Page 144 of Wild Then Wed
And I remember indigo eyes, with that blazing ring of gold right in the center. I’d never seen eyes like that before. I haven’t stopped seeing them since.
It’s hard for me to be close to people. Physically, I mean. I’ve never liked the assumption that people are entitled to touch you, even casually, even when they mean well. It’s never been something I offer freely. Not because I’m guarded or cold—although maybe I’m both—but because once someone is in that space, it’s hard to get them out again. Hard to put distance back where there used to be none. And that kind of closeness, for me, has always come with a price.
But I didn’t think twice when it came to him. Not that night. It didn’t feel like anything I had to give, it just felt like something that was already his. His hands didn’t feel like strangers. His body didn’t feel like something I needed space from. It felt like I’d already been there before, and somehow forgot.
And I keep telling myself it was the wine, or the stress, or the pressure of pretending. But that doesn’t explain why I still think about it now.
Why I still feel it. Why I stillwantto.
I’ve been trying to clear my head of all of it—him, mostly—by painting. Which isn’t working, but I’m pretending it is, and that’s close enough.
It’s hard enough trying to compartmentalize everything without also having to live under the same roof as the person you’re actively trying not to think about. The house is too quiet. Too clean. It’s too easy to get lost in your own thoughts.
I found this spare room by accident. It’s one of too many, honestly. It’s just off the hallway near the back staircase, and the first thing I noticed was the light. Two big windows that face theranch, with a wide open sky stretching out past the fence line. In the mornings, the sun pours straight in, warm and clean, cutting across the floor.
The room itself looks untouched. Crown moldings. Sleek hardwood. No nail holes on the walls, no dust on the baseboards. There’s a closet with sliding doors I haven’t opened yet and nothing else but empty space and light.
I set up immediately.
All my canvases are leaned against the back wall in a messy row—half-finished things I can’t throw out, a few old ones I forgot I still liked. I rolled my tarp out over the floor, spread my paints and brushes across it, and sat in the middle.
Hank’s on the far side of the room, his head on his paws, eyes half-open. He hasn’t moved except to let out the occasional sigh. Loudly.
“Same,” I tell him, mixing a color. “Honestly, same.”
Hank huffs but doesn’t leave. He never does. He’s been my shadow since the day I moved in—always a few steps behind, always watching me like he’s worried I might disappear if he looks away too long. He waits for me outside the bathroom when I shower. He curls up at my feet when I’m on the couch with a book.
I keep mixing.
Cadmium red, burnt sienna, the smallest swipe of Payne’s gray. I push them together on the palette until the edges blur, the colors softening into something close to the tone of my dad’s skin on a summer afternoon—tan and sun-weathered, with hints of all the work he never stopped doing.
It’s the painting I can never quite finish. His hands. Not his face. Not his boots or his Stetson or the way he leaned against a fence post. Just his hands, the way they looked when they held a deck of cards or gripped the edge of a watermelon rind while he salted it or tucked me into bed at night. Strong but gentle hands.
Mixing color is the only part of painting that feels simple. It doesn’t ask me to be certain. It doesn’t need tobeanything yet. Just motion and instinct. A little of this, a little more of that, until something in me recognizes it.
I’ve always had a thing for warm colors. Earth tones. Terracotta, burnt umber, mustard yellow—colors that sound more like spices than paint. The ones that look like they’ve been sun-dried or left out in the rain. I swirl a little ochre into the mix and watch it shift—softening the red, grounding it, making it feel like something I recognize. I test a streak on the corner of the canvas and study it.
Close enough for now.
There’s a knock behind me—soft, careful—and when I turn, Riley’s leaning against the doorframe with a smirk.
“I’m here to take Hank on a run,” he says, like he’s been officially assigned the task by someone higher up.
At the wordrun, Hank launches up from the floor like someone’s promised him a steak dinner.
“Sounds fun,” I say, turning back to my palette.
I hear Riley step into the room and stop behind me. I can feel him studying the painting, quiet and curious in that way people get when they’re not sure what to say yet.
“Well shit,” he says. “That’s…that’s really good, Wren.”
He’s looking at the canvas, then at the stack of paintings leaning along the walls. “These all yours?”
I nod and reach up to push my hair out of my face, immediately realizing I’ve smeared paint into it. I glance at my fingers, vaguely orange. Great.
“They are,” I say anyway.
Riley lets out a little whistle. “Wow. Okay. So in addition to being intimidatingly observant with horses, you’re also stupidly talented with paint. That’s great for the rest of us.”
