Page 7 of The Artist

“Really?”She narrowed her eyes.“I hear abutcoming.”

“Your brush strokes are too tentative.You need to be more forceful and surer of your strokes.These could be great, not just good.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“Do you have a blank canvas?”

She nodded.“Several.”

“Good.I’ll need the biggest canvas you have and then tomorrow, I’ll show you what I mean.For now, I’m too tired.I feel like I went ten rounds in an MMA ring.”

Suddenly, she smiled.“I look forward to the lesson,Maestro.”

Peter shook his head.“I’m not a maestro, just a simple teacher.”

Alexis lifted a brow.“Except you’re not.Your paintings sell for millions of dollars, and with your stake in your brothers’ gaming empire, you’re a billionaire.You’re anything but asimpleteacher.”

He turned and looked out the window.“Thanks…I think.”

Alexis chuckled as she placed her paintings against the wall.She walked over to the fireplace and placed another log on the fire.It caught almost immediately.

“Now that you know about me, tell me about Peter Kincaid.”

Peter sat at the table, placed his hands around his mug of tea and looked down at them.“There is not much to tell…really.”He looked up.“People pay so much for my paintings because of my siblings.I am what I am because of my siblings.But I teach for me.All I ever wanted to do was paint and teach.Now, the only way I can teach is to show up at another teacher’s classroom and talk to their class.”

He shifted his gaze from her face to the fire behind her.“I’m not someone to be admired, Alexis.Someone to be admired is the art teacher who puts in fifty hours a week, teaching students, most of whom don’t want to learn anything about art but are there so they can get out of taking of something else that they loathe even more.Then, that same teacher tries to teach another group of students at night school.These people, at least, want to learn about art.But that leaves very little time for the teacher’s own projects, so they languish, unfinished, in some remote part of their house or apartment, or even a cabin in the woods.”He looked pointedly at her canvases against the wall.

She huffed out a breath.“My gallery takes all of my time.I’ll get back to my paintings someday, but for now, the gallery comes first.”

“If I donate a painting to your gallery would you then have time to work on your projects?”He waved a hand toward the wall where her paintings were.“You wouldn’t have to worry about money or about being at the gallery constantly.”

“I…I…I don’t know what to say.”Her knees started to buckle, and she sat in the chair next to him.“That would be wonderful.Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

He crossed his arms over his muscled chest.“It is.”He leaned forward and took one of her hands in his.“I want you to finish what you have started.I see a lot of promise in your paintings, and I want to see them complete.”

“You know, the snow will eventually melt or the road will be plowed and you’ll be able to leave.You wouldn’t have to give me the painting.You could leave and never look back.”

Peter shook his head.“I’m not that kind of person.I know you don’t know me.”He made figure eights with his thumb on the top of her hand.Then he moved to the inside of her wrist.“But I give you my word that I’ll donate a painting.A new painting.Maybe like the one you suggested, of Ranger’s Walk video game characters.It would be unique to your gallery and I believe would bring people to Aspen just to see your gallery and the painting.I’ll post it in my Facebook groups and my profile.I’ll get my brothers and my sister to post it in theirs, too.”

He knitted his eyebrows together and searched her face for something but he didn’t know what.

Peter continued to hold her hand.“Well?What do you say?Are you ready to take a chance on your future?”

She took a deep breath and released it before answering.Then she nodded.“I’m ready.And I’m excited to see what you come up with.I’ll post it in my Facebook groups, in the Aspen Times and the Aspen Daily News.”She stopped then and looked over at him.“What about you missing muse?Will you be able to paint without her?”

“Maybe you’re my new muse because I feel better now than I’ve felt in a long time.Get your blank canvas, mine are probably ruined from the walk in the snow, but I have my paints.Let’s see what I can do in the time we have left in the cabin.”

Alexis widened her eyes and her mouth dropped open.“I thought you were too tired.”

He grinned.“I seem to have recharged while sitting here talking to you.There’s no time like the present.Now, let me get started.”