J. Kenner - Wanted

He looked up at me, but I wasn’t sure that he saw me. He seemed faraway, lost deep in thought. Then his expression cleared and he smiled, holding out his hand in an invitation that I eagerly accepted. “Hello, beautiful. You look rested.”

I tilted my head up to receive his kiss. “You, sir, wore me out. But in the best possible way.”

His dimple flashed, the charm of it contrasting with the wicked gleam of the scar across his eyebrow. “I’m very glad to hear it. Are you hungry?”

“Mostly for you,” I said. I expected him to laugh and was disappointed when the smile that touched his lips seemed forced and didn’t reach his eyes.

I cleared my throat. “The truth is, I’m starving.”

The moment I said it, I had to acknowledge that it was true. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.

“Unless there’s a grill, I’m a terrible cook,” he confessed. “How are your culinary skills?”

“Worse than yours,” I admitted. “I’m not allowed near a grill unless I dial ahead and put the nearest fire station on notice.”

“Apparently we won’t be having soufflés as our late night snack.”

“How does a frozen bagel with cream cheese sound?”

“Can you operate a toaster?” he asked.

“I can not only work a toaster,” I bragged, “I can even manage a pot of coffee. French roast,” I added. “That’s your favorite, right?”

“Sweetheart,” he said, with a smile that soothed all my worries, “you’ve just made my evening.”

I managed to pull together a feast of toasted bagels, cream cheese, strawberry jam, and fresh blueberries in heavy cream. We sat at the cafe-style table in the breakfast area and as we ate in companionable silence, I glanced around this kitchen that was now mine. Even here, fine art decorated the walls. Alan had told me that a crew would be coming soon to crate it up and move it to the foundation’s storage facility, and I couldn’t help the pulse of sadness at the knowledge that these lovely canvases would be hidden away, lost in some sort of warehouse until whoever ran the foundation found a home for them.

“What’s the matter?” Evan said, and I looked up to see that he was peering at me over the rim of his coffee cup, his brow furrowed as if he was pondering some knotty problem.

I gathered myself and used my knife to smear jam on top of my cream cheese. “Nothing. Just thinking.”

“Deep thoughts, apparently.”

I laughed. “I don’t know how deep,” I said. “Just melancholy.”

He reached out and brushed his fingers over my hand that still held the knife. “Tell me.”

“I was just thinking about all this,” I said, glancing pointedly at all the art that filled the room. “Jahn used to tell me about his plans for the foundation. About how he was operating it only on a shoestring, but that when he died he wanted to see it blossom.” My words were very matter-of-fact, but inside I was all twisted up. The thing I’d shared most with my uncle was our love of art, and the knowledge that all these wonderful paintings were going to go away only made the pain from Jahn’s loss that much more brutal. I sucked in a breath and let it out slowly, willing myself not to cry. “I knew this was coming—the transfer to the foundation, I mean. But I never expected it to happen so soon.”

“I know.” The words were simple, yet held so much meaning. He did know. He’d loved Jahn, too. They’d connected just as Jahn and I had, and I wondered if it was art that they’d shared, or something else entirely.

I took a sip of my coffee. “Why did you stick around? After you finished Jahn’s seminar class, I mean.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Complaining?”

“Hardly. No, I was just thinking about connections. Jahn was my uncle, but that’s just an accident of birth, you know? It was the art that really drew us together. I guess I was wondering what it was for you.”

“I enjoy art,” he said, “but no, it’s not my passion. Not the way it is for Cole. And art wasn’t your uncle’s first passion, either,” he said.

“You don’t think so? What was? Business?”

He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he got up and moved to the counter to pour fresh coffee. There was nothing awkward about his movements, but I had the impression that he was measuring his words.

Finally, he turned back to me with an enigmatic smile. “Your uncle liked to win.”

“I know. I mean it pissed him off so much when Neely acquired the Creature Notebook that he went to a hell of a lot of trouble to commission a copy.”

“True enough,” Evan said, but there was something in his voice that made me think that he wasn’t talking to me so much as acknowledging a private joke. Or maybe he was just trying to hide his irritation. Under the circumstances, it was probably indelicate of me to mention the notebook.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

As always, he understood what I meant. “Why do you think he changed his will? He knew I wanted it. And the time we spoke of it, he was very clear that he wanted me to have it.”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “He never mentioned it to me at all. Not as a bequest, anyway. But he knew I loved it and that it was my favorite of all his pieces. And I think—” I hesitated, then rushed recklessly on. “I think he wanted me to know that he trusted me and that he loved me.”

Evan was watching me intently. “Something happened. Something about the time that he changed his will. What?”

I glanced down at the table. “I fucked up. Jahn helped me out.” I lifted my head to look at Evan, and realized he was a little blurry. I blinked, and was mortified when I felt a tear snake down my cheek. “Shit,” I said as I brushed it away. “I just—I felt bad. I think the notebook was Jahn’s way of telling me it was all okay.”

“Angie—”

He was reaching for me, but I pushed back from the table and stood up, determined to get this conversation back on track. As in, not about me or my secrets. “So why you?” I said brightly.

“What do you mean?”

“Why was he going to leave it to you? Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave it to Cole?” I’d turned to the coffeepot as I spoke, but I caught a sharp movement in my peripheral vision, as if my words had jolted him.

“Why do you say that?” His voice was low and measured, and I had absolutely no idea what button I had pushed.

“Just because art is Cole’s thing. I mean, he did that whole internship in Rome, and he teaches classes at that community center.” I shrugged. “I dunno. It just made sense.”

“I suppose it does,” Evan said.

“So why did you want it?”

He focused on spreading cream cheese on the second half of his bagel, and for a moment I wasn’t sure he was going to answer. Then he said, “Because the notebook means something. It represents something huge.”

“The missing dragon shield, you mean? Or something more?” The story was that as a youth, Da Vinci had painted a fabulous dragon on a shield. It was so incredible that his father had not sold it to the original buyer, and it had disappeared into history. But I didn’t think that Evan was talking about a lost artifact.

“It’s a reflection of how Da Vinci looked at the world. He saw things that weren’t there. He looked beneath the surface. He looked at the world the way it really was, and it didn’t scare him.”

I stared at him in unabashed amazement.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s just—I can’t believe you said that. It’s exactly what I love about that notebook. About most of Da Vinci’s work, actually.”

The corner of his mouth curved up for just a moment before his features settled back into an expression of bland indifference.