He uttered the compliment so dispassionately that it didn't seem flattering. She resisted the urge to tell him he should have seen her in her prime. "You're right about my vanity," she said, just to needle him. "Which is why I'm not going to stand here in the sun any longer."
The pencil continued to fly over his sketch pad. "I don't like models talking when I'm working."
"I'm not your model."
Just as she was about to turn away for the last time, he jabbed his pencil in the pocket of his work shirt. "How do you expect me to concentrate when you won't stand still?"
"Pay attention: I don't care whether you concentrate or not."
His brow furrowed, and she had the feeling he was trying to make up his mind whether he could bully her into staying. Finally he flipped his sketch pad shut. "We'll meet here tomorrow morning then. Let's say seven. That way the sun won't be too hot for you."
Her irritation turned to amusement. "Why not make it six-thirty?"
His eyes narrowed. "You're patronizing me, aren't you?"
"Rude and astute. A fascinating combination."
"I'll pay you."
"You couldn't afford me."
"I seriously doubt that."
She smiled and turned onto the path.
"Do you know who I am?" he called out.
She glanced back. His expression couldn't have been more threatening. "Should I?"
"I'm Liam Jenner, damn it!"
She sucked in her breath. Liam Jenner. The J. D. Salinger of American painters. My God… What was he doing here?
He could see that she knew exactly who he was, and his scowl turned smug. "We'll compromise on seven then."
"I-" Liam Jenner! "I'll think about it."
"You do that."
What an obnoxious man! He'd done the world a favor by being so reclusive. But still…
Liam Jenner, one of the most famous painters in America, wanted her to sit for him. If only she were twenty and beautiful again.
Chapter 13
Daphne put down her hammer and hopped back to admire the sign she'd nailed to her front door. It read NO BADGERS ALLOWED (and this means vous!). She'd painted it herself just that morning. Daphne's Lonesome Day
"Use the stepstool to check that top shelf, will you, Amy?" Kevin said from the pantry. "I'm going to move these boxes out of the way."
As soon as they'd returned from town, Kevin had enlisted Amy's help taking inventory of their food supplies. For the past ten minutes she'd been darting assessing glances between the pantry where he was working and the kitchen counter where Molly was preparing for the tea. Finally, she couldn't hold back any longer.
"It's sort of interesting, isn't it, that you and Molly got married about the same time as me and Troy."
Molly set the first slice of Bundt cake on the Victorian cake platter and listened to Kevin dodge. "Molly said she was going to need more brown sugar. Anything up there?"
"I see two bags. There's this book I read about marriage…"
"What else?"
"Some raisin boxes and a thingy of baking powder. Anyway, this book said that sometimes couples who, like, have just got married have a hard time adjusting and everything. Because it's such a big change."
"Is there any oatmeal? She said she needed that, too."
"There's a box, but it's not a big one. Troy, like, thinks being married is awesome."
"What else?"
"Pans and stuff. No more food. But if you're having trouble adjusting or anything, I mean, you could talk to Troy."
Molly smiled at the long silence that followed. Eventually, Kevin said, "Maybe you'd better see what's left in the freezer."
Amy emerged from the pantry and gave Molly a pitying glance. There was something about the teenager's sympathy and those hickeys that was getting under her skin.
Tea wasn't nearly as much fun without Kevin. Mrs. Chet-actually Gwen-didn't try to hide her disappointment when Molly said he had another commitment. She might have cheered up if she'd known that Lilly Sherman was staying there, but Lilly didn't appear, and Molly wasn't going to announce her presence.
She was setting out the pottery mixing bowls so she'd be ready for breakfast the next morning when Kevin came in through the back carrying groceries. He dodged Roo, who was trying to make a meal of his ankles, and set the bags on the counter. "Why are you doing that? Where's Amy?"
"Stop it, Roo. I just let her go. She was starting to whimper from Troy-deprivation."
No sooner had she said it than she spotted Amy flying across the yard toward her husband, who must have sniffed her on the wind, because he'd appeared out of nowhere.
"There they go again," Kevin said.
Their reunion was more passionate than a perfume commercial. Molly watched Troy dip his mouth to the top of Amy's exposed breast. She threw back her head. Arched her neck.
Another hickey.
Molly smacked a Tupperware lid back on its container. "She's going to end up needing a blood transfusion if he doesn't stop that."
"She doesn't seem to mind it too much. Some women like it when a man puts his mark on them."
Something in the way he looked at her made her breasts prickle. She didn't like her reaction. "And some women see it for what it is-the pathetic attempt of an insecure man to dominate a woman."
"Yeah, there's always that." He gave her a lazy smile and headed back out the side door for the rest of the groceries.
While he unloaded, he asked Molly if she wanted to go into town for dinner, but she declined. There was only so much Kevin temptation she wanted to expose herself to at one time. She headed back to the cottage, feeling good about her self-discipline.
The sun looked like a big lemon cookie in the sky, which made Daphne hungry. Green beans! she thought. With a nice topping of dandelion leaves. And strawberry cheesecake for dessert.
This was the second time today the critters had popped into her head. Maybe she was finally ready to get back to work-if not to write, then at least to do the drawings Helen wanted and free up the rest of her advance.
She let herself into the cottage and found a well-stocked refrigerator and a cupboard stacked with supplies. She had to give Kevin credit. He was doing his best to be considerate. She wasn't crazy about the fact that she was starting to like him so much, and she tried to work up some anger by reminding herself he was a shallow, egotistical, overpriced, Ferrari-driving, kidnapping, poodle-hating womanizer. Except she hadn't seen any evidence of womanizing. None at all.
Because he didn't find her attractive.
She grabbed her hair and let out a muffled scream at her own utter patheticness. Then she fixed a huge dinner and ate every bite.
That evening she sat on the porch gazing down at the pad of paper she'd found in a drawer. Would it hurt to move Daphne and Melissa just a little farther apart? After all, it was only a children's book. It wasn't as if America's civil liberties rested on how close Daphne and Melissa were standing to each other.
Her pencil began to move, at first hesitantly, and then more quickly. But the sketch that appeared wasn't the one she'd planned. Instead, she found herself drawing Benny in the water, fur dripping into his eyes, his mouth agape, as he looked up at Daphne, who was diving off the top of a cliff. Her ears streamed behind her, the beaded collar of her denim jacket flapped open, and a pair of very stylish Manolo Blahniks flew from her paws.
She frowned and thought of all the accounts she'd read of young people being permanently paralyzed from diving into unfamiliar water. What kind of safety message would this send small children?
She ripped the paper from the pad and crumpled it. This was the sort of problem all those people who wanted to write a children's book never considered.