifted her face at last and wrung her hands.
“I wanted to be near you,” she said in a whisper. “Yes, I want to show your paintings – I won’t deny that because the world deserves to enjoy them – but coming back here and seeing you again was what mattered most.” She stopped suddenly, worried that she had already said too much, but yearning to say more. So much more. She bit her lip as though to physically choke off the rush of impassioned words that leaped to her lips.
Connie saw some flicker of reaction behind Blake’s eyes – a fissure in the stone of his expression.
“Blake…?”
Connie’s words had seared like a white-hot brand across his mind. He felt a lightheaded lift that gripped at his heart and squeezed tight as a fist, and he wondered suddenly if his emotions were transparent – if she could see the feelings she stirred within him every time he looked at her.
He glanced away lest she saw that thing in his gaze which would leave him so vulnerable. “Let me think,” he said gruffly.
He went out through the door without another word and Ned rose instinctively from his bed and trailed him down the porch steps. Blake walked stiffly down to the sand, stood for a long moment as the surf lapped around his feet, and then began to pace with his head bowed in thought towards the northern end of the beach.
He was in conflicted turmoil – unable to turn away from the realization that he had missed Connie, and that he had longed for her to return.
But he wondered, after all he had endured, whether his grief had left him susceptible, or if the loneliness of his existence had left his heart so dry and exposed that his tumbling emotions were merely an illusion of his solitude.
And with this woman, he knew, came guilt. He had encouraged her to pursue her dreams, and he felt some of the burden of her dilemma – the loss of her job for keeping the vow of secrecy he had sworn her to.
He stopped pacing suddenly, looked up and was startled to realize the trail of his footprints stretched the length of the beach and back again. Ned was splashing in the edge of the surf. The big dog came to him shaking water from his shoulders, his tongue hanging pink from his mouth.
After an hour he came back in through the doorway kicking sand from his feet with Ned like a shadow at his side. His face was creased and had been colored by the sun.
Connie was sitting pensively on the sofa, her hands clasped in her lap, her expression wracked with the appalling tension of a patient waiting in dread for a doctor’s results. She looked up into his face as he stood there, a broad shouldered silhouette against the glare through the door.
“I will let you do an exhibition of my old paintings when you establish your gallery.” He thrust a warning finger in the air and scowled, “But there is a condition.”
Connie leaped from her chair, went to throw her arms impulsively around his neck and cover him with the bubbling joy of her kisses – but she stopped herself with a great effort, so that instead her move towards him was curtailed to an awkward wave of her arms and demure restraint. “Thank you,” she gushed, certain that all she was feeling shone transparent. “I cannot tell you how grateful I am.” Her face was lifted up to his and her lips were glossy and soft, her eyes flooded. Blake wanted to kiss those lips, to taste the sweetness of her. He drew a breath.
“There is a condition,” he reminded her. She had come towards him and he had raised his arms to wrap them around her, his heart squeezed, wishing it to be so. But she had stopped, and the small space between them felt like a desolate ache.
“Condition?” Connie’s cheeks were bright and behind the long dark lashes her eyes glittered like precious gems. “What condition?”
Blake made his face stern. “I want to paint you – I want to paint your portrait.”
Connie went quite still, like some timid animal on the edge of a forest. She searched Blake’s eyes in confusion.
“You want to paint me? But you don’t paint… and you don’t paint portraits.”
“I want to try.”
“How long would it take?”
Blake shrugged. In truth he didn’t know. “Maybe two weeks,” he considered. “Perhaps three. It’s been a long time since I sat at an easel. I don’t know how difficult it will be to get my technique back.”
Connie was bewildered by the request, but secretly also elated by the idea. The chance to spend so much time with Blake was like a tantalizing promise.
“When would you want to make this painting?”
“As soon as possible,” he said without hesitating. “But I would need to clean out the studio first. Maybe the day after tomorrow…”
“So soon?”
“Yes.”
Connie nodded slowly, her mind trying to deal with the daunting logistics of driving from Hoyt Harbor each day, and the looming dilemma of housing. But she shrugged those issues aside and nodded her head. “Fine,” she said.
He was pleased. She saw it on his face. “They will be long days,” he felt compelled to caution her. “Have you ever sat for a portrait before?”
Connie giggled. “Of course not.”
“Well we will be starting early and finishing late – I like to paint well into the night…” he stopped himself then, realized the sacrifice he was asking of her and tilted his head quizzically as a fresh, intriguing thought struck him. “Would you like to stay here – until the painting is finished, I mean? I have a spare room with an empty bed. You’re welcome to it, and it would save you a lot of driving – a lot of time on the road…”
Connie didn’t flinch. For just an instant she considered the offer and saw laid out before her a solution to everything her heart yearned for.
“Yes,” she said solemnly and nodded her head. “If you just tell me why. Why you want to paint again after all this time, and why, of all people, you want to paint me.”
Blake stood unmoving, a man whose grip on his private pain was slowly unraveling, and at last he had no choice but to let go, to fall. He weighed all that must be risked from laying bare his soul. His grief and his secrets were all he had that mattered, and the idea of opening himself up in such an intimate way chilled his blood.
“Connie, I’m going blind,” he said at
last. “And painting you is my last chance for redemption.”
25.
“Blind?” Connie repeated the word and the sound of it seemed to pierce her heart as a shocking pain. She fell like dead-weight back onto the sofa.
Blake nodded his head soberly. “Yes,” he said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Blake said. “It’s a hereditary condition, and it’s progressive. I’ve known about it for many years.”
Connie shook her head in slow disbelieving denial, her eyes like deep wells of despair. “Can anything be done?”
“No. Nothing at all.”
Connie lapsed into silence, her emotions swirling. She went very still for a long time, her gaze vacant. Then suddenly the sickening pain of it came to her again, and a deep raw ache left her eyes brimming with tears.
She got slowly back to her feet and reached for Blake’s hand. She squeezed his fingers tight in a convulsing spasm like some injured little thing and then her hand went very soft and still. “How long have you got before..?”
Blake shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” he admitted. “I first noticed my vision blurring several years ago, but I thought nothing of it. I was young – I thought I was ten feet tall and bulletproof. But lately, it has become progressively worse. I’m losing close up focus, although my long-range vision seems fine. It’s like my eyes are dying from the inside out.”
He needed space. Connie was too close to him, and he felt the claustrophobia of her; the way she was looking up into his eyes with a tragic kind of sympathy that made him feel vaguely resentful. He didn’t want compassion – he wanted her to understand
He backed away, let her hand slide through his fingers and went to the bookcase. “That’s why I’m reading so much,” he admitted. “And that’s why I want to paint you, Connie. It may be my last chance to make a painting. I know one day – sooner or later – I’m going to wake up blind.”