Max was buoyant, more than floating. She was aerated, like a freshly opened bottle of champagne. The lighter than air feeling lasted the whole time Jon walked with her and Willa to the Jetta.
Max offered her hand, which was immediately enfolded between his. He stepped forward and kissed her cheek, his scent surrounding her with the intimacy of his presence. She gasped and stepped back just as Willa tooted the horn.
“I’ve, ah...gotta go.” She fumbled for the door handle.
“Let me get the door.” He reached around her, still invading her turf. His hand lightly stroked her forearm as he held the door open.
His touch brought a tingle to her skin. Max drew in a breath and turned too quickly to the car, bashing her head on the door frame before she managed to seat herself. Thankfully, Jon was staring at her legs and missed her display of grace and poise before he closed the door behind her.
Max rubbed the sore spot on her temple. “I’m just thrilled that he wants to sponsor me in a show. I’ve dreamed of having my own one-man show. I can hardly believe it.”
“I don’t mean to burst your bubble, sweetie,” Willa said, “but how are we going to produce Max for the opening?”
“I’m Max. I’ll just show up on opening night and start shaking hands.” She pretended to be greeting someone. “Hi, I’m Max Foster. Yes, I’m the artist. Oh, you like my work? Thank you. How nice. Sex change operation? No, I’ve always been a woman. Why do you ask? You heard I was a male. Ha ha ha.”
Willa glanced at her and shook her head, looking doubtful. “Point taken. I guess that’ll work, but it will be terribly embarrassing for Jon. He’s convinced that Max is channeling testosterone into his paintings. After he spouted off about Max’s masculinity, do you really want to slap his big ego down? As soon as the arrangements for the show are set in stone, I think I should tell him. Gently, of course, so he can change the name of the show.”
“When is the right time?”
“Right before the show so he can’t throw a wrench in the works. Leave it to me. I’ll find a way to let him know without humiliating him. It doesn’t pay to make enemies.”
J.C. had always figured that his son would be taking over the ranch someday. Until
Jon saw it the same way; he’d just keep on keeping on.
“What are you smiling about, Dad?” Jon asked.
Jon had his mother’s brown eyes and J.C.’s big, athletic frame. His love of the land gave J.C. hope that Jon would wake up to the value of ranching as a way of life.
“I was picturing you on your first horse, son. Remember Big Man?”
Jon made a noise in the back of his throat. “How could I forget? He tossed me in the dirt enough to last a lifetime.”
“Big was the gentlest horse on the ranch. You just couldn’t stay on him.” J.C laughed, blue eyes crinkling in his deeply tanned face.
“That was a big horse for an eight-year-old, Dad.” Jon shook his head and grinned.
J.C. glanced at his son’s hands, protected in sturdy leather work gloves. An artist’s hands. He’d lined the walls of their Hill Country ranch home with Jon’s paintings. J.C. understood why Jon had opened his own design firm and turned his talents to satisfying his rich client’s tastes. What he couldn’t understand was why Jon had quit painting.
“Have you been seeing anyone special recently? Your mother told me to ask.”
“I had a few dates with one woman a while back. She owns art galleries in the Houston area. She’s pretty and smart enough, but she wasn’t a keeper.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing really,” Jon removed the Stetson shading his eyes and wiped his brow with a bandana. “On the surface, we had a lot in common, but when it came to values, we were totally different.”
“No way. It wasn’t serious. She was fun to play with, but I couldn’t imagine her as the mother of my children. She thought of me as a possible business acquisition.”
J.C. grinned, shaking his head. “And you told her the big man couldn’t be roped?”
“Too bad, Son. You need to be thinking of settling down. Your mother wants grandkids.”
J.C. made a scoffing sound. “It sounds like you think you’re going to find a girl with home town values in that big slick city. She ain’t there, son.”
“I don’t know, Dad.” Jon shrugged. “For a minute, I thought I could see forever in her big blue eyes.”
Max immediately threw herself into her paintings. She enlisted her older brother, Merrick, to help build stretcher frames for her future canvasses.
He was tall, like Max, with lean muscles stretched over his frame. There was a strong family resemblance starting with denim blue eyes and dimples but Merrick’s skin was deeply tanned from years of sun exposure and his dark blonde hair was washed with almost white highlights. He had just finished ripping one-by-fours down to one-by-twos.
“So, Max, how big do you want these stretcher frames?” He tossed the last plank onto the pile he’d created.
“Don’t care. I’m more concerned about quantity at this point. You build it and I’ll paint on it.” She had covered her giant commissioned work to keep sawdust out of the tacky paint. She stretched her arms wide and stood on her tiptoes. “About this big.”
She giggled. “Or something. This is a great opportunity for me and I need to crank out the big boys because the rich people who will be buying them have big places with big walls.”
“Gotcha.” He cut four pieces the same length, mitered the ends and fitted them together. “How come the sudden interest in painting abstracts? Anyone can throw paint on canvas but it takes a real artist to look at something three dimensional and recreate it on a two-dimensional surface.” The nail gun punctuated his speech as he constructed the frame.
“On the contrary, big bro. It takes a lot of talent to make something non-representational reach out and grab you.” She took the broom and started gathering piles of sawdust in an attempt to control the accumulating debris. “I’m not too excited about the abstracts, but I’ll get to show some of my representational work as well. Maybe there will be some buyers who appreciate the other side of Max Foster.”
“I like the smaller ones, Max.” He turned and gestured with the nail gun. “Especially that one.” He indicated a misty seascape featuring a sunrise.
“Why am I not surprised?” She grinned and swept the pile of debris into a dustpan. “If it doesn’t sell at the gallery, it’s yours. I need it for the show to demonstrate that I can handle water.”
Merrick slanted a mischievous grin at her. “Handle water? That’s my specialty. Why don’t we take a break and I’ll take you out for a sail in the bay?”
She frowned at him. “Get busy. I need a dozen more canvasses to make my show a success.”
He saluted with the nail gun. “Aye-aye, skipper.”
For the next hour Max cleaned the loft to the tempo of the nail gun, drill and table saw.
She handed him an ice-cold bottle and plopped down on a stool beside him. “I need you to attach the quarter round and help me stretch the canvas. I can do it by myself but it would be so much faster if you could hold off on your sail for a while and give me a hand. How about it, big bro? Pretty please.”
He took a long gulp of cold beer. He smiled at her affectionately. “Sure, I’ll help you. Just remember me when you’re a rich and famous artist.”
“I’m done,” he announced. “You should be able to paint your little heart out for some time to come.” He began coiling his extension cords.
She hugged him and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Thanks a lot, Merrick. I know you hate to give up any of your sailing time. I appreciate the sacrifice.”
“Nope. My prospects are pretty slim. If I haven’t found someone by the time I’m thirty, I’ll opt for an anonymous sperm donor.”
He raised his eyebrows, looking quizzical. “I don’t seriously think you’d have any problem finding a willing participant if you’d bother to look. You’re a hottie, Max.” He ruffled her hair irreverently before he resumed gathering his tools.
She leaned against the wall, crossing her arms across her chest. “You’re one to talk, Merrick. You’ve had so many great girlfriends over the years. If you’d let someone catch you instead of running off to sailboat races all the time I could have nieces and nephews by now.”
“Nah! What kind of woman wants a man who goes sailing whenever he can squeeze in a few hours of leisure time and leaves his socks where they fall. I built a decent house, but it’s not exactly a showplace because I only use it for sleeping. Blondie’s the only girl who really gets me.”
She made a noise in the back of her throat. “Blondie has doggie breath.” She grinned at him, shaking her head. “I’m not a great catch either, bro. You see my living quarters.” She spread her arms and turned around. “And I get lost in my art. I’m totally unreliable if I’m in the middle of something. Men don’t understand when I tell them I can’t go out with them because I’m painting. I guess neither one of us is a prize catch at this point in our totally self-centered lives.”
Merrick cast her a dimpled grin. “You make that sound like a bad thing. I’m completely happy this way. It would be great to find a girl who’d fit comfortably into my life. I’ve looked around and there’s nobody perfect out there.”
She giggled, displaying her own set of dimples. “What would your perfect girl be like?”
“Pretty, fresh, natural,” he said. “And she’d have to love me, sailing and Blondie.” He ticked them off on his fingers. “I could compromise on everything else.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.”
He slung his tools in a canvas duffle bag, then cast a glance at her. “What about you? Do you have a certain type in mind? What will it take for you to commit happily ever after?”
“Unlike you, I don’t have any preconceived ideas. He just has to get me, be sensitive to my needs but not be a doormat. Someone who respects me and understands what my work means to me.”
“Seems easy enough. I’ll look around and find you a sailing man, someone with a bigger boat than mine. We can all go sailing together.”
She pointed an accusing finger at him. “You just want him for his boat. I’ll find my own mate, thank you very much. But not until after my show is over. Until that time, I’m married to that pile of canvas.”
Since she painted in oils, they required a certain amount of drying time. In the humid Houston area, it could take up to a year for a painting to completely dry. Max knew that, with careful handling, the paintings could be hung wet, but was more concerned that she wouldn’t be able to produce enough satisfactory paintings to fill the walls of the gallery.
Although she insisted she didn’t care what Jon thought, she thrived on his approval. She wanted to earn his praise, but some perverse part of her wanted him to appreciate her realistic works, as well.
She took a few rhythmic steps in time to the zydeco tune playing in her ear buds. She liked zydeco music and thought she might take some of the spare cash fattening her bank account and spend a little time in New Orleans listening to the real thing. Maybe Willa would come along. No, Willa wasn’t interested in being a tourist in any place other than the mall. Merrick would enjoy the vibe of the Big Easy. He liked music, good food and drink, and New Orleans was located on the water. She’d ask Merrick to accompany her. Maybe they could sail to New Orleans out of Galveston Bay.
Deeply engrossed in her work and in the music, Max set the disposable plate she was using as a palette on the floor and stuck her brush in her hair. She turned to her refrigerator and rummaged for a bottle of water. When she straightened up she let out a scream.
Crushing fear gripped Max’s stomach as she pulled out the ear buds and stared, open-mouthed through the window. “What are you doing out there?” she yelled.
“Thinking I’m going to break my neck.” Willa glanced over her shoulder at the parking lot far below. “Omigod! Let me in.” The rickety fire escape scraped against the brick building, swaying dangerously.
“Small problem,” Max shouted. “That window is stuck. I can’t open it. You have to go back down the stairs. It’s not safe.”
“I’m painting. Let me try to get the window open.” Max unlocked the latch and tried to raise the sash. She grabbed a table knife and ran it along the space between the upper and lower frames but it made no difference. The window was stuck. “Willa, you’re going to have to gut up and go down the fire escape. There’s no other way.”
“No! Part of it broke away from the wall when I was climbing up. I’ll fall.” Tears sprang to her eyes. “I’m afraid, Max. Do something.” Willa’s fingers were turning white from gripping the rusted railing. The structure swayed again, producing an ominous metallic groan.