Page 47 of Love Among Vines

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

JADE

Two hours later, Jade and Rett were flat on their backs on the rug in the basement, discarded plates with remnants of shepherd’s pie on the side table behind them. A fire crackled, warming their toes.

Jade was tucked into the crook of Rett’s arm. Target had been closed, but emergency birth control had been secured from a vending machine at a local college, and so far hadn’t resulted in any painful symptoms.

“I’m sorry if I freaked you out after the incident.” Rett’s deep voice rumbled in his chest.

She lifted her head. “It’s fine. It was kind of you to consider the effect the Plan B might have on my body.”

“It’s stupid,” he said. “But even as guarded as I’ve been with my heart, I’ve always wanted to be a dad.”

She propped her head in her hand and looked at him. “And you thought a great place to start your brood might be with your fake girlfriend who’s only here for another week?”

His entire body tensed up. There was a hesitancy in his eyes. After a pause that felt like a millennium, he spoke. “What if I don’t want just one more week?”

Holy shit.

She sat up. “What do you mean? You want me to come back for the holidays?”

“No. Well, yes, but—” He stopped and seemed to search for the right words. “Don’t tell me you can’t feel this.” He grabbed her hand and put it on his chest. His heart was galloping.

Was he really saying what she thought he was saying?

“I don’t want to drive you away, but I need you to know the truth.

” His hand closed over hers, and she shivered.

“This isn’t fake anymore. At least not for me,” he said.

“I want you to stay, Jade. I know we’ve only known each other for a week, and it’s insane to ask you to move away from the only home you’ve ever known.

But I’m not ready to say goodbye. The thought of you going back to the city and meeting someone else… ”

He looked down at her hand for a moment and rubbed her fingers. “I think I would lose my fucking mind. We could really have something incredible if we give ourselves enough time to explore it. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way. I just needed you to know.”

The mental images she had been desperately driving out of her memory returned.

Weekly dinners with Tom and Cindy. Christmas morning at Margie’s.

Penny living her best life on a boat. Rett coming up behind her to slide his arms around her swollen belly while an unseen foot tapped her from the inside.

She looked at him, and she saw forever. Home. A sensation that had been completely foreign to her since the day that officer had knocked on her door.

“I want to stay.” The words were out before she could take them back. It was exhilarating, vindicating, terrifying. Like she had just confessed to a murder.

Rett smiled, and joy shone out from those infuriating eyes.

“You want to stay?” he asked.

“Yes. There’s a lot to figure out?—”

He silenced her with a tender kiss. Unlike their feral lovemaking earlier, this time he held her like she was made of glass.

“We’ll worry about that later,” he said when he pulled away. “For now, this is enough.”

“This is enough,” she repeated. The overwhelming weight of terror was being replaced by something else. The air was full of possibility.

Her heart was galloping. But she barely noticed. Her body was buzzing from head to toe like she had been dipped in a vat of liquid gold laced with Novocain. She was alive, flowers in every color bursting forth from her skin.

She gripped his hands.

“Rett.”

“Yes?” He looked concerned.

“I need to paint.”

“Come with me.”

He led her to a room she hadn’t yet visited on the far side of the house.

It must have been his home gym at one point.

Some dumbbells and weights were piled in one corner of the room, but in front of the window were two easels, a massive pile of canvases, and a workbench littered with all the different paints and tools of creation he had acquired.

“How did you?—”

“I wanted to have something put together just in case. Do you think it’s back?”

Her eyes fell on his, but her fingers itched to touch paint. “I think it is.”

She threw herself on him and kissed him hard. He held onto her a beat longer after she pulled back.

For a second, they just looked at each other. She had so much to be grateful for. So much to thank this grumpy, practical, winemaking sex god for. Coming to the stupid, ill-fated wedding had completely changed the trajectory of her life.

Now she just needed to see if she still had it in her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Go.” He pointed at the canvas.

Jade considered the tools in front of her. She grabbed the easiest thing—acrylic paint—and placed dots on a palette. There was no plan in her head, no blossoming internal picture. Instead, she trusted her intuition and picked up a brush.

Brushstrokes skimmed across the page. Red, then yellow, then orange. The colors of Hammondsport blossomed on the canvas. In the midst of it all was the stone chapel, standing sentry on the hill.

Visions poured out of her, guiding her hands. She wasn’t in charge anymore as they glided over the surface, adding a brick here, a falling leaf there. A blue sky with a bright sun, tinges of green still lingering on some trees.

She barely glanced at it before running across the room and propping it against the wall.

Rett appeared silently beside her with a series of water glasses. She could have kissed him, but there wasn’t time. She dunked her brushes and picked up a new palette. More green in this one, with pops of turquoise and yellow.

Before she knew what she was doing, she had rendered Margie’s Café in miniature. It joined the chapel against the wall. Next came Cindy and Tom’s house with a manicured lawn and fiery maple tree.

Her hand cramped, and she flexed her fingers while staring at her creations. The story of the past week was spreading out in front of her. But she wasn’t done.

She closed her eyes and conjured up an image of Rhodes Vineyard. A deep sense of calm filled her, and she went back to the paints. Lush green vines. Rough-cut stone, a stamped- concrete patio. Two people in the front window—Elaine and Todd. The cars of her new friends in the parking lot.

Next was an abstract painting, a tipped-over wine bottle bleeding words written in glitter. A rumpled satin bridesmaid dress on the floor.

A couple hiding under a tablecloth, sawing away at prime rib, upended bottles of champagne scattered between them. The same couple under a spotlight on a dance floor, staring longingly into each other’s eyes.

The familiarity sent shivers down her spine, and she pivoted. A cocktail table under a starry sky, corner of a pile of blankets just visible in the background. Her tiny cottage on the water. The sun on Margie’s face. A couple sitting on the hood of Rett’s slightly beat-up truck.

Painting after painting escaped her fingertips. Watercolor, acrylic, mixed media. She was the Taylor Swift of art, internalizing her unique experiences and turning them into something beautiful.

She ran out to the lake shore at one point and gathered rocks. She hot glued them to the canvas and painted a dreamy blue lake in the background.

Even Steven the elusive raccoon scored his own portrait. As she considered the next canvas, she closed her eyes and envisioned Rett. His mischievous smile when he was about to deliver a thoughtful gift. Those emerald green eyes looking up at her in disbelief as he looked over her financials.

Shockwaves coursed up and down her arms. Portrait after portrait joined the ones on the floor—Rett in the speakeasy, on the balcony at the chapel, driving with one hand while the other rested on her knee.

Even intimate moments bloomed onto the canvases—the two of them under the stars on a tangle of white blankets. Pressed together in a mirrored lake, a breath apart.

Eventually, a sunbeam startled her out of her trance. She blinked at the sudden light. Holy hell. She had painted all night long. Everything that had been trapped inside her for the last two years had come bursting out. Her brush landed in a clean cup—somehow, they kept appearing all night.

She glanced behind her. Rett was curled up on the floor, fast asleep. Materials spread out around him—paper plates for makeshift palettes, a stack of clean glasses. Her heart almost split in two.

He had given her everything, believed in her even at her most fragile and reprehensible. No matter what she had felt about herself over the past two years, Rett, it seemed, had believed in her implicitly. Why else would he have had a stack of thirty canvases waiting in his gym?

She took a step back and looked at her creations. The walls were lined with imprints of her trip. The people and places who had made such an impact on her in such a short time.

And sprinkled amongst those memories were ones that went farther back.

Ones she had been unwilling or unable to confront since Nate had left her.

Many were autobiographical, some were just depictions of feelings.

There was a woman sitting on the floor with her head in her hands, surrounded by darkness.

Red words crackled out of the inky black around her. Failure. Orphan. Bankrupt. Decay.

One was a scene from her childhood that she had all but forgotten.

It had come to her as if in a dream. She had snuck out of her bedroom on Christmas Eve when she was supposed to be sleeping to look for Santa.

Instead she had found her parents, sitting close together on their outdated plaid couch, glasses of wine in hand while a cozy fire crackled in the hearth in front of them.

A Christmas tree strung with multicolored lights sparkled in the corner of the room, and a row of handmade stockings hung above the fire.

There was just one depiction of what was supposed to be her apartment with Nate in New York.

A gleaming kitchen with a single dilapidated cardboard box.

The word Future was written on it in Sharpie.

It was on its side with a pair of ice skates spilling out.

A burning dollar was barely visible floating outside the window.

While getting over him was part of her breakthrough, Nate didn’t deserve any of her energy. And maybe he never had.

Jade closed her eyes and reached her fingertips up to the ceiling. She took in a series of deep, almost sensual breaths. Her body still tingled, but it had slowed to an ebb. There was a weariness in her bones like she had just run a marathon.

She looked behind her again at the sleeping form of Rett.

There was still some fear in her heart. A hesitancy.

She was opening herself up to getting hurt again.

But Rett was worth the risk. And something deep inside her told her that no matter what happened, this time the muse was here to stay.

No man and no tragedy would ever take it from her again.

The paintings stared back at her. Would they sell?

A couple resembled her old work—loud, exciting, sometimes confusing depictions.

But most were memories, landscapes, deeply personal and meaningful flickers of time.

And some she already knew were going to be gifts.

Margie needed the painting of the café. Margie—oh, shit. She needed to get to work.

She crossed the room to Rett and dropped to her knees. She hesitated, one hand outstretched. He had done so much for her. Her unseen assistant, he had freshened her rinse cups all night long. She shouldn’t wake him. It wasn’t that far from his house to town. She could walk it.

But as the thought crossed her mind, his eye cracked open.

“Hey.” He yawned.

“Hey,” she echoed with a smile. She brushed some hair out of his eyes.

“You painted.”

“I did. A lot. I actually ran out of canvas. But don’t worry, I did stop myself before I moved on to your wall.”

He smiled. “You could have painted my wall. It’d give me something to look at while I’m doing my squats.”

“Well, maybe during another visit. Thank you so much, for everything. The supplies, for helping me through my breakthrough. But most of all for believing in me.”

“Of course I did. I believed in you from the moment I met you. Well, maybe the second moment I met you.”

She smiled again. “That’s fair. I am so sorry to ask you this. But I have to get to the café. I think I’m finally ready to do the mural and my bike isn’t here. Do you think you could?—”

“Of course.” He popped off the floor before she could finish her sentence. “Give me ten minutes to shower and make a coffee and I’ll get you there.”

“I’ll make the coffee,” she said.

He leaned in for a gentle kiss and disappeared. Her heart thudded in her chest as she watched him walk away.

Her muse was back. The proof was spread all around her.

Would the gallery take them? There was only one way to find out.

She pulled out her phone and typed a hasty email with a few pictures attached.

She pressed send before she could change her mind and bustled into the kitchen.

There was coffee to make, a mural to paint, and a move to plan.

It was a brand-new day.