Tackle looked like he’d swallowed the rock I’d just kicked.
“Look, if it’s too much trouble…”
“It isn’t too much trouble,” he muttered.
“Thanks. So, I’ll see you next week?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He rolled his eyes. “I thought engagement parties were something only women did.”
“It’s a combination engagement, loft-warming party. And there will be beer.” Something occurred to me. “You could always bring a date. Make a weekend of it in the Big Apple.”
Tackle crossed his arms in front of him. “Yeah, maybe.”
I climbed inside my vehicle, started the engine, and waved out the window as I drove away. As I turned the corner onto the main drag, I saw Sloane’s car heading in the opposite direction. I honked and waved, but she didn’t see me.
“Call Sloane,” I said to the on-board computer.
“Hey, Knox,” she answered.
“I just passed you. Did you need something?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you headed to my place?”
“Oh! Uh, no. Just meeting a friend for lunch.”
That seemed odd since it was ten in the morning. “I’ll see you next week?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
I waited until I passed the exit for Worcester before I called Tara. “Hey, baby. I’m on my way. I got an early start. I’m about three hours out.”
“Okay.”
I smiled. “Whatcha’ doin’?”
She laughed. “Painting. Sorry. When did you say you’d be here?”
“Three hours. Should I go straight to the loft or stop by the gallery?”
“You can go to the loft. I’ll, uh, meet you there.”
“Sounds good. I love you, Tara.”
“I love you too, Knox.”
Two hours and fifty-seven minutes later, I pulled up in front of the Catarina Benedetto Gallery and parked in the loading zone. I punched the code into the keypad at the front door and walked inside.
“Hey, Pen.” She looked up, waved, and went back to what she was doing.
I eased open the door of the studio, then closed and locked it behind me. Tara’s back was to me, but I could see she had the end of the paintbrush in her mouth while she studied the painting in front of her.
I walked over to her, careful to make as little noise as possible, and wrapped my arm around her waist. She rested her hand on mine. “What did you do, fly here? What time is it?”
“One on the dot. Well, a little after. What are you painting?” It looked like something out of Italy, maybe even at Valentini, but nowhere I recognized.
“I don’t know. I keep dreaming about you and me being in this place. I woke up this morning and knew I had to paint it.”
“It kind of looks like a church.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” Tara dipped her brush in the water and then into the purple paint and added small flowers to a vine growing near the door of the building.
“But you don’t know where it is?”
“No idea.”
“You’ll call me crazy.”
I kissed the side of her neck. “Tell me anyway.”
“I think it’s where we’re supposed to get married.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and looked up a website. I clicked on the gallery page and scrolled through the photos. I held the phone in front of Tara, who looked at it then at the painting and back again.
She turned in my arms. “How did you find it? Where is it?”
I swiped at the screen until it went back to the main page and then showed it to her.
“Oh my God, that’s Valentini! How did you know?”
“I had a hunch. Is that where you want to get married?”
“What would you think?”
“It’s perfect.” I didn’t care where the ceremony was. I only cared that Tara would be my wife.
“We should call Pia.”
I pulled her closer to me. “Later.”
“Yeah? What are we going to do now?”
“You’re going to finish that painting.”
“I am?”
I nodded and unfastened the buttons of her blouse.
“Let me guess. I’m going to do it naked?”
“You read my mind.”
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Grinded
Prologue
Grinder
It had been ten years since it last snowed in the hills outside of Austin, Texas. Ten years. It had also been ten years since I first met Pia Deltetto—the woman I believed might one day be my wife, the mother of my children.
I’d lived a lot of life in the years between then and now. Most of which I’d prefer to forget. There were days, weeks, even months when I wished I could forget Pia too, but she was too stubborn to let me. Her fiery spirit would force itself out of my subconscious until she was once again the star of my dreams—both awake and asleep.
I was on my way to see Pia now, traveling to the airport on this cold-as-hell night. It would take me fifteen hours to get to Florence, Italy. By the time I reached Tuscany, it would be Christmas.
Perhaps her gift to me would be one of forgiveness, although I knew, in my heart, that would be too much to ask for.
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Also by Heather Slade
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