Halloween was just a couple of weeks around the corner, and I had officially put up my inspired paintings. My fall leaf scenes and my already-carved pumpkins were selling so quickly, I hadn’t had any time to touch any more of the portraits of Bryan. I was drawing them in all the ways I remembered him. All the smiles and the twisted positions and the brooding moments. It was my way of coping with the loss of him and the fact that he wasn’t coming back. I had to take my sister’s advice and prepare myself for the worst. What I’d done to him was unthinkable and unforgivable, and no man in his right mind would ever come back to a woman who had done that to him.
I blew out the candles sitting in all the pumpkins as the front door opened. I turned around, ready to tell the person that I was about to close down, but I stopped dead in my tracks. A man was standing in my doorway wearing a fitted suit that clung for dear life to his body. He was tall, lean, chiseled in an unassuming way. His hair was auburn and slicked back, gelled in these curls that fluttered down the back of his head. His beard was trimmed neatly against his face, boasting of brown and red tones that reminded me of the autumn season that had fully encroached upon our small area of San Diego.
There was a grin on his face that set itself into a strong jawline, and for a second, I had to hold my breath.
His hands came up to his stomach as he pushed several rings back down onto his fingers. They were all various colors and set into various bands, and they were hypnotic in a way. I had no idea what color his eyes were. In one moment, they were light blue like his button-down shirt, and the next, they were black like his suit.
I had no idea who this man was, but he seemed to recognize me.
“Are you Hailey Ryan?” he asked.
He had a bit of an accent like someone in his family had grown up in En
gland.
“I am. Welcome to my gallery. I hate to say it, but I’m about to close up. Is there anything I can help you with?” I asked.
“I wanted to introduce myself. The name’s Max Wentmore.”
He approached me with his long-legged stride and held out his hand. His fingers were long and dexterous, covered in calluses only another artist would recognize. A smile peeled across my face as I shook his hand, his gaze unwavering from my face as I drew in a deep breath.
“An artist, I see. Are you passing through?” I asked.
“My accent might give that impression,” he said, chuckling. “But, I am not. I’m another local artist. I settled here a couple years back.”
“Oh! Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Wentmore.”
“Please, call me Max,” he said. “Your painting sitting near the window. It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Someone you know?” he asked.
“Someone I used to know,” I said.
“Ah, and there’s that sadness I clocked in the brushstrokes. An old lover, perhaps?”
Suddenly, I didn’t enjoy this polite intrusion any longer.
“Where is your gallery located?” I asked.
The grin on his face was becoming very unsettling as the night sky slowly started to blanket our part of town.
“A few minutes north. Uptown, I believe is what everyone around here calls it.”
“Ah, I looked at a few places there. None of them really called to me,” I said.
“Why is that?” he asked.
“The place was already beautiful. It didn’t need any more beauty, but this place had a haunting beauty to it. I wanted to breathe my version of hope into it. You know, try to revive the community, so to speak.”
“You wanted to shine your beauty into the darkness in the hopes that people would be drawn to it and out of their own darkness,” he said.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“I believe that’s why I was drawn to uptown,” he said. “Not because of your philosophy, but because of the dichotomy.”
“What dichotomy is that?” I asked.