CHAPTER TWENTY

New York City

Tillie was dreaming. She was curled up in bed under the eaves of what she somehow knew was an attic room. A cat stretched the length of her body, chin to knees. His purr was low and comforting, and when she bent her face to his, he licked her nose. She kissed him back, his fur as soft as down, his nose just slightly wet as it touched her skin. She was awash with love and murmured words in some nonsensical language, and—

She awakened. Human arms held her.

Liam was asleep, as deeply as a child. Closing her eyes, she gave herself over to the heat of his skin against hers, the soughing sound of his breath. It was lovely for a long moment, but he ran uncomfortably hot, and she had to pull away, slipping into her yoga pants and a sweatshirt to go to the kitchen for water.

Where the other dream had unsettled her, this one had left behind a fragrance of sweetness. She could feel the cat's head against her face, the low, rumbling purr against her fingers. Drinking water, she thought it was a strange amount of detail for a dream.

That cat again.

On the horizon was a faint hint of dawn. Tillie wanted coffee, but she was afraid it would wake Liam, so she carried the glass of water with her into the studio and looked at the renditions of the cat she'd drawn. His striped face, his blue eyes, his enormity. A giant of a cat, touching her body from chin to knees.

From where she stood, she could see Liam sleeping. Again, her fingers itched to capture his image, and since he'd given her permission before, she felt he wouldn't mind if she sketched him now. On the same tablet of newsprint she had used for the cat, she employed charcoal to outline his form, the length of his legs, his hair scattered on the pillow, his jaw.

Then another, wilder, with wings against his back, slightly unfolded as if in rest. Another with the wings in a slightly tighter shape. A feather had escaped and fallen to the floor.

Another of him standing with that little smile, arms crossed, the wings just visible over his shoulders.

No. Scowling, she tore the paper from the pad and tossed it aside. Silly.

She looked back to the drawing of his sleeping pose with folded wings and tried it again, drawn to something elegant in the shape of the feathers, long and white. Using a sharply pointed colored pencil, she sketched tattoos with asemic writing tattoos around his belly and ribs, wondering what words she would actually use. It would be too personal to use the poetry that wound around his torso, and whatever the words were in the painting should support the idea of the angel. Angel of mercy? Messenger angel? Angel of death?

Angel of the forest? The skies? The lost?

She didn't know.

With tiny strokes to create texture, she filled in details on the sizable wings, then looked for the oil sticks she'd been using so often lately. When she found them, she layered white, dove gray, and a very smeary bit of cerulean for depth. The color was excellent, sending a flutter of approval through her body. She stood back, tilting her head sideways. Better.

When she looked up, Liam was propped on one elbow, watching her.

"You were asleep. Is it okay?"

"Can I see?"

"Yeah."

He flung the covers away and reached for his boxers on the floor, tugging them over his nakedness. She watched him move, admiring the curve of his buttocks, the shifting length of his quads. It was comforting that he was not a social media brand of perfect, that he had slight love handles, and his belly could easily go from slightly soft to chubby.

She liked every single detail of his body. His hair, straw-colored and messy in the morning light, the glittery sheen of new beard, his beautifully cut jaw. It felt impossible that she had never seen him in her life before the gallery, and he'd taken up so much space in her mind so quickly. Up close, he smelled slightly of sweat and sex. She touched his back, the place where the wings would sprout.

"Whoa. I love the wings, but that's not what I was expecting."

"It doesn't mean I think you're angelic."

"I get that. More like—" He shook his head. "Fallen."

A quickening brightened the space of her imagination, and there was the heart of it. The sketches were no longer a portrait of Liam, but the start of a new painting. "Yes!" She used a thumb to smear the edge of a wing. "I'm going to paint this, I'm afraid. Will you sign a model release?"

"You mean for your show?"

"Probably. Is that okay?"

He reached for her, one hand on her lower back, their thighs touching. "I might have to ask my business manager if it's okay."

"Really?"

"Really." He nodded. "If it was just me, I'd say go ahead, but there are probably things related to images of me that will require some hoops. It might be too much trouble."

"I'm crushed!" she cried honestly. "Are you a commodity or something? I knew you were a model."

"It's not like that, not a model," he said. "I have an app, and it's connected to my name and likeness, and these workshops are a big moneymaker. Not just for me, but for the people running the company."

Her sense of him shook itself, rearranged. She thought of him dressed in fine business casual, imagined him before a podium, talking with humor and depth. "Are you famous?"

He hesitated. "Maybe. A little."

Light skated over his brow and tumbled down his nose, the shapes so compelling that her fingers itched again. "Can you find out? I mean, if you don't mind." She glanced toward the drawing. "I just have this sense that it might be really powerful."

"Yeah," he said. "I will definitely try."

For a moment, she sat there, touching him, wondering if the only thing she'd wanted was to paint him. It happened sometimes.

But no. A thrum of yearning ran up and down her legs, pooled in her belly. She leaned in to kiss him. "Do you need to get somewhere?"

"Not that soon," he murmured, and she lost herself entirely—again—in his body.

One more time.

After Liam left, Tillie reluctantly set the drawings aside, set up her phone to play a folk-song list, and tried to immerse herself in the work at hand. Whatever else was going on in her life, she had a show coming up and needed to be ready.

The one good thing about all the upheaval was the sense that something was stirring, something that would be a good addition. As Jon had pointed out, the painting of the dark raven had a lot of power, even if that wasn't where she'd begun.

If she'd learned anything about art, it was that the head knew very little. Paintings came from ... somewhere else, and her best work always emerged when she let go of control and gave herself up to the process. She sketched the cat and the girl in her dream, the porch and the girls, the giant cat and the woods in a loose way, her way, however they showed themselves to her. There was definitely something there.

Jon would be arriving midmorning, so she took a break to wash charcoal and sex and strange dreams from her body. Stomach growling, she looked for something to eat, but the same thing happened that had been happening every time she looked recently—the cupboards were empty. She made do with another coffee and told herself they could get lunch somewhere on the road. But really, she ought to order groceries. She opened the app and started making a list of things to order when she was actually going to be there long enough for them to be delivered.

Then, to distract herself, she looked up the website for Jon's gallery and scrolled down to the painting that had obsessed her. And of course, there it was.

Why hadn't she done this before?

Never mind. The painter's name was Shiloh. The text was the blue of a live link, but when she clicked on it, all it said was, Shiloh paints her travels around the world.

Not much. Why was she so reclusive?

She ran a search for Shiloh, painter , and all that showed up were a couple of galleries and the same information. Frustrating. What if Tillie were some big-time buyer and wanted all of her stuff? What, then?

The thought was so judgy, she had to laugh at herself. Shiloh was not obligated to be online for Tillie's pleasure. And who knew? Maybe her way was better.

At the bottom of her very plain website was a Yahoo! address. Not expecting much, she opened a fresh email and typed:

Hi, Shiloh. I'd love to talk to you about one of your paintings in Tillerman's Gallery in NYC. It's kind of important.

Thanks,

Tillie Morrisey

Almost immediately, an email came back: Thanks for your inquiry. I'm out of the country and checking email sporadically. I'll get back to you when I can. Shiloh

Reading it, Tillie felt frustration rising, tangling her mind. When would she ever get answers?

And then she heard herself. Honestly, what was the big deal? She'd been losing her mind over a painting that wasn't even to her taste. Maybe Jon was right, and she was just fixated on all this stuff because she didn't want to face how much she missed her mom.

Just in that moment, she missed her even more. Wished that she could rest her head on her mother's shoulder and let her soothe this roiling ball of emotion.

And yet, even that little fantasy was complicated by the questions surrounding the news story and the little girl.

Mom, what did you hide from me?