Page 91 of For a Goode Time Call…
Juneau shrugged. “Since the seventeen or eighteen hundreds, we’re not sure.”
“How far around does the property go?” Ramsey asked.
Another shrug. “I dunno. I don’t know that we actually even own anything. It’s just always been here. We come up, we hunt and fish and hike and read and relax. We don’t harm the forest, we don’t leave anything and we don’t take anything we don’t need. We leave it stocked and unlocked, and if you know about it and are in the area and in need, you’re welcome to it. Just respect it, and the land.”
Ramsey nodded. “De facto, grandfather clause sort of ownership.”
“Yep.”
“He’s in there,” I whispered, staring at the cabin. “I need to see him.”
The men and Juneau all exchanged glances.
Juneau bit her lip and said to the guys, “Um. If you guys are game to keep hiking, I know of a great spot for a picnic on the way back to town.”
A chorus of agreements and goodbyes and, within moments, they’d all trooped around the far side of the pond and up the hill. Leaving me alone in the forest, breathing slowly, raggedly, summoning my courage.
I walked up to the door of the cabin.
The door handle was nothing but a small metal lever lifting a latch—I lifted, pulled.
I stepped inside into…a sanctuary of me.
I was everywhere. Paintings of me on every surface. So, so many versions of me. He’d found my little gift, clearly.
I was stunned breathless for several minutes, just staring. The talent…god, the talent. He was a genius. In one, I was at the pond’s edge. Nude. Facing away from him, stepping into the water. I was partially bent, one hand extended to ripple the greenish-brown surface of the water. He’d captured me in motion, somehow frozen an instant in time, a fictional instant.
Another was a close-up, just my bust, a hint of cleavage propped up as I lay on my side, smiling at him with soft tender love in my eyes; tendrils of hair wisped across my face, paused in being blown by a breeze or his breath. My eyes were utterlyme. It was like looking in a mirror, writ large. Seeing myself, the way I…the way I would look at him as I lay in his arms in the afterglow of making love.
I teared up.
There were stacks and stacks of paintings. God, he must have been painting me over and over the entire time he was gone, the entire time I was healing and strengthening and giving myself a future.
I moved forward, into the cabin, scanning around quickly. The inside was chaotic—one room, a bed in the corner, kitchenette in another, one wall contained the fireplace which currently glowed with the amber-orange light of a dying fire. The windows were grimy with age, keeping it dark inside. Everything else was art—paintings, darkroom equipment, boxes of film, several old manual film cameras, rolls of canvas and lengths of wood for stretching the canvas, framing supplies, paints, brushes, knives and scrapers and god knows what else. A window was open for ventilation, but it still reeked of oil paints, and Ink.
Then I saw him on the floor, passed out. A palette lay to one side, a brush to the other. His hair was loose, all over the place. He was…a mess.
He had paint crusted on his hands, wrists, in his beard, on his legs. He was coated in old crusted paint.
An artist, lost in his art.
Lost in his mind. His heart.
Lost in me.
I was filled with tenderness, watching him sleep. A frown furrowed his brow. I knelt, and then sat beside him. Smoothed the frown away with my fingertips, and he stirred. Rumbled wordlessly in his chest. Stirred again.
His eyes fluttered, opened, fixed on me. “Cass.” His voice was so low I could barely hear him, but I felt the sound of it.
“Hi.” I reached for him, and he shifted toward me. I pulled his head into my lap, stroked his hair.
“You’re here.” He wrapped an arm around behind me, cradling my waist.
“You’ve been busy, I see,” I said, letting humor fill my voice.
He snorted. “Yeah. Found your little folder of goodies.”
“I’m not sure what came over me. I’ve never done anything like that before. Never taken a single nude or even a partially nude photo of myself.”
