Page 15 of Christmas with the Cowgirl
He shrugged in turn.“I miss originality these days.”
She seemed to hesitate, then said, “I’m not surprised, given your choice of projects.”He blinked.She grimaced.“Nic told me, so I’m not completely oblivious.”
“I never, ever would have thought you were,” he said.
And he meant it.He might think her many, many things—gorgeous, smart, fearless—but not oblivious.
He had the feeling being around her might be a bit easier if she was.
Chapter Eight
“See the initials?”Riley asked the boy, who nodded.
He was studying the large painting that hung in the living room, his face scrunched up in concentration.And Riley was hit with the realization that if she could have been guaranteed a boy like this, one this smart, this caring, this lively, she might have taken the idea of kids more seriously.
Too late now.
She brushed off the twinge of regret.Told herself that having a kid at forty-two wasn’t feasible, even if it were physically possible for her.But that bout of severe endometriosis she’d had in her twenties had seen the end of that.
Riley glanced at the man standing behind Jeremy, studying the painting himself.Just as she looked, she saw him tilt his head and make a slight gesture with his hands, a twisting motion, as if he were telling himself to mentally turn the painting around.She knew he’d gotten it then.
“Yes,” she said quietly.
His head snapped around, as if she’d startled him.Or as if he’d been so deep in looking at the painting he’d lost track of everything else.He smiled, apparently realizing what she’d meant.
Dang, that’s a killer smile.No wonder people open their bank accounts for him.
His gaze shifted back to the painting, then down to Jeremy.
“Figure it out yet, Jeremy?”he asked.
“I don’t know,” the boy said, his forehead still scrunched.
Miles leaned out slightly and pointed at the big rock on the right side of the image.“Does it look familiar?”
“Sort of,” Jeremy said slowly, “but it’s not…it’s…it’s backwards.”
“Exactly.How do you suppose that happened?”
Riley smiled inwardly now, liking the way he was leading the boy to think it through, not just telling him.
“That rock’s awful big to move,” Jeremy said.
“That it is.So, where would you have to be to make it look like that?”
It was only two seconds, maybe three, before Jeremy’s brow cleared and he exclaimed, “On the other side!You’d have to be down the hill.An’ then look back.”He looked at Riley then.“So he painted it from both sides, and you have one and Uncle Miles has one.”
“So it seems,” she confirmed.
“What are the odds?”Miles murmured.
“The painting you have,” she asked, before she really thought about it, “you said it inspiredStonewall?How?”
He shrugged.“I spent a lot of time on my couch looking at it, wondering about the people who lived there, which got me into the history of the area, and…I don’t know, it just lit a fire.”
“A fire that became one of the biggest hits ever.”
“Yeah.”
