back here?”
* * *
JESS GRANGER WHIRLED to face him, her mouth and eyes wide with surprise. “I didn’t hear you come down.”
He hadn’t expected her to get this far into the studio. No one but him came into this space. “I can be sneaky. There’s nothing important here in the dark under the stairs.”
“Except for this wonderful sketch.” She nodded toward the frame on the wall. “Is it yours?”
“No.” Dylan pulled together a bunch of the papers spread over his drawing table and started to straighten them. He shouldn’t be such a slob, especially with nosy reporters showing up to investigate.
She wouldn’t let the subject drop. “It’s not signed. Did you know the artist? Have they done other work?”
How was he going to get out of this? “We’re here to talk about sculpture, right?”
“Right, but—” She gasped and then leaned over to pick up one of the papers on the table. “What’s this?”
He saw the sketch and swore silently. “Not much. Just an...idea I was playing with.”
When he reached for the sheet, she held it away from him. “This is your brother. Wyatt, right?”
“At least you recognize him.” He wasn’t sure how to get the drawing away from her, short of wrestling her to the floor.
And now she was in full journalist mode. “Are you working on this as a sculpture?”
“Just considering it.”
“You haven’t started. Why not?”
“What did you think of the stuff that’s done?” Dylan said desperately. “Isn’t that what you’re here to write about?”
“It is.” She blew out a breath and put the sketch on the table. “But you won’t want to talk about that, either.” Stepping around him, she went toward the main part of the studio. Dylan followed, as prepared as he could be for what lay head.
“These are fantastic sculptures,” she said, walking along the line of display tables to survey the various pieces. “Lovely representations of the wildlife you obviously value.”
“But?”
“But, Dylan, this is nothing like the abstract work you were doing in college and afterward—the cerebral, confrontational pieces that got you noticed. You know as well as I do, the art that gets talked about isn’t a reproduction of reality. Nobody on the international art scene will be interested in a statue of a buffalo.”
Truth, with a vengeance. He shrugged. “That’s not my problem. This is what I came home to do. I won’t apologize for it.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. The question is, what am I doing here? Any article I write about your new style is going to bring down catastrophe on your head.” She paused for a moment. “And mine, for that matter. My editor will not appreciate a neat-and-tidy piece about a wildlife artist. It’s just not what Renown readers expect.”
“I can understand that.” He stroked a hand over the head of a fox on the table near him. “So cancel the article.” That would mean she had no reason to stay, of course. He didn’t acknowledge the sense of loss that realization stirred inside him.
But Jess was shaking her head. “Magazine issues are planned long in advance. I’ve got a certain amount of space in this issue. I have to write an article. And after my last assignment...well, I need to turn in good copy.”
“What happened?”
She gave a dismissive wave. “I showed up to interview the next country music legend and found him having an alcohol-fueled meltdown. Smashing guitars, punching walls, throwing furniture. I waited two days for him to sober up. But then all he wanted to do was get me into bed. My editor was not happy. I need to revive my career with this piece.”
“No pressure there.” Now he felt responsible to help her keep her job.
“Exactly. Anyway, Trevor Galleries paid for ad space because we were doing an article on you. It’s a complicated relationship, advertising and content.” She continued walking, examining his work.
“No,” she said, finally, “you won’t be coming back to the contemporary art scene. Not with these sculptures. I’m going to have to find some way to slant this, make it work for my editor. I’ll have to find another hook.” She stared at him with a worried frown. “Any ideas?”
From being the subject—victim—he’d become a coconspirator. “All I can do is talk about what I know.” He couldn’t believe he was giving her a reason to stay, offering to expose himself like this. “Try to explain the changes I’ve made, the reasons I focus on wildlife now.” Not everything, of course. Some secrets weren’t meant to be revealed. Ever.
She didn’t seem to be convinced. “That might work. The ‘soul of an artist’ kind of thing. But you have to be honest and open with me. I can’t turn in a bunch of clichés. Not if I plan to keep my job.”
“Got it.” He would be spilling his guts so Jess Granger could remain employed. That was not at all what he’d planned to do with this interview. There would have to be some kind of payback. “But I want something in exchange.”
“And what would that be?”
“The same access. To you.”
Her hazel gaze went wary. “You’re not writing an article.”
“If I have to drop my defenses, you should, too.”
“I don’t have any defenses.”
“Right. No problems at all with the foster care issue.” Her cheeks flushed. He stared at her until she looked away. “Deal?”
A long silence stretched between them. “Okay. Deal.” She pulled in a deep breath. “So tell me something I can use. Something about your abstract work. What were you thinking when you created those pieces?”
Dylan propped his hip on the corner of the table under the fox and drew a deep breath of his own. “Okay. My second semester in college, I took a sculpture class with Mark Thibault. You know him?”
“Sure. He’s a well-respected critic in contemporary art. He introduced you to the scene. ‘The biggest talent I’ve come across’ was the quote, I believe.”
“Yeah, well. Mark exaggerates. Anyway, he challenged me to explore abstraction. No figures, no representative stuff. If I submitted that kind of project, he promised to fail me for the semester.”
“You cared about grades? Artists are usually rebels in that respect.”
He chuckled. “I had three older brothers who were paying, in one way or another, for that class. I owed them good grades. So I worked my butt off for Mark, but he was never satisfied. He kept criticizing, rejecting, pushing me harder and harder. The deadline was approaching for the final project, and I still didn’t have a passing grade.”
Her
