stage? Or did he have a different plan?
Would he answer her questions honestly, or leave her to draw her own conclusions? How well could she get to know him before she had to leave?
Dylan turned his head to look at her. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m dying to see your studio.”
He glared at her with narrowed eyes. “Are you ever distracted?”
“Not if I want to keep my job.”
“Does your job depend on my article?”
Jess shrugged. “I’m as useful to the magazine as my latest work. And there are lots of hungry writers out there hoping for a break. I’m the only support I’ve got, so staying employed is kind of a high priority.”
After a long moment of stillness, Dylan sighed and got to his feet. “Well, then, Ms. Granger, I guess we’d better get down to business.”
The door to the barn was blue, in contrast to the weathered gray boards of the exterior, with a full panel of glass panes. Dylan walked inside, then faced Jess and held out an arm. “Be my guest.”
Cool air greeted her as she stepped over the threshold. “Air-conditioning?”
“Wood stays more stable at a constant temperature.”
The scent hit her all at once, a combination of varnish and glue and trees that cleared her sinuses. “It must make you drunk to spend time in here. That’s a powerful room deodorizer.”
He grinned. “I guess that’s why the hours go by so fast when I’m working. I’m always a little high.”
“So this used to be a regular barn?” The space was huge, open from wall to wall and clear to the ceiling, except for the supporting posts. A staircase in the corner led up to a railed loft stretching halfway across, where she could see a bed and a couple of chairs. “You sleep here, too?”
Dylan shrugged. “I remodeled over the years after we moved out here—with help from my brothers, of course. It’s convenient not to walk out into a snowstorm in the middle of the night when I’m falling asleep.” Then he hunched his shoulders again, and grimaced. “You know, I really would like to take a shower. Why don’t you look around the place while I do that? Then we can talk some before dinner.”
“Great.” Jess watched him jog up the steps, then turned to survey the workshop around her. Tables of various sizes, most hand-built of unfinished boards, filled the space. Dylan’s work area appeared to occupy the center of the room, where hand tools lay neatly arranged by size and use—saws, chisels, screwdrivers and other arcane devices she’d didn’t recognize. Several surfaces held pieces of wood, also organized by size, from the smallest chips to branches four feet long. Some tables held sticks and limbs that had been sanded, stained and finished to a smooth shine. They were beautiful elements, but not the kind of material Dylan Marshall had utilized in his popular, critically approved sculptures.
What had he been up to?
For an answer, she moved to the tables lining the walls of the barn, which held figures of varying sizes—from a slender, twelve-inch form to a massive piece at least four feet square.
“Oh, my God,” she said, in shock. “What in the world has he done?”
She recognized the animal she was staring at as a buffalo, about two feet long and not quite as tall. A collection of sticks and branches had been fitted together to create the figure, each curve and hollow of the body being defined by a curve or hollow in the wood. Every piece had been separately finished and polished to a deep sheen, allowing all the natural variations in color and grain to contribute to the texture of the image as a whole.
“Amazing.”
She moved to the next sculpture, a fish twisting up out of a river. The scales of the fish’s skin, the lines of the body and the base of splashing water had all been created with the same technique, fitting hundreds of tiny sticks together to produce a unified whole.
Jess ran a finger along the fish’s spine. “Incredible detail.”
On the next table there was a stalking wolf, almost half life-size, and a rabbit stretched out at a run, both executed with enormous visual talent and technical precision. Walking around the room, she appreciated the many hours Dylan had poured into these sculptures. That bear she’d seen in the living room at the house had been an early prediction of this full-blown talent. No doubt there would be many buyers for these beautiful works of art.
But... She covered her eyes with her shaking fingers.
The response of the art world Dylan had once conquered would be scathing. Cruel. Because of who he’d been and what he’d done, when the critics evaluated these pieces, they would laugh. Then attack.
And her article, the one Trevor Galleries had sponsored as a comeback announcement, would be the call to arms.
Jess dropped her hands to her sides and shook her head. “Artistic suicide.”
Why would Patricia Trevor, the owner of the gallery, choose this kind of work to exhibit? Her showrooms were known for presenting avant-garde, cutting-edge art. Surely Dylan was aware of that. Why would he expose himself to ridicule this way?
From the loft above, she heard the shower cut off. He would be coming down soon, wanting to get her reaction to his pieces. Expecting her to appreciate his output of the past two years.
She needed some time to frame a response. Panicked, Jess ducked under the loft and headed for the shadows along the rear wall of the barn. One of the tables she passed held small clay figures, probably models he’d made as he planned the larger wooden pieces. The entire surface of another table was stacked high with books—anatomy manuals, collections of wildlife photographs, volumes on working with wood, finishes and stains.
The table in the corner under the stairs was illuminated by a large hanging light and covered with sheets of paper. These were his sketches, Jess realized as she came closer, three-dimensional drawings of animals in different poses, from different angles. Some of the studies she recognized from the sculptures she’d already viewed, but not all. He clearly had ideas for more work.
Footsteps sounded on the floor above her. “Be down in a couple of minutes,” Dylan called. “Just making myself presentable.”
“No problem,” Jess said loudly. “Take your time.” She’d inadvertently glanced up as she spoke, but as she brought her gaze down again, a picture on the wall behind the drawing table caught her attention. She hadn’t noticed any other hanging art in the studio, so this one must be important.
The drawing was deceptively simple—a woman with a baby in her lap. Looking from behind the woman, over her shoulder, the viewer could see the very young child with its feet tucked against the mother’s belly, its head resting on her knees and its tiny hands curled around her two middle fingers.
It’s a boy, Jess decided. Something about the baby’s face convinced her of that fact. The delicate lines and shadings were so persuasive, so filled with emotion, she felt as if she was indeed
