The Art of Love: Origins of Sinner's Grove (35 page)

“Well, it’s a lie of omission, especially if he’s made you any promises…” He looked at Lia. “He has made promises, hasn’t he?”

Lia’s eyes welled with tears as she shook her head. “I guess I was too busy enjoying each day to worry about the tomorrows.”

A knock at the door caused both of them to jump. They heard the door open and Roger speaking to someone.

“Roger is now our ‘official family spokesperson.’ I told him to give out the party line and then shoo any reporters away.”

Over the next few hours the telephone rang several times and a half dozen reporters knocked on the door, most accompanied by photographers, all wanting a glimpse of the city’s latest
femme fatale
. Lia was grateful that Roger ran interference with the public while she and Sandy kept to the back of the house.

“The story will die down in a day or so,” Sandy reassured her. “Like all cities, this place is always looking for the next scandal, you know that.”

Lia smiled wanly as the tears continued to fall silently down her cheeks. She loved him for trying to put a good face on matters, but they both knew the scandal was the least of it. New York had taught them they could survive that. It was the loss of innocence about her relationship with Gus that truly caused the pain. He hadn’t lied, but he hadn’t told the truth, either. It would never be the same between them, and that realization was almost unbearable.

Shortly after lunch they heard one more knock on the door. Roger answered it and exchanged heated words with whomever had shown up. A few minutes later Roger came to the sun room. “I’m sorry, but he’s been calling all morning,” he said. He turned to let Gus pass by him into the room.

“Lia, I—”

Sandy rose from the settee. “About time you got here,” he said blandly. “Come on, Roger, our work here is done.” He took his partner by the arm. “I’ll be in touch, darling,” he told Lia, glancing at Gus on his way out.

“Sandy, wait!” Lia jumped up from the sofa and followed him to the front parlor. The last person she wanted to be with right now was standing right in front of her, his eyes boring into hers.

“Lia, you need to work this out,” Sandy said quietly. “And the two of you need to do it alone.” Sandy nodded to Gus before shutting the door.

There was a moment of stunned silence before Gus started in. “Lia, you’ve got to believe me—”

Lia held up her hand to stop his explanation. “Just tell me one thing: is the story accurate?”

Gus hesitated. “Accurate yes…but not complete.”

“Oh, I think it served its purpose, at least the purpose your Ms. Lindemann wanted it to serve.” Lia wrapped her arms around herself; the cold infused her from within.

Gus ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I figured as much myself. She’s been seeing that editor; apparently he was useful in more ways than one.”

Lia walked back through the house to the French doors overlooking the garden. How did it all look so lovely and green when her life had just withered to nothing? She finally looked back at Gus. “It doesn’t matter, really. It would have come out sooner or later. I would have wanted more of a commitment, and you would have had to tell me at some point.” She paused. “You would have told me, wouldn’t you?”

Gus started to reach for her but she stayed his hand. “Dammit, of course I would have!” he cried. “But please listen to me. It’s true that I’m not divorced and free to marry you. And the reason is simple: I don’t know where the hell my wife and daughter are!”

She looked so vulnerable, so magnificent at that moment that Gus nearly howled with the injustice of it all. This beautiful, warm, talented woman could have anyone,
anyone
, and yet she was hurt because she couldn’t have him—a man who came from nothing, who’d still be nothing if it weren’t for the life she breathed into him every single day. He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t lose her.

“What do you mean?” She looked at him like he was plumb loco. “How on earth did you lose your wife and daughter?”

“It’s not as crazy as it sounds, believe me.” He explained what had happened, down to details like the message he’d tried to have delivered and the fact that his wife had thought he died. “Mattie never made contact with her friend again; leastwise, that’s what her friend told me.” Gus began to pace the room. “For the past several years I’ve had Pinkerton detectives on alert to follow up on any reports of a Mattie Wolff,
anywhere
. They know to track down missing person reports and any news of a…a death of a woman and her child. I can’t tell you how many wild goose chases and dead ends I’ve been down over that time.”

“You must miss her and your daughter so very much,” Lia said in a small voice.

Gus was ready to punch the wall, he was so agitated. How could he explain without sounding like a cold-hearted bastard? “Listen, Lia. I miss my daughter every day of my life. But Mattie…well, the truth is, she and I weren’t going to make it. She was way too young, I was way too lonely, and Annabelle came along way too soon. We both knew it, we just hadn’t said it out loud to each other. If you want the truth, I don’t think Mattie wants to be found. I think she must have hankered after the man she met up with in San Francisco, whoever he was, way before she took up with me. Maybe she just saw an opportunity and took it. That’s the only thing I can figure. So you’re half right. I miss my daughter very much and dammit, I want to know she’s safe. But I also want to find Mattie so I can be legally free of her. Free to be with you. Lock, stock, and barrel.”

“If you haven’t had success in the last seven years, I doubt you’re going to find her,” Lia said with a touch of resignation in her voice. “And that leaves us nowhere.”

“Please don’t say that,” Gus pleaded. He could hear the near panic in his voice but he didn’t care. If he had to get on his knees and beg, he’d do it in a heartbeat. Whatever it took. “I love you, Lia. I’ve wanted you from the first time I saw you, and that feeling has only grown stronger, the more I know what kind of woman you are. I want to make a life with you, have children with you—”

He was taken aback by the glare Lia threw him. “How can you talk like that?” she ground out. “You have no idea what it’s like to be caught in the midst of a public scandal, even if it’s one of your own making. People are ruthless. They skin you alive with words, with rejection, with all manner of cruelty because you don’t conform. The only way, the
only
way I could stand up to it was knowing, in my heart, that I was innocent of the charges. I wouldn’t have that refuge if we were to defy convention and be open about our affair.”

“Do you really care so much about what others think?”

Lia paused before answering. “Yes, when it comes right down to it, I suppose I am old-fashioned that way. I want all of you, August. I want your name. I want to give you a child. I want that child to hold his or her head high knowing that their parents love each other and are committed to one another in the eyes of God and the law. The way things are now, a child with you would be called a bastard. You and I have both suffered in our own way, but we’ve never had that millstone around our necks. I think it’s too great a burden to put on anyone, especially someone we choose to bring into the world.”

“Well…maybe we don’t have children, then. You would be enough for me.”

Lia didn’t respond with words, but the tears that welled up in her eyes said more than words ever could. Lia was at heart a loving woman, traditional in many ways, who’d been forced out of the mainstream because of a situation she was powerless to change. And now he was asking her to limit her life even more, to give up children, and say goodbye to respectability in the eyes of society. For what? Just to make him happy because he screwed up? No. As selfish as he was, he just couldn’t do that to her. She deserved better. Way better.

“Lia…I’m so sorry,” he finally said.

She nodded, wiped her tears. Smiled through them. At him. “I am too,” she said softly. She wrapped her arms around her middle. “I think you better go now.”

A feeling of panic began to seep into his pores. What was he going to do without her in his life? How could he fix this? How could he make it any less painful? He mentally scrambled for anything to keep her from cutting him off entirely. “What about the mural?” he asked.

“It’s finished,” she said. “I think…at least I hope you’ll like it. I’ll have Sandy stop by to pick up my supplies.”

He reached for her. “Lia—”

“No,” she said firmly, keeping him at bay. “You need to go now.”

He could tell she was near tears again—tears that he’d caused. He couldn’t remember ever feeling this bad. He nodded and turned to leave. At the doorway he turned around. “You are a magnificent woman. If you ever need anything,
anything…
”

Lia smiled again, that sad smile, and closed the door gently in his face.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

F
or five days Gus refused to go near the mural. Sandy had picked up Lia’s supplies and said only that she was “doing all right.” Gus had handed him a bank draft for her work, twice what they had agreed upon, and Sandy had simply looked at him with disappointment. The thought kept rolling around Gus’s whiskey-soaked brain that once he uncovered the painting, his and Lia’s story would be well and truly over, so of course he’d avoided it like the plague.

After a few days, Will had stopped by to check on him. Apparently Sandy had told Will about the break-up and assured him that Lia was coping as well as she could. Gus had offered Will a drink, and when he declined (it was eight in the morning), Gus had drunk enough for both of them.

“Enjoy your pity party while you can,” Will told him with a touch of disgust in his voice. “Because sooner or later you’re going to have to go back to work.”

Gus had waved him off, asking him what the fuck he knew about such things, and had he ever really loved anybody but himself?

But reality had a way of seeping in, winding its way through the fog of alcohol. Life, even a damn stupid life, had to be lived. Gus began to notice, and eat, the food that Mrs. Coats worriedly tempted him with every day. He even resumed helping Mr. Chou, taking the jobs that broke the most sweat and strained the most muscles. A numbness set in. A sense that none of it mattered anyway. Not without her.

So it was that one night he decided, finally, to see what Lia had created. He grimaced at the difference between this unveiling and the one that had originally brought them together. Only about two hundred people, give or take. He walked into the dining room and contemplated the large cloth covering for several minutes. Maybe it would be just another woodland scene. Maybe she didn’t understand him at all. He’d just about convinced himself of that and on impulse pulled the cord that lowered the covering…

… and caught his breath.

She’d understood him.

Perfectly.

The scene didn’t merely reproduce the drama of the setting. Not the crashing waves or the beauty of the Redwoods. No. It expressed the feeling Gus had when he stood there, in that place. A sense of power. A sense of rightness. And possibility.

She’d painted from the perspective of one looking up, as if the trees were a cathedral without a ceiling. The viewer felt the majesty, yes, but also the potential of a world without limits. It was exactly what he’d hoped she’d see.

Tears came to his eyes and he let them fall. He took in all that he had gained from her, and all that he had lost, and it nearly overwhelmed him with sorrow. Because for all the planning, all the finagling, all the deal-making he’d done his entire life, he didn’t know how to make the situation with Lia better. He wasn’t used to feeling powerless. And he hated it.