Page 40 of Finding New Dreams

“Do you miss them, living here?” I asked her.

She smiled up at me, a hint of sadness glittering in her eyes. “Every day. We call and video chat and text all the time. We miss each other, but they understand why I’m here.”

“Why are you here?” I pulled on her hand until her kayak bumped into mine and we were drifting down the river as one raft.

She rubbed her thumb over mine, which ignited something deep in my gut. “I’ll answer that with a question. Why did you leave Tangled River?”

Instinctively, I wanted to shy away from the question by putting physical distance between us. But nothing short of a river monster could rip my hand from hers.

Instead, I aimed my gaze down the river, watching the silver-tipped ripples roll away from us. Trees flush with green leaves and chattering wildlife crowded the edges.

“Like I said, I was happy here…for the most part,” I answered slowly. “I didn’t like school much but loved art class. I had some great friends and a good, if occasionally annoying, little sister. My parents…my parents weren’t something I’d miss when I was gone. And I wanted to leave because I wanted more.”

Rose nodded and gave my hand a final squeeze before she gently untangled our fingers and took up her paddle again. “Well, this is my more.”

I smiled in understanding and grabbed my own paddle. Then I tried to lighten the mood. “So, are you going to tell me what we’re doing out here? And what’s in that bag you brought?”

“I’m out here because these little trips always give me lots of photo opportunities, and there’s supposed to be a big rainstorm tomorrow, so I didn’t want to wait. Which also explains my bag,” she said, leaning forward to give it a pat. “I’d like to take some shots of the river, as well as places around it if I feel like hopping out once in a while.”

“What do you do with the pictures?”

“I usually edit them and sell them online or in the gallery. I’ve even made some photo books to leave in places like Pine Grove Lodge and the Twisted Oak for tourists to thumb through.”

My eyebrows lifted. “I didn’t know you had an online store.”

Rose shrugged, her cheeks turning pink again. “It does pretty well. Nothing super professional, but people find it and seem to like my stuff.”

“Is that Rose code for ‘I’m secretly a millionaire because my stuff is amazing’?” I teased.

“Definitely not a millionaire. I have just enough.”

I frowned. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting more for yourself. Or asking for what your work deserves.”

Her eyes snapped over to me. “Of course not. I wasn’t trying to offend you, Flynn. If you create something that you think is worth half a million dollars, then you should ask for it.”

“But you wouldn’t.” I dug my paddle into the water and pulled hard.

She did the same to keep even with me. “Maybe I just don’t create anything that has that kind of price tag.”

“Why not?” I demanded, fixing my whole attention on her. Her answer suddenly felt vitally important.

She pinched her lips together, studying me for a moment. “While it’s true that I put a price tag on my work, I do it according to similar market value. Worth is something that the consumer brings to it. My portrait of a crane in mid-takeoff from the river may be valued at two thousand dollars, but maybe the person who bought it had a grandmother who recently died and adored cranes. They might think it’s worth ten times that for the happiness and comfort it brings them.”

I stared at her for a few moments, letting that sink in. Then a wry laugh escaped my lips. “Then I suppose a blank canvas would be valued at nothing and worth even less.”

Her dark eyes seemed to pierce my very soul. “And that’s why I asked you out here, Flynn. I didn’t want you sitting in front of another blank canvas again, beating yourself up. You’re so worried about what everyone else needs from you, and providing something of value in the hopes that it’ll be worth something in your client’s eyes. Why not go back and try to remember why art was worth anything to you in the first place?”

Without waiting for an answer, and possibly knowing that I was incapable of forming one, she dug into her waterproof bag and pulled out her camera.

My mind felt thoroughly rattled. The way she thought about art was so strange. People put a price on everything, everything. Anything could be for sale. Hell, I’d felt like a golden goose at some of the art shows I’d been to lately—my golden eggs ready for purchase whenever they popped out.

Gross metaphor aside, was that why I was having such a hard time giving the gold? Had I really forgotten what art meant to me in the first place?

I’d thought that coming here might jog my memory a bit. Back in the good ol’ days when I had no other responsibilities, no commitments, I created whatever I wanted. And because no one expected anything amazing out of me anyway, there was no pressure if it sucked.

“Careful, Flynn!” Rose called out.

A second later, a low-hanging branch scratched at the back of my neck. Cursing, I heaved on my idling paddle and pulled myself away from the bank I’d drifted up against.

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