Page 26 of The Lost Book of First Loves

“You never show your face in the videos,” she said. “Only your hands.”

She recognized his hands now, big and callused, with a pale scar running from the tip of his index finger to the first knuckle.

They didn’t look at all like an attorney’s hands.

“Nobody needs to see my face. They only need to see the work.”

She couldn’t help thinking that if he did show his face, he would have far more people watching. At least people of the female variety.

She had stumbled onto his channel one night by chance when she had been watching a relaxing nature video to help her mind calm after a frenzied day at work. For some reason the algorithm had played a B. Hunter video next, with him pouring the resin in a channel he had hand-carved through a piece of wood, going with the natural grain of the wood.

She had been mesmerized by those powerful hands shaping exquisite pieces out of wood and colored resin. It had been oddly soothing, too, especially with no sound beneath it.

She had been the one, in fact, who had told Adam about the artist and he since had become a passionate collector of B. Hunter’s work.

“You have to let me watch you create something.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

“Okay, you don’thaveto. But I would really love to see the process from start to finish.”

“You can watch this video after I’m done. Don’t worry. I’ll cut out this part, with you haranguing me about my dog, who was only stopping by your place for a friendly visit.”

She couldn’t quite believe that the man who created such works of art was none other than Beckett Hunter. She didn’t like the man, she reminded herself. He was rude and abrasive and arrogant.

His blunt refusal to take action had left at least one woman devastated, unable to find justice. She couldn’t forgive him for that.

But he was most definitely an artist, one who fascinated her.

“I would be so quiet, you wouldn’t even know I was here.”

“Trust me, I would know,” he muttered.

She frowned, not sure what he meant by that. “Does Alison know about your work?”

He shrugged. “It’s not a secret. Everyone in town knows. I show some of my work at a gallery in town.”

A dozen questions raced through her mind. Did he do this in his spare time or was this now what he did in place of prosecuting criminals in California? Or not prosecuting them, as the case may be?

“Making videos of my work was Ali’s idea, actually, and her friend Xander. He has a friend who does all the editing and producing of the videos. I shoot them and he adds the audio.”

“The production value is great. It’s strangely relaxing, watching you take a big hunk of wood and turn it into a work of art in only a few moments.”

“Don’t believe everything you see on the internet. A big table like the one you have in your conference room takes more than a week. We edit out the boring parts, like building the frame and letting the resin dry in layers.”

He seemed eager to end the conversation. “Anyway, thanks for bringing back Hank. I can’t promise he won’t stop again tomorrow. Old habits can be hard for some dogs to break.”

And for plenty of people. She now had no choice but to let go of some of her old habits, like not getting enough sleep, working too hard and drinking coffee for breakfast. Shewouldn’t recommend a cardiac arrest as a motivating factor to anyone.

“Can you find your way back to the cabin?” he asked, clearly eager for her to go so he could return to his work.

“I can follow the path.” She held up the walking stick. “And I have this, in case I run into any bears along the way.”

He gave a short laugh. “In the extremely unlikely event that you did run into a bear, what exactly were you planning to do with Carson’s favorite walking stick? Didn’t anybody teach you not to poke a bear?”

“You’re not supposed to poke asleepingbear. Isn’t that the saying? I would only poke a bear that was charging at me, just long enough to slow him down so I could try to outrun him.”

“I think you should be safe. We occasionally see a black bear around here, very rarely, but they’re likely to be more afraid of you than you are of them.”

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