MILLION DOLLAR BABY by Patricia Ryan

Author:Patricia Ryan [Ryan, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-11-07T21:10:22+00:00

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Chapter 8

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Dean heard her come up slowly behind him as he stood contemplating the roughed-out painting of Janey, while sipping coffee from a heavy, obviously handmade mug. He wondered if Laura had made it; he recalled her taking one or two pottery classes at Rutgers.

She cleared her throat. "Uh, thanks for chopping that wood, but I'd rather you didn't do any more. I'll finish it up myself. I don't mind."

"Sure you do," he said without turning around. "You told me so."

"I really didn't mean—"

"This is wonderful," he said, nodding toward the painting.

That seemed to catch her off guard, because it took her a moment to respond. "It's … unfinished. I just started it. It won't look like that when it's—"

"I know." Smiling, he glanced at her over his shoulder, to find her standing in the open doorway with her arms tightly crossed, her expression pensive. She looked ridiculously pretty in her paint-spattered apron, the same one she'd had in college. She'd caught her hair up haphazardly in one of those claw things, but rebellious tendrils had sprung free to curl around her face and tumble down her nape. Her face, with its exquisitely translucent skin, struck him as unusually pale at present, or maybe it was just an effect of the lighting – those merciless overhead fluorescents augmented by the sunlight streaming through the south-facing wall of windows.

Realizing he was staring at her, he returned his attention to the painting. "That pose is terrific. You've captured her little-kid awkwardness, and that makes it more … I don't know, more real than one of those idealized kids in their Sunday best with their hands folded in their lap. It's really Janey, you know? Not some generic kid from central casting." Turning to face her, he said, "You've still got it, Lorelei."

Color rose in her cheeks, which he found absurdly gratifying. "Thanks," she murmured, looking away.

"Since when have you been into painting people?" he asked, eyeing about a dozen canvases stacked against one wall, a handful of which were portraits, mostly of Janey. Laura used to just paint the ocean, with the occasional landscape or still life thrown in for variety.

"It, uh, it started when Janey was born," she said tentatively, without budging from her rigid stance in the doorway. "The first time I sketched her, it was in the hospital a couple of hours after I delivered her." She looked toward a picture hanging on the wall above her worktable.

He smiled when he got close enough to see that the drawing, although double-matted and beautifully framed under glass, had been executed in ballpoint pen on a creased white institutional paper napkin. With fluid, economical strokes of the pen, Laura had perfectly captured the image of the newborn Janey fast asleep, her thumb snugged firmly into her mouth, her hair sprouting out of her head in a way that made her look uncannily like Sid Vicious.

Dean said, "I'm surprised you had the wherewithal, so soon after giving birth, to draw this.

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