But he knew why. He had thought she understood how he saw the world because she seemed to like his paintings. She had given him that impression, that she had a perception of color and light and meaning that was akin to his feelings. He had thought she understood what he was trying to do, what he wanted to say with his work.
Now he could see that she didn’t understand at all. So all right, his stupid ego was hurt.
Why the hell did he want her to understand? He wanted her to model, not for some goddamned philosophical discussion.
They worked all morning around an abandoned, crumbling Victorian house set alone in the center of a grassy field. They didn’t share half a dozen words. The empty rooms were filled with the sounds of the wind rattling the old doors and leaded windows. From beside a broken window she watched the wind running through the tall yellow grass that heaved like a sea. The chill, empty rooms made her feel forlorn and lost. She was very conscious of Braden’s detachment, of his silent, intent concentration. His work overrode his anger. She knew she had hurt him, and she didn’t like hurting him. She had said his paintings weren’t real. In effect she had said that what he felt, what he wanted to bring alive for others, was not real. She had implied that his work was of no worth.
She hadn’t meant that, and she hadn’t meant to hurt him. She said, as he stood looking at a finished drawing, “I didn’t mean that, about your work not being real.”
He frowned, picking up the drawing. It was of the leaded glass window reflecting shattered images of grass and sky and of herself.
She said, “I meant, not physically real. But—there is something else in your work.”
“You don’t need to—”
“There is,” she interrupted, “the spirit of what we see.” She looked at him deeply. “You bring alive the spirit of the physical world and make it real for others. That is your great strength, Braden West. In that way, what you do is very real.”
He looked embarrassed, and looked at her deeply for a moment then turned away. She wanted to take his hand, wanted to touch him; but she dropped her hand and moved into the pose he wanted, turning casually, relaxed, until he told her to hold. And as he worked she watched him beneath lowered lashes, feeling the tension growing between them, a tension charged now not with anger and misunderstanding but with something intimate, a need drawing them together though he didn’t touch her.
When they stopped to share the lunch he had packed, he wasn’t angry, his glances still caressed her as they had when he drew her. In the last drawing she was standing before a stained glass door, her face streaked with its red and green light. She said, teasing him, “If physics makes things real, then this is the way I
He stared at her, scowling again, then started to laugh. He dropped the lid of the basket and reached for her, hugging her close, and when he kissed her it was a long, slow kiss. She leaned into him, kissing him back, forgetting what he thought about cat people.
Chapter 45
Melissa left Braden painting—already he had roughed in a canvas of the Victorian house. She went up the garden toward Olive Cleaver’s, retying the scarf around her hair, watching Olive, above her, sweeping her front porch. She had decided to take the direct approach. Olive seemed gregarious, outgoing about her research, and Braden said the old woman liked to talk about what she was doing. What harm would it do to ask Olive, directly, what she was finding?
Within minutes Olive had hurried her inside, put the kettle on, and laid out her notebooks and a heavy, leatherbound volume. She cut some angel food cake, and as they waited for the tea to brew Olive opened the thick book. “This is on loan from the Cat Museum; it’s quite valuable.” The old woman sat with her back to the window, her face in shadow, her frizzed hair looking wild against the light. Carefully her wrinkled hands turned the frail pages, then she passed the book to Melissa. The open page showed the picture of a door carved with a running cat.
