Suzanne nodded absently at the update, knowing it was a rhetorical statement not requiring her response but informative given she hadn’t really been listening to the report. She’d tuned in to the static instead, the scratchy white noise just the right pitch to sharpen her focus on the image of Grady coming to life on the canvas.

She glanced up ten minutes later to find he’d fallen asleep, radio still on, and Suzanne’s heart gave a little squeeze at the sight. His head had lolled to the side, his lips had slackened, and his left hand was resting low on his abdomen, perilously close to his junk. This was the essence of the man, and her muse lapped it up, the brush flying over the canvas as she rushed to capture his lazy masculine potency.

An hour later, with only the static for company, Suzanne put her brush down and stretched out the muscles on either side of her neck. It was done. Oh, she had no doubt she’d tweak it a little over the days and weeks to come, but essentially she was finished. And it was good.

So damn good, she almost cried.

All that worry about not being able to create something original, about her art being stiff and two-dimensional, fell away as she stared at a painting so fluid, so full of life and vitality, it sucked her breath away.

She was an artist, damn it. She was a portrait artist. That was her niche. That’s who she was.

She realized something else, too, maybe even more startling. Something she hadn’t seen until now, until taking in the whole. It was full of love. Infused with it. They said a picture was worth a thousand words, but this one was worth only one. If she’d seen this painting hanging in a museum or a gallery, there’d be no doubt about what she was viewing—a portrait of a man painted by the person who loved him, every brushstroke a love letter.

Tears blurred Suzanne’s eyes, and her ribs felt tight around her lungs. It couldn’t be—she couldn’t be in love with him—she’d known him three freaking weeks. Not that she knew him at all, really, which made this even more preposterous. How could she be in love with someone who kept himself so closed off? But it was no use trying to deny it when the truth of it was staring back at her from the canvas. The heart wants what the heart wants, and her damn fool heart had decided on Joshua Grady.

What an idiot. To fall for a guy so emotionally unavailable that she might as well have fallen in love with a rock. Brilliant, Suzanne. Good job.

Shit…what a mess.