Brooklyn arrived at Gran’s home on Friday promptly at five thirty. The back two rows in the van held the five girls—Alycia along with four of her friends. They were excited and giggly as they talked among themselves, and none of them seemed to notice the addition of Samantha when she entered the vehicle. If she were the gambling sort, she would have bet money the chief topic being whispered about was boys.
Brooklyn said, “See why I needed you to come with me?”
Samantha laughed as she nodded.
Brooklyn put the van in gear and steered it out of town.
“I looked up this paint thing online,” Samantha said, intruding on the brief silence. “It may not be as horrible as I feared.”
“I’m positive you’ll enjoy yourself.” Brooklyn glanced her way. “It’ll get you out of the left side of your brain. Make you forget all those numbers you deal with all the time.”
“Not all the time. It isn’t like Gran’s shop is all that demanding. Not like my regular job.”
“Do you enjoy that? Working with numbers and balance sheets and so forth.”
“Mmm.” Samantha looked out the passenger window at the passing farmland. “I appreciate order. Two and two is always four. That’s what I like about what I do. The order of it all.”
Brooklyn chuckled. “You know what I pray most mornings?”
Samantha glanced back at her.
“God, bless this mess.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true.”
“But you run a successful B&B. You must be analytical for that.”
“Not necessarily. I have a head full of creative ideas all the time. New ones show up every morning, it seems like. It’s chaotic up here most of the time.” Brooklyn tapped her forehead with her right index finger. “But the business part—the spreadsheets and the budgets—I have to force myself to do those. I think I lived with austerity for so many years that once I allowed myself to begin to dream and imagine, I couldn’t turn off the tap.” She shrugged. “I’m probably mixing metaphors or something.”
Dream and imagine. The words seemed foreign to Samantha. Oh, she enjoyed an escape into a good novel, and she loved movies that swept her into another place or time, especially old classics. But dreams for herself? Imagining something different for her life? She hadn’t done that since . . . She frowned, trying to remember how long ago that had been. Eventually she came up with an answer: not since before her dad died. Not since she was a teenager.
No. That wasn’t completely true, she decided. There had been a brief period of time, when she and Nick were together, when she’d begun to imagine marriage and children and Nick and her growing old together, like Gran and Pappy.
“We might see Nick there tonight,” Brooklyn said, almost as if she’d guessed the direction of Samantha’s thoughts.
“Where? You mean, where we’re going? To paint?”
“Yes. Derek told him what we were doing tonight, and he called me to ask for more information. He didn’t tell me he was coming for sure, but he did say his doctor thought it would be good for him.”
“Good for him?” Samantha said to herself. “Why would a doctor think that?”
Her friend heard her, despite how softly she’d spoken. “I don’t know. Nick talked to Derek in confidence a couple of days ago. Something to do with the aftermath of his accident, I think. But Derek couldn’t tell me anything without Nick’s permission. I’m only guessing.” Brooklyn glanced over at her. “You don’t mind that he might be there, do you?”
Mind? No, she didn’t mind. He could do whatever he wanted. It made no difference to her. She had reconciled her hurt over his silence. In fact, she’d come to believe it was all for the best that he hadn’t called her all week.
“I thought after last weekend, after going with him to the wedding and all—”
“I don’t mind, Brooklyn. I’m just surprised, that’s all.” She forced the frown from her forehead. “Really.” She did everything but point to the corners of her mouth as she smiled.
Nick entered the doors of the Mexican restaurant about fifteen minutes ahead of the appointed time. After inquiring at the register, he made his way through to the banquet room. A surprising number of seats were already filled. Many of the customers—correction: would-be artists—had chips and salsa on the table next to easels and canvases, paint brushes, plastic cups filled with water, and paper plates with pools of different colored paints on them. A few people sipped margaritas, the rims of their glasses coated in salt.
Nick gave his name to the girl in a bright-pink bibbed apron. She checked him off the list, and then he in turn received his own pink apron. He’d worn an older T-shirt and jeans that had seen better days, in case he got sloppy with the paint. Still, he supposed if the other men in the room could wear pink aprons, so could he.
Brooklyn had told him there would be seven coming in her van tonight. Nick would make it eight in the total party. He moved things around, saving three spots for the adults at one table and five spots right behind them for the girls. He didn’t know if that’s what they would want, but it made sense to him.
A short while later, he saw Brooklyn talking to the gal at the entrance to the room. He stood, and as he did, Samantha stepped into view. Her hair was tucked beneath a black baseball cap. Like him, she wore a T-shirt and jeans, but her shirt was orange with a black Oregon State University beaver emblem on the front. He’d seen her in that same T-shirt before, the time he’d taken her to an OSU football game. It had been early fall, before the weather required a warm coat.
Why hadn’t he fully realized back then what he’d found in her? He’d been attracted to her radiant beauty, but she was so much more than her physical appearance. How could he not have known what she could mean to him. If only—
Samantha saw him, hesitated, then acknowledged him with a quick nod. She didn’t look surprised to see him. Neither did she seem pleased. He smiled, but she had already turned to look behind her. Moments later, the five girls moved into the room, each of them grabbing a pink apron on their way. Nick waved to Alycia and motioned her toward him.
“Is it okay that I crashed your party?” he asked when the girl arrived with her friends.
“Sure. It’s fine.”
“Thanks.” He indicated the five chairs behind him. “I saved those for you.”
“Great.”
Brooklyn and Samantha arrived at the table. As with Alycia, he motioned to the seats he’d saved. Brooklyn took a step backward, leaving Samantha to take the center chair. Nick was glad. As much as he’d tried not to care, he had wanted it to work out that way. He’d wanted to be next to her.
He waited as both women donned their aprons, then the three of them sat down. He lowered his eyes to the paper-plate palette. The colors of paint were white, red, black, and yellow. In several places around the room, he saw finished paintings using the same colors, all of them of the same subject, although none looked exactly the same. He guessed that his painting was meant to look like one of those at the end of the evening.
He glanced over at Samantha. “Have you ever done this before?”
“No.” Her voice sounded cool, and she didn’t meet his gaze. “Have you?”
“Not really. As part of my physical therapy, while I was recovering from the accident, I did some painting. But that was more freestyle than what this looks like it’ll be.”
“So becoming an artist got into your blood?” Again, the question didn’t sound particularly friendly.
He pretended not to notice. “Hardly. No, I saw my specialist in Boise this week, and he thought painting would be a good way to relax my brain.”
Now she looked at him. “I didn’t know you were seeing a specialist. I thought all that was behind you.”
“Sam . . .” He drew in a slow breath. “I don’t know if seeing doctors and trying to overcome the . . . things that go with a TBI will ever be behind me.”
He watched that information sink in. Then the coolness faded from her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nick. I . . . I didn’t realize.” Her words sounded genuine.
“That’s my fault.” He drew another breath, determined to speak the truth, to lay out more facts. “I haven’t wanted to talk about it, especially after moving here. Until you arrived, nobody else knew the old me, the guy I used to be, so that made it easier not to talk about the accident or my recovery from it. It changed my life in big ways, maybe in permanent ways. I can’t know if there’ll be any more improvements. Not until it happens. If it happens.”
Softly she repeated, “I didn’t realize.”
Nick decided it was time to change the subject. He didn’t want her feeling sorry for him. He was after a much different emotion, and that would take time. He pointed toward the canvas in front of her. “What about your artistic aspirations?”
She laughed. “I have none. Trust me. I was arm-twisted into coming.”
Brooklyn leaned forward, looking at Nick. “That isn’t true. It was a gracious invitation.”
“Want me to show him the bruise you left on my arm?” Samantha challenged.
“Sure,” Brooklyn retorted, eyes twinkling.
Samantha turned toward Nick again. She lifted her left arm and feigned a pained expression. “Do you have an aspirin?”
“Sorry.” He laughed along with her this time.
Coming tonight had been a good idea, even if he never picked up a paintbrush. He already felt better than he had all week long.
How had Nick managed it? Samantha had entered the restaurant tonight certain that she couldn’t care less what he said or did. It no longer bothered her that he hadn’t called. She had determined to treat him as no more than an acquaintance. Yet within minutes he had drawn her in, made her sympathize with him, even made her laugh.
It was about five minutes past the hour when the event host called everyone’s attention to where she stood. A tall, lithe woman of about twenty-five or so, she introduced herself as Heather and gave a quick rundown of what to expect during the evening.
Could it be as easy to recreate the example painting on the easel as Heather made it sound? If so, perhaps Samantha wouldn’t be completely embarrassed.
“I think we can manage this.” Nick leaned closer to her. “Don’t you?”
Her traitorous heart skipped a beat at his nearness. “Yes, I think so too.”
Heather held up a brush. “We’re going to begin with the wider brush that’s in front of you, and we’re going to cover the entire canvas with red paint. Like this.” She began applying paint, thinned with a small amount of water, to the blank canvas on an easel near her. “Don’t forget to do the sides and top of your canvas as well.” She demonstrated.
“That’s easy enough.” Samantha went to work, glad for something to concentrate on other than the man beside her.
The girls chattered and laughed, clearly enjoying themselves, but the adults were silent as they worked.
“The paint will dry quickly, but do be careful when you paint the sides. It’s easy to forget and take hold where you shouldn’t.”
Samantha quickened her strokes.
“When you’re done with that,” Heather said, “you’re going to take the black paint and the smaller brush and draw lines. Most people find this easier to do with the canvas on its side so that you’re drawing the line from side to side rather than up and down. We want the lines to be as straight as possible, but don’t try to make them perfect. Relax and enjoy the process.”
“Hey, Sam.” Nick leaned toward her again. “Did you hear what she said?”
She caught a whiff of his familiar cologne.
“Relax and enjoy.” He pointed at her right hand, holding the brush. “You look a little intense.”
She followed his gaze. He was right. She was gripping the brush as if to wring the life out of it. “Perfectionist tendencies,” she confessed, trying to sound lighthearted. “A line should be a straight line, the same way that numbers should add up.”
“Without order you’re left with chaos. Is that it?”
Strange. She felt a flicker of pleasure that he understood her without need of more explanation.
“Sam, can I tell you something I’ve been learning over the last couple of years? And I was reminded of it again this week.”
“Sure.”
“Life is full of chaos, no matter how hard you try to keep it in order. You have to live it the best you can.” He gave her a smile, one corner of his mouth lifting slightly higher than the other. “Stop thinking and start painting.”
For a second her breath caught, and then she laughed. It seemed the best advice she’d heard in ages.
Nick hadn’t expected her to respond with laughter. The sound lit something inside of him. In fact, it brightened the entire room.
Heather gave more instructions to the large group. Tips for shading and for mixing some of the colors on the paper-plate palettes. She reminded them to be careful when reaching for the beverages some had purchased. “You don’t want to drink your paint water instead.”
As if on cue, a server came down the aisle between the tables to take orders.
“Can we get something to drink, Mom?” Alycia asked.
“Yes.”
“Chips and salsa too?”
“You can’t be hungry. You had dinner.”
“Please.”
“Oh, all right.”
Nick looked at Samantha. “Do you want something to eat or drink?”
“Some water with lemon would be nice.” She seemed more relaxed than she had been earlier.
“And you, sir,” the server said.
“I’ll have a Diet Coke, and she’ll have a glass of water. Both with lemon, please.”
The server nodded and moved on to the next person.
Nick’s gaze flicked to Samantha’s canvas. “That looks really good.”
“Do you think so?”
He tipped his head to the side so he could view it as it would look when upright. “It’s realistic.”
“Really?” She tipped her head, mimicking him. “Maybe I need to stand farther away from it.”
“I may need to stand on the opposite side of the room for mine to look good.”
Again she laughed.
Suddenly his painting didn’t look half bad.