The thought of taking it away from this place where it was created was inconceivable. Like the man himself, it belonged here, not in New York. It was her gift to him—given freely this time.

Not traded, not used as a bargaining chip.

Maybe he could stop her from staying, stop her from trying to reach him, but he couldn’t stop her from loving him and hopefully, one day, he’d be able to see that love right there in his portrait.

Fixing a note to the corner, Suzanne took an unsteady breath and turned her back on it, forcing her legs out of the room.

She had to go tell her parents they were leaving.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

They ended up at the boardinghouse because Suzanne hadn’t thought that far ahead—leaving had been her priority. Plus, she’d wanted to say goodbye to Winona. But with snow still being a problem in the eastern states, driving wasn’t that safe, particularly in her Scooby van, which was borderline roadworthy in the best of conditions. And flights out of Denver for her parents were impossible at the moment because of Christmas and the backlog of canceled flights the airlines were still dealing with due to the blizzard. The earliest they could book was for the twenty-ninth.

Winona persuaded them to stay at the boardinghouse. She had a comfy sofa in her room where Suzanne could sleep, and Marley and Molly were happy to move into one room temporarily for Albie and Simone to have a bed. Suzanne went along with the plan because she was too mentally exhausted and heartsick to do anything other than stare into space a lot—and because there was a part of her that felt while she was still in Credence, there was still hope.

Which made her the worst kind of fool.

It took two days for Suzanne to talk to her parents. To confess all. They’d given her space, so had Winona, but she knew they wanted to help, wanted to understand, and she owed them the truth. About everything. So in front of the fire on the second night with a glass of red wine in hand and Winona there, too, she fessed up.

About her muse returning. About the paintings she’d done of Grady and him discovering them. About how she’d lied about Grady because she hadn’t wanted to go home for Christmas.

“I’m sorry,” she said to her parents as her dad frowned and her mom covered her mouth with her hand, obviously surprised at the information. “I just didn’t want to spend another Christmas with a coat hanger tree and one lonely blue bulb.”