Page 30 of Rose's One Night to Forever
Her sister hauled her to her feet. “Wash your face and put on some non-pouting clothes. I’ll grab you a bag of cookies from the shop you can drop off. You know. Just being neighbourly.”
“Pouting clothes? You’re impossible,” Rose said with deep affection.
But knowing she was loved so unconditionally was why fifteen minutes later, when Rose knocked on the back door of the gallery, there was more hope than discomfort in her heart.
Tansy loved her. Her family loved her. Maybe…
“Rose.” Chance’s eyes lit up when he saw her, but even the glad expression couldn’t erase the tired lines at their corners.
She shoved the bag forward. “I won’t keep you, but I brought you cookies.”
He eyed the bag then neatly caught her by the wrist and tugged her into the gallery before shutting the door behind her. The next thing she knew, he had her pressed against the solid surface, his lips hovering over hers. “I only accept sweet treats from women who stay a while.”
“Or ones who take you into dusty old storage rooms,” Rose teased. She slid a finger softly over his cheek. “You have time for a break?”
“With you? Always.”
He kissed her before letting her go, the sweetness lingering as he clasped his fingers around hers and guided her farther into the gallery.
The place had been transformed. “Oh, you’ve got most of it ready.”
“Want a private tour?” Chance asked.
Rose glanced at him quickly. The words were simple, but there’d been a slight shake in his voice. “I’d love one.”
I think I love you.
She shook her head as he tucked her fingers in the crook of his arm and began pacing slowly through the space. Easy to say the words in her head. So, so tough to get them past her lips.
The gallery looked completely different from the last time she’d been there. The layout was the same, but the content and how it was displayed made even the smooth vertical walls come alive.
“Walk this way,” Chance suggested. He twisted slightly and allowed her to take a half step forward, leaving a prime view of the art on either side and ahead of them. “You’ll have to imagine the bouquets that you’ll create added to the mix, but this will be the background.”
An eclectic assembly of paintings, illustrations, and digitalized prints dazzled her eyes. Colours burst all around them.
Ahead of her, a large canvas featured a castle on a fairy-tale hillside with a blue sky so bright, it sparkled and a landscape of trees and waterfalls and rustic roadways. The castle itself had a dark stain surrounding the base, and she paced closer to find the artist had created three-dimensional brambles and bushes with large, sharp thorns to guard the castle.
A trio of images of young women came next. One was familiar in a faraway kind of way. Rose searched her memory until the name Sailor Moon popped to mind. The character stood in a garden, a wand in her hand tipped with a bright red rose.
The next image was the partial face of another woman, just barely out of her teens, with bright pink hair and sharp cheekbones. The cartoon drawing was so lifelike Rose paused to stare in wonder.
The third woman was also drawn anime style, with dark clothing and red accents. She was in the process of swinging a shiny red-and-black scythe over her head, red petals floating in the wake of the blow.
“They’re all so beautiful.” Rose whispered the words as she tugged Chance around another corner, and another. More treasure to find, more explosions of colour and energy and wide expanses of mystical worlds that were so realistic, she itched to step into them.
The curiosity she’d felt since he mentioned the show was now answered. Her cheeks grew warm. Her blood raced, her mind as well. “I believe I found your theme.”
Everywhere she looked, she saw roses. And Roses.
Chance pressed his fingers over hers where they lay on his arm. “Do you mind?”
The images were everywhere, in all forms and all mediums. From all times and places. Flowers bloomed on the walls of battlements and were held in the hands of Greek goddesses. They flashed to life in fairy-tale images done in ink and paint and pastels. Old stories next to new. Red Rose and her sister, Snow White—the original German version—stood next to an enormous bear. Ruby Rose from RWBY, a computer game a younger version of Fern had been so excited about playing, she’d hauled her big sister into her room over and over again to show off all the exciting battles.
The Beast’s rose, protected under a glass dome with a single petal still clinging to the stem, while in the background, Beauty knelt over the fallen body of a hideous creature.
“I’m astonished,” Rose admitted quietly. “I had no idea there were so many pictures and people with the same name as me that you could fill a gallery with them.”
“You’re a wonderful muse.”
