Page 90 of Crossed Wires: The Complete Series

He walked beside Monet, his arm encircling her back, her warmth seeping into his body, and looked at her world. The world he’d been trying to place himself in since the moment he’d accepted he was in love with her.

He took it all in, his pulse growing fast. The people, the grass—greener than any blade back home—the concrete sidewalks that designated where you should walk and were you shouldn’t, all so different from the home he knew. He looked up at the massive monoliths stabbing into the sky, building after building of metal and concrete and glass so high their shadows seemed to reach for everything around them.

He saw it all, recognized it as beautiful, but he couldn’tfeelit. The only beauty he could feel in this place was the woman who’d asked, “This is beautiful, isn’t it?”

And there was the answer to the question threatening his sanity. If the only thing that moved him here, the only thing that he found truly beautiful was Monet, he didn’t belong here.

Dylan’s feet stumbled beneath him. He stopped, drew in a deep breath and stared at the New York skyline, the inescapable buildings looming over him, blocking far too much of the sky. He stared up at it and thought of his home, of Farpoint. Of the never-ending blue sky that reached from one flat horizon to the other. The paddocks that unfurled before him as he rode his horse across them, Mutt yapping at the cattle, tail wagging, tongue lolling. He thought of the sweet scent of eucalyptus on the air after a rain. He thought of his brother, his mother. He thought of the sweeping plains that, to a stranger, would look empty and devoid of life but was really teeming with it.

He thought of his home.

He thought of Farpoint Creek.

He thought of Australia.

And was unable to avoid the answer he’d been so desperately trying to refuse.

His heart slammed into his throat. Blood roared in his ears. Tearing his stare from the famous metropolis, he turned his gaze to the woman he was irrevocably, completely, one hundred percent in love with.

“Monet?”

She swung her gaze to his, and his soul died a little as he watched the smile she’d been wearing fade from her lips. It was the fact he’d called her Monet, maybe, instead of love? Or the expression on his face? Something told her.

You never were any good at poker, Sullivan. Guess you know now why Hunter kicks your butt every time.

“Monet,” he said, sliding his arms around her, pulling her closer. Needing to feel her against his body. “I need?—”

She shook her head. “Please don’t say it, Dylan.” She caught her bottom lip with her teeth and shook her head again. “Please?”

His gut clenched. His chest tightened. “I have to, love.” His voice left him on a whisper, his throat too tight to speak. “It’ll only hurt us both if I don’t.”

She closed her eyes, pressed her forehead to his chest and shook her head once again. “Don’t.”

“I love you, Monet,” he said, holding her, aching for her. “I can’t even find the words to tell you how much, and I know my heart is with you, only you, but myplace…” He paused, his chest crushed by an invisible vice, his whole body in agony.

Don’t say it, Sullivan. ’Cause once you do, you can’t take it back.

“My place is back home. In Australia. I don’t belong here. And I have to go.”

Chapter11

Monet stared at the Australian stockman before her, his square jaw untouched by a razor for at least four days, his hat hiding the expressive laughter in his eyes. She let her gaze roam over his face, a face she would never forget.

And smashed her balled fist into his strong, hawkish nose.

The clay—still soft despite being manipulated for the better part of the day—flattened under her knuckles, mashing the stockman’s nose until it was nothing but a knuckle-shaped indent.

She studied the new shape of her artwork’s face and let out a frustrated sigh. It was the third one she’d created and destroyed since she’d started sculpting on Black Friday The third savaged by her fist since Dylan left, four hours after he’d told her he had to return to Australia.

Each time she punched the lump of clay she’d shaped, carved, pinched and molded to look like a typical hardworking stockman, a wave of hot satisfaction rolled over her. Followed by an emptiness so total and complete she wanted to sob.

Try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself the sculptures were anyone else but Dylan.

Art had always been therapeutic for her. She’d exorcised her parental demons through her first New York exhibition, a collection of sculptures and lithographs depicting a deranged family in various situations. As her career had flourished and her reputation grew as an artist not afraid to unsettle as well as charm with her creations, she’d worked through many issues. Her last exhibition,Lust is Love is Lust, had indeed been partly influenced by Phillip Montinari, just as he’d boasted. But only those works capturing the distorted egotism of sexual power. Phillip and guys like him. Guys who used their sexual prowess to define themselves.

The works depicting romantic fulfillment and love, however, were the embodiment of what Monet one day hoped to find—true love and happiness.

And she had, briefly. With Dylan.