She shot a look at Adam. “I’m sure Adam can be sweet, too.” But there was no confidence in her voice. “Rick’s forte is watercolor. He’s the sort of man women want to mother. I’m afraid he stutters a bit when he gets excited.”
“He’s madly in love with our little Kirby.” Fairchild would’ve cackled again, but for the look his daughter sent him.
“He just thinks he is. I don’t encourage him.”
“What about the clinch I happened in on in the library?” Pleased with himself, Fairchild turned back to Adam. “I ask you, when a man’s glasses are steamed, isn’t there a reason for it?”
“Invariably.” He liked them, damn it, whether they were harmless lunatics or something more than harmless. He liked them both.
“You know very well that was totally one-sided.” Barely shifting her stance, she became suddenly regal and dignified. “Rick lost control, temporarily. Like blowing a fuse, I suppose.” She brushed at the sleeve of her sweater. “Now that’s quite enough on the subject.”
“He’s coming to stay for a few days next week.” Fairchild dropped the bombshell as Kirby walked to the door. To her credit, she barely broke stride. Adam wondered if he was watching a well-plotted game of chess or a wild version of Chinese checkers.
“Very well,” Kirby said coolly. “I’ll tell Rick that Adam and I are lovers and that Adam’s viciously jealous, and keeps a stiletto in his left sock.”
“Good God,” Adam murmured as Kirby swept out of the door. “She’ll do it, too.”
“You can bank on it,” Fairchild agreed, without disguising the glee in his voice. He loved confusion. A man of sixty was entitled to create as much as he possibly could.
The structure of the second tower studio was identical to the first. Only the contents differed. In addition to paints and brushes and canvases, there were knives, chisels and mallets. There were slabs of limestone and marble and lumps of wood. Adam’s equipment was the only spot of order in the room. Cards had stacked his gear personally.
A long wooden table was cluttered with tools, wood shavings, rags and a crumpled ball of material that might’ve been a paint smock. In a corner was a high-tech stereo component system. An ancient gas heater was set into one wall with an empty easel in front of it.
As with Fairchild’s tower, Adam understood this kind of chaos. The room was drenched with sun. It was quiet, spacious and instantly appealing.
“There’s plenty of room,” Kirby told him with a sweeping gesture. “Set up where you’re comfortable. I don’t imagine we’ll get in each other’s way,” she said doubtfully, then shrugged. She had to make the best of it. Better for him to be here, in her way, than sharing her father’s studio with the Van Gogh. “Are you temperamental?”
“I wouldn’t say so,” Adam answered absently as he began to unpack his equipment. “Others might. And you?”
“Oh, yes.” Kirby plopped down behind the worktable and lifted a piece of wood. “I have tantrums and fits of melancholia. I hope it won’t bother you.” He turned to answer, but she was staring down at the wood in her hands, as if searching for something hidden inside. “I’m doing my emotions now. I can’t be held responsible.”
Curious, Adam left his unpacking to walk to the shelf behind her. On it were a dozen pieces in various stages. He chose a carved piece of fruitwood that had been polished. “Emotions,” he murmured, running his fingers over the wood.
“Yes, that’s—”
“Grief,” he supplied. He could see the anguish, feel the pain.
“Yes.” She wasn’t sure if it pleased her or not to have him so in tune—particularly with that one piece that had cost her so much. “I’ve done Joy and Doubt as well. I thought to save Passion for last.” She spread her hands under the wood she held and brought it to eye level. “This is to be Anger.” As if to annoy it, she tapped the wood with her fingers. “One of the seven deadly sins, though I’ve always thought it mislabeled. We need anger.”
He saw the change in her eyes as she stared into the wood. Secrets, he thought. She was riddled with them. Yet as she sat, the sun pouring around her, the unformed wood held aloft in her hands, she seemed to be utterly, utterly open, completely readable, washed with emotion. Even as he began to see it, she shifted and broke the mood. Her smile when she looked up at him was teasing.
“Since I’m doing Anger, you’ll have to tolerate a few bouts of temper.”
“I’ll try to be objective.”
Kirby grinned, liking the gloss of politeness over the sarcasm. “I bet you have bundles of objectivity.”
“No more than my share.”
“You can have mine, too, if you like. It’s very small.” Still moving the wood in her hands, she glanced toward his equipment. “Are you working on anything?”
“I was.” He walked around to stand in front of her. “I’ve something else in mind now. I want to paint you.”
Her gaze shifted from the wood in her hands to his face. With some puzzlement, he saw her eyes were wary. “Why?”
He took a step closer and closed his hand over her chin. Kirby sat passively as he examined her from different angles. But she felt his fingers, each individual finger, as it lay on her skin. Soft skin, and Adam didn’t bother to resist the urge to run his thumb over her cheek. The bones seemed fragile under his hands, but her eyes were steady and direct.
“Because,” he said at length,” your face is fascinating. I want to paint that, the translucence, and your sexuality.”
Her mouth heated under the careless brush of his fingers. Her hands tightened on the fruitwood, but her voice was even. “And if I said no?”
That was another thing that intrigued him, the trace of hauteur she used sparingly—and very successfully. She’d bring men to their knees with that look, he thought. Deliberately he leaned over and kissed her. He felt her stiffen, resist, then remain still. She was, in her own way, in her own defense, absorbing the feelings he brought to her. Her knuckles had whitened on the wood, but he didn’t see. When he lifted his head, all Adam saw was the deep, pure gray of her eyes.
“I’d paint you anyway,” he murmured. He left the room, giving them both time to think about it.
She did think about it. For nearly thirty minutes, Kirby sat perfectly still and let her mind work. It was a curious part of her nature that such a vibrant, restless woman could have such a capacity for stillness. When it was necessary, Kirby could do absolutely nothing while she thought through problems and looked for answers. Adam made it necessary.
He stirred something in her that she’d never felt before. Kirby believed that one of the most precious things in life was the original and the fresh. This time, however, she wondered if she should skirt around it.
She appreciated a man who took the satisfaction of his own desires for granted, just as she did. Nor was she averse to pitting herself against him. But… She couldn’t quite get past the but in Adam’s case.
It might be safer—smarter, she amended—if she concentrated on the awkwardness of Adam’s presence with respect to the Van Gogh and her father’s hobby. The attraction she felt was ill-timed. She touched her tongue to her top lip and thought she could taste him. Ill-timed, she thought again. And inconvenient.
Her father had better be prudent, she thought, then immediately sighed. Calling Philip Fairchild prudent was like calling Huck Finn studious. The blasted, brilliant Van Gogh was going to have to make a speedy exit. And the Titian, she remembered, gnawing on her lip. She still had to handle that.
Adam was huddled with her father, and there was nothing she could do at the moment. Just a few more