Authors: Ingrid Weaver
Tags: #mobi, #Romantic Suspense, #Paranormal Romance, #Fiction, #Shadow, #epub
Delaney's Shadow (20 page)
“You know you can.”
“I would like to give you more responsibility. My father always thought you had great potential.”
The dual lies had the desired effect. His gaze glinted with the first spark of genuine interest he’d displayed that evening. If she could see through the table to his lap, no doubt she’d find that his pants were tenting. Yes, nothing got Alan excited quite like the prospect of advancing his career. His ambitiousness was far too transparent. It made him easy to manipulate.
“Stanford was a brilliant man,” he said.
Brilliant enough to understand why you tried to romance me in the first place
, she thought. “Yes, he was. And he knew how to reward loyalty.”
, she thought. “Yes, he was. And he knew how to reward loyalty.”
The word hung in the air between them. A muscle flickered in his cheek. “What have you heard, Elizabeth?”
“Very little, which is why I suspect there must be something that I
should
be hearing.”
should
be hearing.”
Alan lifted his drink. He took a moderate sip this time. He appeared to need time to think more than he needed the alcohol. “There is something.”
She toyed with the pearls at her neck, drawing his gaze back to her chest. She didn’t want him to think too much. She needed him to commit to aligning himself with her for the upcoming showdown with the board. And she knew there would be one. Every instinct told her it would be soon, too. “Yes?”
“A lawyer contacted me the week before last. He insisted on speaking with me outside the office.”
“Whom did he represent?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
That made sense. Whoever was making the move wouldn’t want to show their hand before they could be sure they held a winning one. “What did he want?”
“He asked about your behavior at the office, whether your grief over your father was impeding your business abilities, things like that.”
“Excuse me?”
“I told him you were doing a great job.”
“The last quarterly report could have told him that.”
“It didn’t sound as if he was taking a financial slant with his questions. It was more personal.”
“This lawyer questioned you about my personal life?”
“I’d say it was more that he was questioning your mental competency.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“Leo Throop.”
She heard a faint, grinding squeak. It was the sound of pearls rubbing together. She released her grip on her necklace before she broke the string. “You’re certain it was Throop?”
“Do you know him?”
“He works for my father’s widow.”
Alan’s upper lip bulged as he ran his tongue over his teeth. It was a particularly unattractive habit. “That’s interesting.”
“Who else did he speak with?”
“As far as I know, everyone at the office.”
“And what did they say?”
“I don’t know that.”
“Find out.”
“Elizabeth . . .”
She banged her fist on the table. “I want details. Names. I need to know who’s on my side. If that bitch thinks—” She broke off when she saw several nearby diners turn their heads.
Damn the woman. Elizabeth had expected an attempt to oust her, but she hadn’t expected Delaney would be behind it. She’d never demonstrated interest in the company when Stanford was alive. Wasn’t it enough that she had stolen her childhood home and her father’s fortune? She must be hoping to take away her career, too. Why else would she send her flunky to nose around Grayecorp, questioning Elizabeth’s competence?
Alan passed her what remained of his whiskey. “I’ve never seen you so passionate, Elizabeth. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
She tipped the glass to her lips, enjoying the fire that burned her throat. “You’d be surprised what I’m capable of, Alan.”
THIRTEEN
THE PAINTING WAS A DEPARTURE FROM MAX’S RECENT work. It lacked the violence of the nightmare piece, both in subject matter and in technique. The brushstrokes were gentle, feathering one area into the next to give the impression of dreamy inevitability. The glass palette that lay on the table beside him was dotted with pools of sienna and cerulean blue softened with heavy doses of titanium white. He blended them on the canvas, keeping his wrist supple as he followed the vision in his head.
Normally, he didn’t do portraits anymore. That hadn’t been the case when he’d started out. For the group shows where he’d first displayed his work, he’d stuck to easy-to-grasp, representative pieces like landscapes and portraits because there had been money in them. He’d been desperate to support his habit, so he’d done anything that would sell. The important paintings, the ones that were based on subjects only he could see, he’d kept private. He’d believed they were therapy, not art.
He’d been wrong about that. Following his instincts had propelled him to a level of success that he couldn’t have conceived possible in his wildest dreams. The group shows had led to his first commissions, which had brought more exposure and opened the doors to more prestigious exhibitions. Within only a few years, his reputation had snowballed to the point that galleries were contacting him and not the other way around. Critics used words like
raw
and
primitive
to describe his paintings, and some had even mentioned genius. Not that he bought into the hype. He painted what he felt like and considered himself lucky every time he cashed a check. Fortunes could change in the blink of an eye, and he didn’t take anything for granted.
raw
and
primitive
to describe his paintings, and some had even mentioned genius. Not that he bought into the hype. He painted what he felt like and considered himself lucky every time he cashed a check. Fortunes could change in the blink of an eye, and he didn’t take anything for granted.
He probably wouldn’t sell this painting, though. Not right away. It would be a while before he finished it to his satisfaction.
He put the horsehair brush into a jar of water to keep it from drying out and picked up a sable. He stepped closer to the easel, using his left hand to steady his right as he defined the rim of Deedee’s ear.
Her own imagination had served as her backdrop: her left side was in front of the white cloud where she’d called up the butterfly. The scarred side was in front of a smoldering fire. He was trying to capture the contradictions in her character, but he wasn’t there yet. She wasn’t the kind of woman he could portray in one sitting.
He lowered the brush to add a gleam to her shoulder. It was bare, apart from the thin strap of her satin nightgown. He’d posed her half-turned, so that she was looking toward him while her body was almost in profile. The burns that snaked across her right shoulder and curled around her arm didn’t detract from her beauty. To him, the contrast only enhanced it. Everyone had scars on one level or another. He admired the way she had accepted hers. He dabbed another highlight on the ridged tissue above her elbow, then used his thumb to blend the paint over her breast.
The vision in his head jumped, as if she had felt his touch.
He frowned, concentrating on steadying the image he saw, but it continued to shift. The ivory nightgown gradually darkened until it was the color of ripe wheat. Satin became cotton that expanded to conceal her shoulders and arms. A flared chambray skirt covered her legs to the tops of her calves. She took a hesitant step toward him, then stopped and shoved her hands into her pockets. She was no longer standing on a cloud. She was on a weedy embankment in front of a backdrop of trees.
Max recognized the scene immediately. He dropped his brush into the water jar and strode to the north window.
A woman in a yellow drawstring blouse and blue chambray skirt stood on the old rail bed at the back of his property. She was too far away for him to see her face. A broad-brimmed sun hat hid most of her features anyway. But he
felt
it was Deedee.
felt
it was Deedee.
Had he drawn her to him by concentrating on her image? Why hadn’t he sensed her approach?
He knew the answer to the second question. He’d been caught up in his vision of her, so he’d already felt as if she was with him. He wouldn’t have noticed that her presence had grown stronger. She wasn’t reaching out to him, though. Her thoughts were drawn in like a pursed mouth.
She’d been that way for two days, ever since their mind-kiss. He’d assumed her caution would wear off, but it hadn’t. He’d had to content himself with memories and canvas.
But she wasn’t in his head, she was outside his home. The breeze rippled her skirt against her legs. She took one hand from her pocket to hold her hat on her head. She seemed to be studying the house.
He wiped his fingers on his T-shirt and went downstairs. The inside back door stood open to the deck. Through the screen door he could see she hadn’t moved from her vantage point.
What the hell was she doing here? How could she have known where he lived? More to the point, how could she have known that he even existed? She still believed he was only a figment of her imagination, didn’t she?
He braced his hands on either side of the doorframe. His palms were sweating and slid over the wood. He experienced the same adrenaline rush he felt when he drove past her house, only the stakes had been raised. This was more than tempting fate; she was actually here, in the flesh. His muscles tightened to the brink of pain.
Only, it wasn’t just his muscles that ached. The bulk of the pain came from a deeper source, a place he hadn’t tapped for decades. It was the eagerness of a boy who wouldn’t have thought twice about racing across the yard to welcome her. A lonely boy who had been happy to invite his friend into his heart. A naive child who’d known no caution when it came to love.
A reckless, needy fool.
That wasn’t him. Damn, it couldn’t be.
Yet he couldn’t look away. His pulse was roaring so hard it sounded like the ocean. For the first time in almost twenty-eight years he was seeing Deedee with his own eyes, without the filter of their minds to dilute his vision. Only a few millimeters of screening and thirty yards of dirt that refused to grow a lawn stood between them.
Instead of thinking of the pain, he thought of how her eyes sparkled and how sweet her mind felt when he touched it and how for a few precious heartbeats during their kiss he’d no longer been alone.
She turned away.
Max pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the deck. “Deedee!”
She couldn’t have heard him. At that moment, two boys on bicycles sped past her along the rail bed. They whooped at each other and stood on their pedals to go faster, their front wheels wobbling, the striped beach towels that they’d tied around their necks billowing behind them.
Max jumped off the deck and ran across the yard. “Deedee?”
She was already at the trees. The slope of the embankment hid all but the top of her sun hat from his view.
Pain stabbed through his left foot. He hopped on his right and twisted his leg to check his heel. A narrow shard of brown glass was embedded in his skin. It appeared to be from the bottom of a broken beer bottle. Blood welled from either side of the glass and dripped to the dirt.
He knew people tossed garbage as they passed his yard. Sometimes kids deliberately targeted his place, egging one another on to see what kind of reaction they’d get out of the big, bad ex-con, but like an idiot he’d run outside without putting on any shoes.
What the hell had he been thinking? He was nothing to her. She hadn’t come to see him. Her mind had been closed. She’d probably just been taking a walk.
“Idiot,” he muttered. “Goddamn moron.” He yanked out the glass, hurled it into the nearest clump of weeds, and limped back into the house. He snorted when he saw the red smears he left on the floor. The footprints were real blood this time instead of paint, graphic reminders of the lesson he’d already learned. This was what happened when he forgot. It hurt.
He grabbed the first aid kit he kept with his tools and doused the wound mercilessly with rubbing alcohol, then slapped on a bandage and wrapped it tightly in gauze. He left no trail when he retraced his steps as far as the deck. He didn’t go any farther. For what he intended, he didn’t need to.
This time, he called to her silently.
Deedee!
Deedee!
Her image flickered across his brain. He saw the reflection of water beyond her. She was approaching the pond.
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