“The light’s going.” Shannon didn’t bother to look up. The sweep of her brush was passionate, frenetic. “I’ll need some lamps. I’ve got to have light.”

“Of course. I’ll bring you some.” She stepped forward. It wasn’t the face of grief she saw, but the face of someone half wild. “Shannon—”

“I can’t talk now. I have to do this, I have to get it out of my system once and for all. I have to have more light, Brie.”

“All right. I’ll see to it.” Quietly she closed the door behind her.

She painted all night. She’d never done that before. Never needed to or cared enough. But she’d needed this. It was full morning when she stopped, her hands cramped, her eyes burning, her mind dead. She hadn’t touched the tray Brianna had brought up sometime during the night, nor was she interested in food now.

Without looking at the finished canvas, she dropped her brushes in a jar of turpentine, then turned and tumbled fully dressed into bed.

It was nearly evening again before she woke, stiff, groggy. There’d been no dreams this time, or none she remembered, only the deep, exhausted sleep that left her feeling hulled out and light-headed.

Mechanically she stripped off her clothes, showered, dressed again, never once looking at the painting she’d been driven to start and finish within one desperate night. Instead, she picked up the untouched tray and carried it downstairs.

She saw Brianna in the hall, bidding goodbye to guests. Shannon passed without speaking, going into the kitchen to set aside the tray and pour the coffee that had been made for her hours before.

“I’ll make fresh,” Brianna offered the moment she came in.

“No, this is fine.” With something close to a smile, Shannon lifted the cup. “Really. I’m sorry, I wasted the food.”

“Doesn’t matter. Let me fix you something, Shannon. You haven’t eaten since yesterday, and you look pale.”

“I guess I could use something.” Because she couldn’t find the energy to do anything else, she went to the table and sat.

“Did you have a fight with Murphy?”

“Yes and no. I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

Brianna turned the heat on under her stew before going to the refrigerator. “I won’t press you then. Did you finish your painting?”

“Yes.” Shannon closed her eyes. But there was more to finish. “Brie, I’d like to see the letters now. I need to see them.”

“After you’ve eaten,” Brianna said, slicing bread for a sandwich. “I’ll call Maggie, if you don’t mind. We should do this together.”

“Yes.” Shannon pushed her cup aside. “We should do this together.”

Chapter
Twenty-Three

It was a difficult thing to look at the three slim letters, bound together by a faded red ribbon. And it was a sentimental man, Shannon mused, who tied a woman’s letters, so few letters, in a ribbon that time would leach of color.