Free Runaway Bride (Across the Stars: Book 2) by Ruth Ann Nordin

around the four veiled paintings.  They waited for the man who stood by the paintings to speak, and she scanned the three women and one man who were with him.  She guessed that one of the women was Mrs. Morris.  She hadn’t seen Mrs. Morris before and since Nick wanted her to congratulate Mrs. Morris on the colors in her painting, she had to make sure she approached the right woman.  When the man introduced the artists, she saw that Mrs. Morris was an older woman, probably in her late fifties.  She seemed pleasant enough.  Maybe talking to her wouldn’t be as intimidating as she feared it would be.
    “Welcome to ‘A Walk Through Time’,” the man began.  “Tonight we are featuring time period paintings from the best artists in the area.”
    As he continued with his spiel, Lexie sipped her wine and nibbled some cheese and crackers a server handed her.  She tried to pay attention to what the man was saying, but he rambled off information about a couple of famous local paintings she didn’t know about and threw out fancy art terms she hadn’t heard either.  Taking another sip of her wine, she ventured a look at Mark whose eyes seemed to glaze over.  Relieved that she wasn’t the only one who was bored, she pretended to listen to the rest of the speech.  At the end, he finally got around to presenting the paintings.
    Curious to see what Mrs. Morris had painted, Lexie stepped to the side so she could see around the person in front of her.  The man removed the cloth from Mrs. Morris’ painting.  Several people in the crowd gasped in awe and Lexie wondered what they saw that she didn’t.  There was a blend of light brown and green colors which surrounded a large white blob with black dots on it.
    “Tamara Morris’ Colosseum embraces the confliction of the Roman Empire when it was at the height of its glory,” the man said and then went on to discuss why the painting was an asset to the gallery.
    Now Lexie understood why Mrs. Morris wasn’t sure about the colors she chose.  The colors made no sense to her.  She hadn’t even realized the white blob on the canvas was the Colosseum .  She got that the green and brown colors were symbolic of the “muddied past of the Roman gladiator games,” as the man put it.  But for the life of her, she couldn’t see it.  It looked like a mess.  She bit her lower lip and ventured a glance at the others who seemed impressed with the painting.  What was she thinking in coming here?  These people were way out of her league.  How could she spend the rest of her life trying to figure out what to say to make Nick look good?
    Mark leaned toward her and whispered, “Does Mrs. Morris know someone who works here?”
    “I think she’s friends with the owner’s wife,” she replied in his ear.
    “Ah, that explains it.”
    By the tone in his voice, she understood that he didn’t like the painting any more than she did.  What a relief.  Even if everyone thought the painting was good, it was nice to know that one person agreed with her.  But that didn’t change the fact that she had to find a way to compliment Mrs. Morris.  If she didn’t, Nick wouldn’t be happy.
    When the man encouraged everyone to come up and congratulate the artists, she gripped her purse and tried to think of a way to be honest but nice.  She really didn’t want to come out and lie.  “I have to talk to her,” she told Mark.  “Do you want to come with me?”
    “Sure.”
    Glad she didn’t have to talk to her alone, Lexie guided Mark to the line of people who’d assembled to talk to Mrs. Morris.  She listened to what they chose to compliment her on in hopes of getting a good idea of what she might say, but nothing seemed to fit.  And before she knew it, they were in front of Mrs. Morris who was grinning from ear to ear.
    “Hi, Mrs. Morris,” Lexie began and extended her hand, “I’m Lexie Rogers.  I’m engaged to Doctor Hammond.”
    “Oh yes,” she replied, shaking her