the art gallery, that would be your real baby?’
She lifted one shoulder. ‘I guess.’
‘Where are planning to set it up?’
‘I’d only just started looking for premises when Mum—’
She broke off. His heart burned in sympathy.
‘I found wonderful premises at Bondi Beach.’
Despite the brightness of her voice, her pain slid in beneath his skin like a splinter of polished hardwood. He wanted to reach for her, only he knew she wouldn’t accept his comfort.
He clenched his hands. ‘Bondi?’ He tried to match her brightness.
‘Yes, but I’m afraid the rent went well beyond my budget.’
‘I bet.’ It suddenly occurred to him that the rents in the Blue Mountains weren’t anywhere near as exorbitant as those in the city.
‘An art gallery…’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. All the brightness had drained from his voice. He could see her running this hypothetical gallery, could almost taste her enthusiasm and drive. He could see her paintings hanging on the walls. He could—
‘Which brings me to another point.’ She turned. Her eyes burned in her face as she fixed him with a glare. ‘You!’
He stared back. Somewhere in the background he heard Melly’s laughter, registered that she was safe and happy at the moment. ‘Me?’ What had he done?
She dragged her duffel bag towards her. The bag she’d refused to leave in the car. The one she hadn’t allowed him to carry for her on their walk. She’d treated it as if it contained something precious. He’d thought it must hold her tattooing gear. He blinked when she slapped something down on his knees.
A sketch pad!
Bile rose up through him when she pushed a pencil into his hand. ‘Draw, Connor.’
Panic gripped him.
She opened the sketch pad. ‘Draw,’ she ordered again.
She reached over and shook his hand, the one that held the pencil, and he went cold all over.
‘No!’
He tried to rise, but she grabbed hold of his arm and wouldn’t let it go.
‘I don’t draw any more,’ he ground out, trying to beat back the darkness that threatened him.
‘Nonsense!’
‘For pity’s sake, Jaz, I—’
‘You’re scared.’
It was a taunt, a challenge. It made him grit his teeth together in frustration. His fingers around the pencil felt as fat and useless as sausages. ‘I gave it up,’ he ground out.
‘Then it’s time you took it back up again.’
Anger shot through him. ‘You want to see how bad I’ve become, is that what this is about?’ Did she want some kind of sick triumph over him?
Her eyes travelled across his face. Her chin lifted. ‘If that’s what it takes.’
Then her eyes became gentle and it was like a punch to the gut. ‘Please?’ she whispered.
All he could smell was the sweet scent of wattle.
He gripped the pencil so hard it should’ve snapped. If she wanted him to draw, then he’d draw. Maybe when she saw how ham-fisted he’d become she’d finally leave him in peace. ‘What do you want me to draw?’
‘That tree.’ She pointed.
Connor studied it for a moment—its scale, the dimensions. They settled automatically into his mind. That quick summing up, it was one of the things that made him such a good builder. But he didn’t deceive himself. He had no hope of being a halfway decent artist any more.
It didn’t mean he wanted Jaz forcing that evidence in front of him. She sat beside him, arms folded, and an air of expectation hung about her. He knew he could shake her off with ease and simply walk away, but such an action would betray the importance he placed on this simple act of drawing.
He dragged a hand down his face. Failure now meant the death of something good deep down inside him. If Jaz sensed how much it meant—and he had the distinct impression she knew exactly what it meant—he had no intention of revealing it by storming away from her. He’d face failure with grace.
Maybe, when this vain attempt was over, the restlessness that plagued him on bright, still days would disappear. His lips twisted. They said there was a silver lining in every cloud, didn’t they?
Just when he sensed Jaz’s impatience had become too much for her, he set pencil to paper.
And failed.
He couldn’t draw any more. The lines he made were too heavy, the sense of balance and perspective all wrong…no flow. He tried to tell himself he’d expected it, but darkness pressed against the backs of his eyes. Jaz peered across at what he’d done and he had to fight the urge to hunch over it and hide it from her sight.
She tore the page from the sketch pad, screwed it into a ball and set it on the ground beside her. Sourness filled his mouth. He’d tried to tell her.
‘Draw the playground.’
He gaped at her.
She shrugged. ‘Well…what are you waiting for?’ She waved to Melly again.
Was she being deliberately obtuse? He stared at the playground, with all its primary colours. The shriek of Melly’s laughter filled the air, and that ache pressed against him harder. In a former life he’d have painted that in such brilliant colours it would steal one’s breath.
But that was then.
He set pencil to paper again but his fingers refused to follow the dictates of his brain. He’d turned his back on art to become a carpenter. It only seemed right that his fingers had turned into blocks of wood. Nevertheless, he kept trying because he knew Jaz didn’t want to triumph over him. She wanted him to draw again—to know its joys, its freedoms once more…to bow to its demands and feel whole.
When she discovered he could no longer draw, she would mourn that loss as deeply as he did.
When he finally put the pencil down, she peeled the page from the sketch pad…and that drawing followed the same fate as its predecessor—screwed up and set down beside her.
‘Draw that rock with the clump of grass growing around it.’
He had to turn ninety degrees but it didn’t matter. A different position did not bring any latent talent to the fore.
She screwed that picture up too when he was finished with it. Frustration started to oust his sense of defeat. ‘Look, Jaz, I—’
‘Draw
