Tears streaked her cheeks, and he wanted to go to her. To stand between her and whatever was upsetting her. But there was something triumphant in her stance, in the way she held brush and palette that held him back.

Shoulders back, head high. She jabbed the brush at the canvas. Her ability to not just feel emotions, but embrace them, always floored him. Where some sought to numb themselves, Remi welcomed them all.

He stepped into the room and stopped. She didn’t let people watch. She’d always been fiercely protective of her art, her process. Magnus hopped off one of the work tables and came to wind around Brick’s feet. He bent down and stroked a hand over the cat’s long tail.

The song started over, and she swiped at fresh tears with the sleeve of her shirt. He wondered what it was about this particular song that captivated her. Or haunted her.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there watching, but when her eyes found his, when her mouth stretched into a victorious smile, time stopped.

She crooked her finger at him, and he wandered down the ramp in her direction. Her hair was pulled up in a high tail. There was a smudge of purple paint on her jaw and flecks of blue and red on her fingers.

He was still two feet away when she launched herself into his arms, locking her legs around his waist.

The lecture he was going to deliver, the questions he needed answers to, fell out of his head as she cupped his face in her hands and poured herself into a kiss.

Her mouth was jubilant against his. On instinct, he gripped the back of her head and coaxed her mouth open so he could taste her. The kiss spun out into something wild and free, like her. When she pulled back, he tried to follow her. But she stopped him.

“I painted,” she whispered over his lips. Then she sank her teeth into his lower lip.

He growled his approval and gave her a nip of his own. “I can see that.”

“Look,” she said, turning his head in the direction of her easel.

It was hard to look at anything other than her lovely face. The shadows had been vanquished from her eyes. Selfishly he hoped he’d played a role there.

“It’s kind of just a draft. Sometimes it takes me a couple of attempts to get it right. But this was more of an exorcism,” she said, unaware that he was still looking at her instead of her painting.

He managed to drag his gaze away from her and focus on the canvas in front of him.

Dark purple bled into unrelenting black around two jagged, off-white splotches. Sharp, hard lines in orange and yellow divided the eerie night from the bottom of the canvas. She used the palette knife not so much to blend, but almost to rend. The bottom was a snowy white with scarlet red stains.