My stomach in knots, I folded my arms across my waist. It was like being thrust back to when Reece was first in active combat and dealing with the constant gnawing dread that something terrible would happen.

This was why I could not really fall for him. Sex was okay. Dating was great. But really falling for him, letting myself get so deep with him? Hell no. I could lose him like I . . . like I was losing Charlie.

Like I’d already lost Charlie.

And that was a different kind of love, and look how painful that was turning out.

I returned to the painting, and whenever my thoughts started to wander, I refocused. It was close to seven when I took a quick shower just in case Reece wasn’t that late, and when nine o’clock rolled around, I made myself a tuna sandwich and ate while obsessively staring at the phone.

Against my better judgment, around eleven, I pulled up the local news on the Internet. A breaking news headline flashed under a picture of red and blue lights outside of a heavily wooded area.

My stomach tightened as I scrolled through the short write-­up. There wasn’t a lot to be known about the standoff Reece was currently at except that it was a man holding his wife and—­it was believed to be—­two small children in the home against their will.

“Oh God,” I whispered, unable to imagine what that woman and her kids must be going through and how anyone could put their family through something like that.

Restless and unable to watch TV, I ended up changing into one of the oversized shirts I’d lovingly borrowed from my older brother. It reached just below my thighs, long enough to pass as a dress. It was covered in dried paint, perfect to work in. I pulled my hair up and back from my face and then got back to work on the painting.

Hours blurred together, a haze of mixing together shades as I tried to capture the right tone for the bronze statue and began the almost painful sketching of the horse and Andrew Jackson. Drawing it in faint pencil on the canvas was the only way I could do it, but once the paint was on, I didn’t think ­people would notice it had been sketched first. Sometimes I felt like a cheat for doing that, because there were artists who could paint anything freehand. Me? I was so not one of them.

I probably should’ve spent the time working on the web project, but I promised myself I’d do that Tuesday evening. I had several days left before the deadline on this one, and painting . . . well, it was what I needed right now.