A variety of canvases lined the wall, and Lara made a beeline for them. She didn’t utter a word as she studied them, only issuing the occasional hum or another obscure sound. In all the years we’d worked together, I never could figure out what those sounds meant.

Lara paused in front of the third landscape. A scene of my beach where the surf had risen and looked about ready to swallow a figure whole. “This one. It’s a mixture of the old and the new.” She glanced up at me. “Maybe this place isn’t so bad for you, after all.”

“I told you.”

She looked back to the landscape. “I can sell this.”

“Not so fast.”

“Brody. Let me keep your career alive. I’m not asking you to have a show or do interviews. Just give me a few pieces to slowly dole out over the next year. It will keep collectors’ interests piqued. It might even work to our advantage. Limited supply. Then you can come back with a big splash when you’re ready.”

I was silent for a moment, taking in her offer. A year of freedom for a few paintings. And I owed Lara something. She’d been with me forever, and my career was largely thanks to how fiercely she’d fought to secure opportunities for me. “You can take the landscapes. I’m not ready for anything else. And if you take them, that means you can’t ask for anything else for a year.”

Lara’s lips thinned but she nodded. “Fine. You have a deal.”

I grinned at her. “Was that so hard?”

“You’re my most difficult client.”

I wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “But you love me.”

She scoffed. “You’ll be the reason I meet an early grave. All the stress you put on—” Her words cut off as she slipped out from under my arm and strode towards the piece I’d just finished. It was another of Shay. I’d probably painted half a dozen in the last week alone. Apparently, I was a man possessed. “This, Brody. This is magnificent. The landscapes are good. Interesting. Compelling. But this is transcendent.”

I followed her to the canvas. This one was of Shay in the greenhouse, the way she’d frozen when I asked her to sit for me. Instead of growing from the soil, the plants in the space grew from her. The vines of her secrets and everything she kept hidden from the world. One branch exploded from her heart, winding around her neck and reaching into the air. Everything that she needed to let free but wouldn’t. “I’m still working on it.”

“Fine, but—” Lara looked over her shoulder. “Do you have more like this?”