Willa laughed. “Yeah, right. Something’s going on. You’ve been all la-la ever since you came back from walking Archie.”
“WithMitch,” Frankie added. Because undoubtedly, he was a key component in this equation. She just didn’t know how yet.
Harper sighed out a languid breath. “I don’t know what to tell you. It was a beautiful evening. We saw a great sunset. Archie did his business. Mitch definitely wants a dog. But you know that already.”
Frankie crossed her arms. “Yes, we know that. But you came back from that walk looking all…moony-eyed.”
Willa nodded. “La-la.”
Harper frowned. Sort of. “I did not come back moony-eyed.”
Willa came over to stand by her aunt, staring intently at her face. “You were definitely moony-eyed. Like you’d been kissing or something.”
Frankie sucked in so much air she almost coughed. She slapped her hand to her chest. “Did Mitch kiss you?”
Harper stared at the ceiling. “You two are so full of roast potatoes and sticky toffee pudding that you’ve lost your minds. I’m going to bed. I have Kyle’s book to finish. I’ll see you people in the morning. Come on, Archie.” She patted her leg and Archie hopped off the couch and followed her into the bedroom.
Frankie raised her brows and gave Willa a knowing look.
Willa nodded back. “Something definitely happened between them. Somethinggood.”
“Agreed.” Frankie picked up her water and took another sip. “You want to watch a little TV?”
“No, thanks. I think I’m going to turn in, too. I have a few odds and ends I need to do.”
Frankie wasn’t sure what those could be, but truth was, she had work of her own. “Okay. See you in the morning. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” Willa headed up the steps.
Frankie took her glass into the office, turned on the desk light, and sat. She opened her laptop. Her plan was to refine and finalize the two illustrations she’d done today.
With the house quiet and the world outside the windows dark, it was easy to focus. There was no pull to be anywhere else. No sense of guilt that she was missing out on precious time with her family.
She whipped through both images in about an hour, polishing them to perfection. She’d look at them again tomorrow, just to be sure she hadn’t missed anything, but they were essentially done.
It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet. And she wasn’t tired. She decided to work some more. She turned on her concentration music, setting the volume low so it was just background.
That done, she grabbed her tablet and her drawing pen and moved to the small couch in the office. She’d already started the third illustration, making it easy to pick up where she’d left off.
Again, it seemed much easier to concentrate than it had earlier in the day. She didn’t typically work late at night, but maybe she was on to something.
By ten forty-five, the third illustration was done, ready to be polished in the morning. She was really pleased with how much she’d gotten done. It proved to her what she was capable of, if she applied herself.
She needed this kind of discipline all the time. Easier said than done, but knowing she could do it was a big deal. It proved to her that she had what it was going to take to run her own business.
She got up to stretch, then checked her phone. There was a text from Lucas. One single word and one emoji.
Night. Followed by a smiley face with hearts for eyes.
She grinned and typed back,Night. Then added the heart emoji.
She still wanted to do a portrait of Scout for him. She pulled up the photos of Scout that she’d taken and sat back down. With the pic on her phone as a guide, she did a quick sketch on her tablet.
The end result was good. She kept going, refining it, tweaking the image until it looked as much like Scout as she could manage. She worked hard on the fur. Fur and hair could be tricky, but she kept at it. Next, she added small dots of light to the eyes. That really made Scout come alive.
Finally, she had to make herself stop. It was twenty after eleven and she was getting tired. She wanted to finish, butmaybe she’d save that as her reward for getting the last two illustrations done tomorrow.
It would be so much fun to surprise Lucas with this. She couldn’t wait.
