“Thank God.” Tears coated the tips of his lashes.
“Wes,” she repeated, a tad stronger. In bits and pieces the night of the club came back to her but everything beyond her fight with Corrine was a terrifying blank slate.
“Hush, just rest. You’ve been through a lot, darling.” Wes’s hand gripping hers shook faintly.
“What happened? The Monet…”
He bent to press a kiss to her forehead. “It was Stephen Vain. He was the thief. He and Corrine were partners. He poisoned you with Jimsonweed at the club and waited for me to bring you home. Then he blackmailed me into giving him the real Monet in the black room before he would tell me what poison he gave you.”
Callie had to focus on what he said, but once she processed it all, she squeezed his hand again. She had been a pawn for Corrine and Vain to use to get the Monet?
“He got away with the Monet in the black room?”
Wes nodded. “The FBI is working with Interpol to track him and Corrine. I know it’s a matter of time before they’re found, but there’s no guarantee that we’ll recover any of the paintings.”
Despite her weakness, she laughed a little, then winced.
“What’s the matter?” Wes smoothed her hair back from her face. He seemed to think she was in pain.
“It’s okay, Wes.” She managed to smile at him. “The real Monet is safe.” Thank God she could finally tell him the secret she’d been hiding the last few days. Her plan had worked and she’d outwitted the thief. Even though she’d been wrong about Thomas Stonecypher, she hadn’t been wrong about how the thief had been one step ahead of them.
Wes started to shake his head.
“I painted a second forgery of the Monet. Royce gave me a spare key to the black room. I switched the real one out and put the second fake Monet in your black room.”
His lips parted and his eyes widened. “What? Where’s the real painting?”
She giggled, but it was breathless. “The real one is under the bed in my studio. I didn’t think anyone would think to check all the beds in your mansion.”
“Callie, my God!” Wes’s fists clenched and he looked like he wanted to punch a wall.
“You’re mad?”
“Mad? Mad is not a strong enough word for what I’m feeling right now,” he growled as he shoved his chair back from the hospital bed and got to his feet to pace.
“What if Vain had realized the other one was a fake, too? I wouldn’t have known where to find the real one. You were unconscious and I could have lost you since I didn’t know you’d switched them.”
“Please, Wes. I’m sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. I just wanted to protect the Monet. I know how much you loved it.” Hot tears leaked out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
When he noticed, he strode back over to her and leaned over to hug her. His lips were soft against her ear.
“You are the only thing that matters to me, Callie. Nothing is worth your life. Do you understand? You are the only thing I love.” He lifted his head so their faces were inches apart, eyes locked.
“You love me?” Her bottom lip quivered and she couldn’t seem to control it. She bit it to keep from crying. She was so happy. How was it possible to contain everything she was feeling?
“Shh…there will be plenty of time for me to tell you how much I adore you later. I want you to rest now. Your father will be here in a few hours. I want you rested so when he arrives, you’ll be well enough that he won’t want to kill me.”
“He’s coming here?”
“Yes, he’s going to take you home to Colorado. I have to fix some things here while you recover.” Wes caressed the back of her hand with his thumb.
“But I don’t want to go back to Colorado without you.”
A little smile curved his lips. “You’re saying you can’t last a few weeks without me?”
A few weeks? She didn’t want to go five minutes without him. She shook her head and the movement hurt.
“I’m making another bet with you, darling. Make it, say, three weeks without me and I promise you’ll be rewarded.”
“No, I want you. Now. Don’t you dare leave me, Wes.” She squeezed his hand.
“I’m not leaving you, but I do need to send you home because it’s the best place for you to heal while I get things settled here. Can you please try to be brave for me and give me some time? Can you do that?”
She nodded, but didn’t release his hand. “Don’t let go.” She was afraid of that darkness coming back. If he held on to her, she wouldn’t slip away.
He eased back into the chair by her bed and kept a grip on her hand.
“Never. You are mine. I made a promise to keep you.”
As her lashes fell, she finally relaxed.
“You are mine, too,” she whispered, then drifted away.
* * *
Three weeks. It seemed like he counted the days whenever Callie wasn’t with him. Of course, this hell was of his own making. He’d sent her home to Walnut Springs with her father as soon as she’d gotten out of the hospital. The poison had weakened her body and the doctors had urged her to rest in a place where she was most comfortable with the least amount of stress. That wasn’t his home in Weston. The mansion was a flurry of activity as he changed everything in the house he could think of to make it ready for Callie. He finished her art applications, spoke with her soon-to-be professors, arranged for a real studio to be built for her by the Winter Garden.
Everything was going to be perfect.
But it didn’t change the fact that he missed her. It was almost like she haunted him, a living ghost, her voice teasing his ears to where he’d turn, thinking she’d be there, only to remember he’d sent her away. The look of betrayal and hurt in her tired eyes had wounded him, but she’d been too exhausted and on medication when Jim had taken Wes’s jet to fly her home.
Jim had made it clear that if Wes came for Callie, he’d better be ready to ask for her hand in marriage. Wes agreed. If that was what it took to have Callie in his life, a ring and a ceremony, he’d do it. What’s more…he wanted to do it.
Wes stood in the old bedroom that had been Callie’s temporary studio, his hands tucked into his trouser pockets as he took in the easels full of art. He couldn’t wait to see her tomorrow. She had no idea he was coming, so it would be a surprise. A wonderful one, he hoped.
A light rap of knuckles had him turning toward the door. Royce was leaning against the frame, smirking.
“So you love the little cowgirl, don’t you?” He rolled his eyes.
Wes shrugged. “No point in denying it.”
Royce pushed away from the door frame and walked over to the bed and knelt down.
“Well that’s good to hear, because I had a friendly little bet with Callie about whether you did in fact love her. I won, you see, because I knew you loved her. She didn’t believe me.”
Wes stiffened. “A bet with Callie?” He knew Royce too well, and his bets often had unorthodox payments. “What were the terms?”
His friend slid something out from under the bed, a canvas covered with cloth. He carried it over to an easel and set it up.
“Because I won, she was supposed to give you this. I figured she must have forgotten, what with nearly dying and all.” Royce chuckled but there was no real humor in his tone.
“What is it?” Wes joined him as he faced the covered canvas.
“Take a look.” Royce nodded at it.
With one hand, Wes carefully let the white cloth drop from the painting and then sucked in a breath.
His soul was there, in the dark green forest, bathed in the lantern-yellow color that had always been a siren call for him. Four little boys…camping. Four men’s faces, like dark gods watching over their younger incarnations. Callie knew his deepest secrets now, had painted them on this canvas. The loss of his innocence. She’d shown him that she understood what he mourned and couldn’t reclaim, but she reminded him, too, that he wasn’t scarred anymore, not in the way he’d believed all these years. She’d painted a light to show him the way out of the darkness, to show him the way home.