Page 55 of Fresh Canvas
I swatted his hand away, and Val strode off without another word. I groaned, dragging my feet after him down the sidewalk.
fifteen
AMANTHA
Val’s quiet office smelled of his familiar, masculine scent. Everything was still annoyingly clean and organized. Only the clicking on Val’s keyboard and the persistent squeak of the chair I was twisting side to side in disrupted the silence.
“Will youpleasestop doing that?”
“Sor–ry.” My voice sounded anything but. Val had insisted on searching for the accession form himself, which left me with not a lot to do. I rose and wandered the office. The sight of the stainless steel wastebasket brought back the day we met, though my resume was long gone by now. I decided to mess with him.
“You know, I’ll never forget the day we met…” I trailed off.
The clicking of Val’s keyboard quieted a bit.
“But, don’t worry. I’ll always keep trying to.”
The clicking resumed.
The bookshelves lining the wall behind Val were almost barren. Only three picture frames sat atop the cherry wood. I approached the first frame. It still held the prefabricated stock photo it had been sold with.
For crying out loud, Val.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Val didn’t have a sentimental bone in his body.
I picked up another frame and said, “Russo, I didn’t know you had kids.” A black-and-white Val crouched with his arms wrapped around two younger boys. The children were wearing football jerseys. Val looked younger in the photo. Less mean.
Definitely cuter when he’s not talking.
“I don’t,” Val said curtly, turning around to glance at the frame in my hand. “Those are my nephews.” He went back to his computer.
Placing the frame down, I continued exploring. I trailed my fingers along the shelf until I came to the last frame. The picture inside was of a gorgeous woman, presumably in her mid-twenties. She was stunning. Like, old-Hollywood-movie-type stunning. Wild almost white blonde hair fell to her shoulders in voluminous curls. Her vibrant blue eyes twinkled at the photographer. The picture seemed to crackle with energy.
“And who’s this?” I asked the back of his head.
Val’s body went rigid like I’d branded him with a hot poker.
A confused stone dropped into my stomach as regret flooded my cheeks. Whoever this woman was, I wasn’t supposed to ask about her. Silence stretched into minutes. I chewed my lip, not knowing how to ease the tension that I’d somehow brought on. Wordlessly, I turned and set the frame back on the shelf.
“My late wife.”
It took a second for me to register Val’s hoarse whisper, but then my jaw went slack.
Val was a widower?
The pain in Val’s whispered response was palpable. It infiltrated me, resounding with my own wounds. My mind began to flood with thoughts of Dad. His flannel, his soft, quiet nature. Losing him had been one of the most difficult things I ever experienced.
But losing aspouse? An unexpected, wrenching wave of sympathy for Val threatened to drown me.
My thoughts suddenly shot off in a different direction beforehorror rose in my throat, recalling the words I had used on the plane less than a month ago.
“Any woman in her right mind would die to get away from you.”
The slapped look on Val’s face made complete sense now. Disgust joined the twist in my stomach at my own callousness. Val wasn’t a ray of sunshine by any means, but no one deserved a low blow like that. I wondered what Val’s perspective of me could have been all this time.
Had I been just as much a jerk to him as he was to me? How much additional pain had I caused him? I had justified each retort, each glare, each insult because I had thought he was an awful person. Wasn’t he?
Or was I?
