“Actually—” Her forehead wrinkled into blue lines of consternation. “I hate to get all technical on you, but I can. As long as I don’t sell it or exhibit it for profit, I can paint whatever I want. Whoever I want. From the president of the United States to the queen of England and everyone in between, and I can certainly fill every spare inch of this cottage with paintings of you if I wanted to, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Grady had thought his anger had reached its peak. Turned out, he had hidden peaks. And that the universe hadn’t stopped fucking with his life just because he was hiding from it out here in bumfuck eastern Colorado. It was still trying to screw him.

And not the good kind of happy-ending screwing.

“Lady, you have acres of land out there.” He didn’t even try to keep the exasperation out of his voice as he jabbed a finger at the window. “There are trees and fields. There are cows and horses and barns. It’s called nature, and it’s quite popular hereabouts. Maybe you should try painting that?”

“Well, I’m sorry, but it turns out your trees and cows just aren’t that inspiring. Trust me: I have several shit landscapes shut away in that closet over there because I can’t even stand to look at them and, as far as I’m aware, only one of us here studied fine art at Columbia, so if you don’t mind, I won’t take any art advice from the person who—”

Her lip curled like she was going to say who herds cows for a living, but it wasn’t what slipped from her mouth.

“—didn’t,” she ended.

Grady ground his teeth together. He couldn’t give a rat’s ass what she thought of him and how he earned his money. The opinion of some woman he’d only just met who had a streak of blue paint on her forehead and was destined to be a pain in his ass was less than zero in his estimation. So he cut to the chase.

“I want them. All of them.”

Which wasn’t strictly true. It wasn’t like he was going to hang any of it. But he sure as hell wanted to see how well they’d burn. Maybe roast some marshmallows over the flames.

Her eyes grew large at his command, and she moved, dodging around him to put herself between him and her paintings, her legs planted wide, her arms akimbo, as if she could block any attempt he made at getting to them.

Right. Her and which army?

“Back off,” she said, shaking her head vehemently. “They’re mine, I painted them, they belong to me. And you can’t have them.”

Despite another uptick in Grady’s temper, he almost laughed at her as she swayed slightly, back and forth on her feet, her hands out in front as if she was about to karate chop him. He figured this was her ninja stance, but those curves and that streak of blue paint on her forehead ruined the badass.