Free Teardrop Lane by Emily March Page A

the home page, then followed a link to read about the most recent winner and finalists. Two painters and a potter. They’d been given a theme and asked to produce a representative work by a deadline. The board of directors of the Albritton Foundation chose the winner.
    Cicero read the artists’ bios and studied the photos of the work they’d produced for the contest. Impressive. And he was a finalist? Not that he wasn’t confident of his own talent, because he knew he was good. But still.
    His mind spun. Worst-case scenario, he made fifty big ones and could pay off a chunk of the medical bills.
Best-case scenario, I make sick bank. Sick
. He continued reading from the website. There were shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas, attended by everybody who’s anybody in the art world.
    Now that he’d thought about it, Cicero realized he had heard about this competition, but he’d never considered entering. Why had Gabi? How had she done it without his knowledge? What had she submitted? He clicked around some more and discovered further details about the entry requirements. Then he remembered the photographs she’d asked him to email last fall.
    “She put together a catalog,” he murmured to himself.
    He would have chewed her out if he’d known. He didn’t go in for this sort of stuff. But now—he owed her. Big. He’d have to do something nice for her. Make a grand gesture. She wouldn’t expect that from him. Cicero didn’t make grand gestures to his apprentices—but then he didn’t enter contests, either.
    “Live and learn,” he said, tossing his checkbook back into his desk drawer. Financial matters could wait. He needed to think, and he did his best thinking with a punty in his hands. Besides, working would help him pass the time until he received the phone call. If
I receive the phone call
. He knew that Gabi and Flynn wouldn’t B.S. him about something this big, but until he actually spoke to the Albritton people himself, he’d worry that a mistake had been made. His luck had been running just that way.
    He’d taken two steps out of his office when the phone rang. He glanced at the wall clock. Only ten after eleven. Caller ID showed an unfamiliar number. Ordinarily, he would have ignored the call, but now, he picked up. “Hello?”
    “Am I speaking with Mr. Hunter Cicero?”
    His heart thudded. “You are.”
    “Excellent. I’m glad to have reached you. It just occurred to me that you’re in the mountain time zone and I’m calling a little early. My name is Elliott Goodson. I am the Executive Director of the Albritton Foundation. I am pleased to inform you that you are a finalist for this year’s fellowship competition.”
    Damned if Cicero didn’t go a little bit weak in the knees. He propped a hip on the corner of his desk for support and said, “I’m honored, Mr. Goodson. Thank you so much.”
    By the time he hung up the phone fifteen minutes later, all thought of working had disappeared. His thoughts spun like a waterspout off Bella Vita Isle. He had a deadline—August 31. He had a theme—a quote from a poem by Emily Dickinson:
    Hope is the thing with feathers
.
That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all
.
    Now all he needed was an idea.
    A grand idea. The idea of all ideas. A half-million-dollar idea.
    He needed inspiration.
    His best ideas always came to him when his mind was empty of everything else following strenuous exercise. When he ran a marathon or swam the channel between Bella Vita Isle and neighboring Sunrise Cay, ideas flowed like rum in the islands. Of course, his most creatively spectacular ideas had happened in the aftermath of a vigorous session between the sheets.
    He couldn’t go swimming in Eternity Springs. He couldgo running. Skiing. Mountain climbing. But he needed a spectacular idea.
    “Guess I’ll go see if Dr. Delicious has plans for lunch.”
    He grabbed his coat and exited his studio wearing a self-amused grin.