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“Oh. Can I see it?”

I nodded and she got up. When she peeled off the brown paper to look, she gasped. “Wow. That’s a really cool photo of you.”

I looked up and had to clutch a hand over the punch to my heart.

It was me.

Sloan had painted me.

I stood in the lake, in my waders. It was that day in Ely when I’d been putting in the dock. It was the moment right before I’d kissed her.

Tears threatened, and I had to put a hand on my mouth.

She’d painted this from memory. It was like seeing the moment through her eyes. This was how she had seen me that day, smiling and happy.

I’d been happy because she was there.

And I’d never be that happy again.

She wanted to get rid of it. She’d dropped this off to be sold and then left on a date.

The tears in my eyes rolled down my cheeks and I let them.

“What’s wrong?” Lola asked.

I shook my head. “My life is a mess,” I said, talking to the canvas.

She laughed a little. “Someone smart once told me you can start over again. Start now.”

But it was too late for starting over. I still couldn’t make Sloan safe. Not unless the public was suddenly more interested in buying magazines with pictures of me and her in them instead of me and Lola. And I’d done my job too well. Ernie said she hated me, that he couldn’t even mention my name without her face going hard. She was dating. She was moving on.

The damage had been done.