Free Summer's End by Danielle Steel

for lunch?”
“No, I’m not.” She sighed sadly again.
“Don’t sound so forlorn. I promise not to throw darts at your canvases. Honest. Trust me.”
Oddly, she did. She trusted him. It was something about the way he spoke, and the look she remembered in his eyes. “I think I do. All right then. Noon.”
No one going to the guillotine had ever spoken as resolutely. Ben Thompson smiled to himself as he hung up.
He was there promptly at noon. With a bag of French rolls, a sizable wedge of Brie, and half a dozen peaches, as well as a bottle of white wine.
“Will this do?” he asked as he spread his riches out on her desk.
“Very nicely. But you really shouldn’t have come.” She looked dismayed as she eyed him over the table. She was wearing jeans and a paint-splattered shirt, her hair tied in a loosely woven knot. “I really hate being put on the spot.” Her expression was troubled as she watched him, and for a moment he stopped arranging the fruit.
“You’re not on the spot, Deanna. I really did want to see your work. But it doesn’t matter a damn what I think. Kim says you’re good. You know you’re good. You told me on the beach that painting was your life. No one can ever play with that. I wouldn’t try to.” He paused, then went on, more softly, “You saw some of the pieces I love in the cottage in Carmel. That’s something I care about. This is something you care about. If you like my Wyeth, it makes me happy, but if you don’t it doesn’t change a bit of its beauty for me. Nothing I see will change what you do, or how much it matters. No one can ever touch that.”
She nodded silently, then slowly walked toward the wall where twenty paintings were propped, hidden and ignored. One by one, she turned them around, saying nothing and looking only at the oils as she turned them. She did not look at him until at last he said, “Stop.” She glanced up in surprise and saw him leaning against her desk with a look in his eyes she didn’t understand.
“Did you feel anything when you saw the Wyeth?” He was searching her face and holding her eyes.
She nodded. “I felt a great deal.”
“What?”
She smiled. “First, surprise, to realize that I was in your house. But then, a kind of awe, a joy at seeing the painting. I felt pulled by the woman, as though she were someone I knew. I felt everything I think Wyeth wanted to tell me. For a moment, I felt spellbound by his words.”
“As I do by yours. Do you have any idea how much you’ve put in those paintings, or how really beautiful they are? Do you know what it means to be reached out to and pulled at time after time after time, as you turn them around? They’re incredible, Deanna. Don’t you know how good they are?” He was smiling at her. She felt her heart pound in her chest.
“I love them. But that’s because they’re mine.” She was glowing now. He had given her the ultimate gift, and she knew he meant every word. It had been so long since anyone had seen what she painted—and cared.
“They’re not only yours. They are you.” He walked closer to one of the canvases and silently stared. It was a painting of a young girl leaning over her bath—Pilar.
“That one is my daughter.” She was enjoying it now. She wanted to share more.
“It’s a beautiful piece of work. Show me more.”
She showed him all of them. When it was over, she almost crowed with pleasure. He liked them, he loved them! He understood her work. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and laugh.
He was opening the bottle of wine. “You realize what this means, don’t you?”
“What?” She was suddenly wary, but not very.
“That I will hound you until you sign with the gallery. How about that?”
She smiled broadly at him, but she shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“That’s not for me.” And Marc would have a fit. He would think it commercial and vulgar—though the Thompson gallery had a reputation for anything but vulgarity, and Ben’s