The Law of Nines. Terry Goodkind

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       2.

      I’D LOVE TO PAINT YOU SOMETIME—if you’d be interested, I mean,” Alex said as they made their way across the broad boulevard.

      “Paint me?” she asked, her brow twitching just a little. It was an achingly feminine look that invited an explanation.

      “I’m an artist.”

      He glanced at the traffic stopped across the intersection to his left, making sure that no rogue construction trucks were about to make another run at them. With the lights flashing on the police car sitting at the curb, everyone was driving cautiously.

      He was glad to at last be away from the pirate plumbers. They looked to have developed a grudge. Alex felt a flash of anger at the injustice of their belligerent attitude toward him.

      “So you paint portraits?” she asked.

      Alex shrugged. “Sometimes.”

      Portraits weren’t his specialty, although they did occasionally bring him some income. He would work for free, though, just for a chance to paint this woman. In his mind he was already analyzing the curves and planes of her features, trying to imagine whether he could ever get such an enchanting face right. He would never start such a work unless he was confident that he could get it perfect. This was not a woman he would want to render in anything less than perfection. Changing her in any way would be unthinkable.

      He gestured to the low, elegant structure peeking through the shimmering leaves. “I have a few pieces at the gallery.”

      She glanced to where he had indicated, almost as if she expected to see the gallery itself standing there.

      “I’m headed there now, as a matter of fact. If you’d like to see some of my work, the gallery is down a little ways from Regent Jewelry…”

      His voice trailed off. He suddenly felt a little foolish at his presumption. He imagined that a woman like her would be interested only in the exclusive jewelry store or the boutiques. Since she wasn’t wearing any jewelry he wasn’t sure why he assumed such a thing, but he guessed he feared that she probably wasn’t interested in art—or his art, anyway.

      “I’d like to see your work.”

      He looked over at her. “Really?”

      She nodded as she pulled a wavy lock of blond hair back off her face.

      Alex felt his cell phone vibrate silently in his pocket, letting him know that another text message was being delivered. He sighed inwardly as he cut a straight line across the nearly empty parking lot. It was only midmorning; most people didn’t arrive until closer to lunchtime. A few dozen expensive cars, glittering in subdued shades of silvers, reds, and ambers, were parked in a cluster around the main entrance.

      Message delivered, his phone finally stopped vibrating. Bethany, he was sure, was responsible. He hadn’t even known that his phone was capable of receiving text messages until after he’d met her several weeks back. After he’d gone out with her a second time she had started sending him text messages. They were painfully petty. He rarely read them anymore. She usually asked things like if he was thinking of her. He hardly even knew her. What was he supposed to say? That she hadn’t entered his mind?

      He ignored the phone as he opened the center-pivot glass door for the woman. It wasn’t the kind of shopping area that lent itself to the financially timid. She glided through the doorway with the kind of grace and confidence born of being used to such places.

      Before the door closed Alex glanced back across the lot, between the linden trees lining the edge of the street, to the white truck still sitting at the curb in front of the police car. He couldn’t make out the men inside.

      As they passed into the hushed, grand seclusion inside, he was a little surprised to see the woman only glance at the alluring glimmer of Regent Jewelry. As they strolled through the halls, her cool gaze took in each exclusive shop in equal measure. The dress shop, Alex knew, didn’t sell anything, except maybe a scarf, for less than four figures. The woman scanned the outfits in the window with no more interest than she took in the shoes in the next store window, or the purses in the next.

      Alex saw other women cast appraising glances her way. She looked at the other women, but in an altogether different manner. They were evaluating her socially. She was assessing them…spatially, checking their distance before briefly taking in their faces as if to see whether she recognized them.

      “Down here, around the corner,” Alex said, drawing her attention.

      When he spoke to her she met his gaze with a focused involvement that was respectful and interested. He couldn’t imagine this woman ever sending him a text message.

      She allowed him to direct her around the curve of the corridor decorated with sweeping inlaid metal lines in the speckled pink granite floor. Cast-stone arches stood at a branch of halls. The one Alex took led into a sunlit corridor. Skylights overhead let streamers of light play across the planters overflowing with philodendron and an assortment of salmon-colored hibiscus.

      Alex drew them to a halt before the gallery window surrounded with ornate gold molding. The molding, meant to resemble a picture frame, showcased some of the more expensive and sought-after works just inside.

      Alex gestured through the window. “This is the place.”

      A twitch of disapproval ghosted across her features. “Do you mean to say that you…painted this?”

      She was looking at the large piece displayed in the center of the crowded floor just inside the window. It had been done by R. C. Dillion, a midwestern artist who was becoming a national figure. It was said of him that R. C. Dillion was at the forefront of a new reality in art.

      “No, not that one,” Alex said. He leaned closer as he pointed beyond the nonobjective works crowding the window to a small landscape displayed on an easel near the back. “That’s one of mine back there. The mountain scene with the pines in the foreground to the left.”

      Alex was relieved to see that Mr. Martin, the gallery owner, had at least put a small spotlight on the painting rather than setting it on the floor, leaned against a wall, as he sometimes did. The small light made the sunlit clearing, within the hushed cathedral of trees, come to life.

      “See the one I mean?” he asked as he glanced over at her.

      Her mouth opened a little in surprise. “Alexander, it’s beautiful.”

      Alex froze.

      He knew that he hadn’t yet mentioned his name. He knew СКАЧАТЬ