“That weird pastathing?”
Ash shot me a sideways glance. “He didn’t say. Why? Isitbad?”
“No… not at all. Just kinda strange. Remember that fish couscous Maggie made in the summer? It’s like that, but without the fish. And the couscous. Actually, it’s nothinglikethat.”
“Areyouokay?”
“Hmm?”
Ash laughed again. “I think the fresh air has gone toyourhead.”
I stretched my arms out and shifted onto my side. My heels hit a warm mass when I bent my legs, and I looked behind me to find that Max and Jed’s tiny rescue dog had taken up residence behind my knees. “She got on my lap when I was in the kitchen and shoved her head under my shirt. What kind of dogdoesthat?”
Ash peered over me and scratched the scraggly mutt’s ears. “The kind of dog that needs some love. Jed takes her to his clinic sometimes, let’s the biggest guys try their luck at calming hernerves.”
“Reverse psychology, huh?” I’d yet to see the charm in Zola. She barked a lot and smelled funky, but her warmth pressed against my legs was nicer than I was prepared to admit. I let her be and tried to get a grip on my sleep-addled brain. “What timeisit?”
“Six.”
“The fuck? Where’ve you beenallday?”
“Portland. I called you at lunchtime, but your cell isn’t connecting. Max said you were asleep when I spoke to him, so I went to the VA with Jed after meetingNicola.”
Nicola. The gallery. The show.Somehow over the past few days, I’d forgotten why we’d come to Oregon in the first place. “You forgot thepaintings.”
“What?”
“The paintings in the van. They’re stillthere.”
“Oh.” Ash shrugged. “Well, I might not use them anyway. I don’t reallylikethem.”
We drove across the country to deliver paintings you don’t really like?But I didn’t say it. What was the point? We were here now, and I was glad. The journey had cleared the cobwebs from my conscience, even though it was still far from clear. “What did you do attheVA?”
“Moved some furniture around. Jed asked me to paint one of the benches in the crisis room. We brought it back on thetruck.”
Benches.That rang a bell. “I think Max made some benches fortheVA.”
“He did. I picked one with his initials carved into it onpurpose.”
“Youdid?”
“Uh-huh.”
I sat up again and propped my head on my elbow. The gleam in Ash’s eyes was familiar—he had an idea, and he likely wouldn’t rest until he’d sketched it out. “You want me to fetch your sketchbooks from the van? We didn’t bring them inyesterday.”
“Nah, it’s okay. I’m going to start on the bench after dinner. Max said I can use the workshop atnight.”
“At night?” I knew where this was going. “Orallnight?”
Ash rolled his eyes. “Does it matter? It’s the only way I can get it done before we go back to Chicago. Shipping it back and forth seems kindaridiculous.”
He had a point, but I knew what Ash was like when he burned the midnight oil. And I wasn’t sure someone else’s home was the place for that—for Max and Jed’s sake, as much as his. “Fucker, you can’t stay up all night the whole timeyou’rehere.”
“I’m not going to. I’ve got a plan, and if you help me, I can get it done in onenight.”
“You want me to help you paint?” That was a new one. I had the artistic flair of a cold slice of pizza, and Ash was a lone wolf when it came to his art. Oftenno onesaw what he was working on until it was finished, but he was looking at me now with an expression I couldn’t quite decipher. “Jesus, you’reserious?”
“I don’t have enoughhands.”
