His hand curled around her shoulder in a gesture as gentle as the wisps of blue-gold paint softening the Madonna’s hair. His touch seemed both natural and necessary, and as she swallowed her tears, she had to resist the urge the curl into his chest.

“My poor Lilly,” he said softly. “You’ve made your life even harder for yourself than I have mine.”

She didn’t question how he knew, but as she stood before that miraculous, unfinished painting and felt the comforting hand on her shoulder, she understood that all these canvases were reflections of the man—his angry intensity, his intelligence, his severity, and the sentiment he worked so hard to hide. Unlike her, Liam Jenner was one with his work.

“Sit,” he murmured. “Just as you are.” She let him lead her to a simple wooden chair across the room. He caressed her shoulder, then stepped back and reached for one of the blank canvases near his worktable. If he had been any other man, she would have felt manipulated, but manipulation wouldn’t occur to him. He had simply been overcome with the need to create, and for a reason she couldn’t fathom, that involved her.

She no longer cared. Instead, she gazed at the Madonna and Child and thought about her life, richly blessed in so many ways but barren in others. Instead of concentrating on her losses—her son, her identity, the husband she’d both loved and resented—she thought of all she’d been granted. She’d been blessed with a good brain and the intellectual curiosity to challenge it. She’d been given a beautiful face and body when she’d needed them most. So what if that beauty had faded? Here beside this lake in northern Michigan, it didn’t seem quite so important.

As she gazed at the Madonna, something began to happen. She saw her herb-garden quilt instead of Liam’s painting, and she began to understand what had eluded her. The herb garden was a metaphor for the woman who now lived inside her—a more mature woman, one who wanted to heal and nurture instead of seduce, a woman with subtle nuances instead of splashy beauty. She was no longer the person she’d been, but she didn’t yet understand the person she’d become. Somehow the quilt held the answer.

Her fingers twitched in her lap as a rush of energy shot through her. She needed her sewing basket and her box of fabrics. She needed them now. If she had them—if she had them right now!—she could find the path that would unlock who she was. She jumped up from the chair. “I have to go.”

He’d been completely absorbed in his work, and for a moment he didn’t seem to comprehend what she’d said. Then something that almost looked like pain twisted those craggy features. “Oh, God, you can’t.”