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She nodded. “The last Ash canvas this large sold at auction for four and a half million dollars.”
“You’ll be a wealthy woman. Independent.”
“This canvas won’t bring as much.”
“No?”
“I want mine in a museum, not hidden away in a private collection. That’ll limit the bidders. But all I need is enough to make Delilah secure.”
“You’ll have a lot more than that.”
“I suppose.”
“Our noble, self-sacrificing heroine.” He didn’t say it sarcastically, but she stiffened, and he cursed the part of him that was so terrified of the sentimental that he tainted everything with cynicism, even when he didn’t intend it. He forced himself to utter the question he’d been dreading. “When are you pla
“As soon as I make arrangements for the painting.”
“That shouldn’t take long.”
“Maybe a week.”
He touched her hair. “I love you, you know.”
Her lips trembled and a tear caught on her lashes. “You’ll get over it. Take it from one who knows. Love’s not an emotion that lasts forever.”
“Have you gotten over Emmett, then?”
“I must have, or I wouldn’t have fallen in love with you so quickly.”
Hearing her openly admit her feelings should have gratified him, but it only deepened his pain. “Do you have so little trust in yourself?”
“It’s not a matter of trust. I’m being realistic.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t leave. Everything you need is right here in Parrish.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What about that children’s bookstore you talked about? It doesn’t have to be a dream now. This is your home, Sugar Beth, the place where you belong.”
“No, it’s your town now.”
“And the place isn’t big enough for both of us, is that it?”
“You know it wouldn’t work.”
“You need to be here. You have family.” He drew a ragged breath. “And you have me.”
Dismay darkened her eyes. “That’s why I have to leave.” Her lashes dropped, and she turned way. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”
“I found the painting last week.”
She looked back at him.
“When we were searching the studio. I’d been in there at least a dozen times before, but . . . I was in a foul mood that day—knowing I was losing you—and you were standing next to it. I turned my head to snarl at you. Something about the colors, the violence of the paint . . . It grabbed me by the throat.”
She nodded as though she understood, although even he didn’t entirely comprehend the turbulent emotions that had claimed him right then.
“When were you going to tell me?” she asked.
“Every day this past week.”
She didn’t get angry as he expected. She didn’t seem reproachful. Instead, she gazed at him with something that looked like understanding.
He sensed her getting ready to move away again, and he spoke before she could. “I want you to marry me.”
Her eyes shot open.
His words should have rattled him—he’d never imagined saying them again—but they felt exactly right. He took a step closer and cupped her exquisite face. “I wish I had magnolias, or gardenias perhaps. Something to make the grand romantic gesture. I’m quite capable of it, you know.”
She rested her cheek against his palm, but only for a moment. “I could never do that to you.”
Her lack of courage maddened him. It felt too familiar, too much like his past. “I won’t beg, Sugar Beth. I begged a woman once in my life, and I’ll never do it again. You’re either strong enough to love me—strong enough to let me love you in return—or you’re not. Which is it going to be?”
She dropped her head and said, in a whisper, “I guess what you see as lack of courage, I see as wisdom.”
“There’s nothing wise about ru
“There is when I’m involved.”
And she walked away, leaving him alone in the damp spring night.
*****
Sugar Beth moved numbly through the next few days. Other than catching an occasional glimpse of Colin’s car turning out of the drive, she didn’t see him. He’d even stopped working on his wall. Recognizing that she’d made the right decision for both of them didn’t make it easier to accept the fact that she’d damaged someone she loved. As for the damage she’d done to herself . . . Sooner or later, she’d get over it. She always did.
As she waited on customers at Gemima’s, she told herself Colin had been wrong when he’d accused her of cowardice. People who didn’t learn from their mistakes deserved to be unhappy. She couldn’t keep rushing from one man to another, handing out her heart helter-skelter, falling in love with love and then having it snatched away. Colin didn’t understand that she was protecting him.
On Wednesday, the eager representatives from Sotheby’s arrived to take away the painting. The studio seemed empty without it, but she wasn’t sorry to see it go. She had enough disturbing emotions of her own to deal with, and she didn’t need to see more of them on canvas.
The week ground on. She told herself she’d survive the public humiliation that awaited her when Reflections was published. She’d survived humiliation before.
She had no trouble securing a small loan from the bank to hold her over until the painting sold. The Ash canvas was so much larger than she’d ever dreamed. Even after she’d set up a trust for Delilah, she’d have more than enough left over to open her children’s bookstore. Colin had been right. She had no passion for selling real estate, not compared with the pleasure she felt introducing a child to a book. As soon as she got to Houston, she’d start looking for the perfect location, and she’d forget that she’d already found it in an abandoned train depot in Parrish, Mississippi.
She pushed away images of old brick walls with book-lined shelves and a reading area shaped like a caboose. She refused to picture a tiny outdoor café sitting on an abandoned loading platform or weed-infested tracks reclaimed with potted trees and tubs of flowers. Instead, she concentrated on her work.
Jewel advertised for a new clerk, but Sugar Beth didn’t like any of the people she interviewed. “You owe it to the kids to find someone who cares about selling children’s books.”
“I did,” her tiny boss replied. “I found you.”
And right there, between Sandra Cisneros and Mary Higgins Clark, Sugar Beth began to cry. Jewel hugged her, but some things were beyond consolation.
Wi
“You know I don’t have any choice.”
“I know you think you don’t.” And Sugar Beth saw in Wi
At night, she barely slept. Instead, she stood at her bedroom window gazing over the hedge toward Frenchman’s Bride and fighting the powerful force that urged her to run to him. How could he have asked her to marry him? Had he forgotten how to count? What kind of stupidity would make him volunteer to be her fourth victim?
Saturday was her last day at the bookstore. Word had gotten around that she was leaving, and half the town stopped by to say good-bye. At least this time they wouldn’t think quite so badly of her. Late that afternoon, when things finally quieted down, she made her way to the children’s section for the final time. She was putting the small chairs back in place when Wi
“Ryan just called from Frenchman’s Bride! Colin’s leaving Parrish today.”
“What are you talking about?”
“He’s moving away. Leaving for good.”
Sugar Beth’s blood turned to ice. “I don’t believe you.”
“He’s loading up his car right now. Colin told Ryan not to say anything to you until after he’d left.”