Love Hurts by Brenda Grate Read Free Book Online Page B

straight lines and right angles. They were open mouths, screaming. But none of the figures had ears, so the screaming went on and on with nowhere for the sound to go. Her hand cramped as she squeezed the pencil tighter, the emotion building in her hand, desperately wanting to break free. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t. She forced her hand open and the pencil fell. The point broke off and skittered across the floor. Her vision blurred. A single tear dropped onto the paper, marring its perfect surface. Unable to stand the sight, Jilly put the paper and pencil away, their perfection gone.
     
    She felt small and insignificant on the floor. She, the daughter of the great Catarina di Rossi, also had talent, or had at one time. Yet she couldn’t create. She hadn’t painted a stroke since Matthew’s birth other than the spider web in his bedroom. The longer she didn’t paint, the more she realized she couldn’t . The door to her creativity, what used to be her passion, was padlocked. She’d forgotten where she put the key.
     
    Jilly climbed to her feet, stiff and unwieldy, her legs like marble. She wished they would sink deep down into the floor so she could never leave this place. She didn’t paint, but she loved being surrounded by paintings. The irony wasn’t lost on her.
     
    She picked up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder as she moved back into the empty main room, hushed like a cathedral. Mamma’s painting had the place of honor, like the Madonna in the front of a shrine. This gallery had never housed such a celebrity.
     
    Jilly circled the room three times, the painting metal to her internal magnet, yet she resisted. She still didn’t feel ready when she finally stepped in front of it. She could see Mary watching her out of the corner of her eye, but she blocked out everything but the canvas.
     
    The pain came again, quick and sharp, just like the night before. This time she was prepared, and yet she still rocked back a bit from the onslaught. The painting was of herself and Anna when they were children—two little girls hand in hand, walking down a country road. They looked happy and carefree, expressions Jilly didn’t think either of them had ever owned. Or maybe they had. Has the pain wiped out even the good memories? There had to be some. Maybe it was Mamma’s hope that put those expressions there. She had obviously reached out to them by sending her painting here. She never released her work to any gallery but the one in Toronto. She ascribed to the recluse’s creed. Hide it away and they will come from far and wide. Mamma had always been very good at playing hard to get.
     
    The little Anna pointed at something. Jilly followed the finger with her gaze, but saw nothing. And yet her heart stuttered. It can’t be here in this painting, can it? The only one Mamma had ever painted of her us.
     
    Jilly stepped back and then she saw it. The rage and jealousy boiled up at once, a confusing miasma. She clenched her fists and stared at the face. Of course it was there. It had to mar even this one painting she’d done as a tribute to her children. The tiny face in every one of Catarina di Rossi’s paintings. The one that Jilly instinctively knew had stolen Mamma’s ability to love her children as a mother should. She didn’t know anything about the child, and Mamma had never talked about it, one of the great mysteries of the art world.
     
    Jilly whirled away from the painting, snatched her coat off the rack and stepped into the wet, dark evening. The weather kept perfect time with her emotions.
     

Chapter 6

    The morning cooled Anna’s skin as she walked to work. Early summer weather was still cool in the mountains, but the sun would warm everything up soon enough. It had always been Anna’s favorite time of year, but never more than after she’d moved near the beautiful Cascade Mountains.
     
    Despite the gorgeous scenery, Anna couldn’t stop thinking about the scene at