Page 13 of Christmas with the Cowgirl
Chapter Seven
She was staringat him in such stunned surprise that Miles felt as if he had to explain.“That painting inspiredStonewall.And actually, it’s what brought Jeremy and Jackson here.”
“What…how…?”
She sounded like he felt, a little stunned.What were the odds that he would have somehow ended up standing in the very place the artist behind the painting he’d bought on impulse, because he liked the blue of the flowers and the expansive roll of the hills, had painted it?The painting that had indeed inspired his most successful project yet, despite its rather chaotic end.
“It is,” Jeremy said now, as solemnly as a nearly eight-year-old could.“I used to look at it, a lot.And one day I told my dad I wished it was real so we could go there.An’ he said it was.So we came here.”
“Who was the artist?”Riley asked, sounding still a bit doubtful.
“His initials are K.R.,” Jeremy answered before Miles could speak.“I saw ’em in the corner and Dad told me.”
He wasn’t sure, out here on this sunny almost winter day, but he thought she went slightly pale.
“I’ve got the paperwork filed away,” Miles said.“But I bought it a very long time ago.Before I bought that house it’s in.”Long before I could afford that house on the beach.
“Kyle Rafferty,” she whispered, and he had no doubts now.This had struck hard.
And he knew the name.Rafferty, at least.He’d heard it most recently about the new photos in theThorpe’s Therapy Horsesoffice.The photographer had been a Rafferty.And the guy who had gotten Jeremy his dog, he’d been a Rafferty as well.
Jeremy was looking at her now.“Rafferty?Like Mr.Chance, and Mr.Keller?Lucas’s dad now?”he asked.
He’d forgotten that one, that one of the Raffertys had adopted a boy whose parents had been killed, and that boy had talked to Jeremy early on about the pain of it, and Miles remembered Jackson saying it had really seemed to help.
“Just like,” she answered Jeremy quietly.“He was their father.A brilliant artist.But his first calling was the military, and he was killed overseas many years ago.”
Miles thought he remembered Jackson telling him something about that, too, that when it had happened Keller Rafferty had stepped up to become a father figure to his younger siblings, much as Shane Highwater had for his.
Must be something in the water here.All this taking responsibility.
But all he could think of to say, and that wonderingly, was, “What are the odds I’d end up with one of his paintings?”
“I was about to ask the same thing.I know he painted a lot out here when he was home on leave.There are several folks here in Last Stand who have them—I have a couple—and a few more across Texas, but I hadn’t heard he’d ever expanded to California.”
“I didn’t buy it there.I bought it in an art gallery in Seattle.”
Her expression cleared a little.“Oh.That makes a little sense then.If I remember right, he was stationed at an army base near there for a while.”She tilted her head slightly, and there was an intensity in her dark blue eyes that had him a little on edge.“Why did you buy it?”
That caught him a little off guard.“I liked it.”
Well, that was lame, Mr.Convincer.
He knew about the nickname some in Hollywood had given him, but he didn’t feel it particularly fitting right now.
“It…spoke to me.A cliché, I know, but it did.It looks endless and made me think about…possibilities.In a way it reminded me of the way the ocean rolls on and on, endlessly.So it seemed to fit.”
“Huh,” Jeremy said, his brow furrowed.“It does kinda look like the ocean outside your house.”
Miles smiled and reached out to tousle the boy’s hair.He’d always wondered why people seemed to want to do that, but now he understood it must be built into humans when around their young.
“Beach house, huh?”
He looked at Riley when she spoke.Her tone had been neutral.A little too neutral?He shrugged.“Depends who you ask.Some would say shack.”
“I like your house,” Jeremy said.“People at least have to climb over rocks to look at you.”
“Exactly why I bought that one, buddy,” he said, smiling at the boy.He looked back at Riley.“It’s pretty hidden, and too much of a pain for most people.”
