“The partnership papers with Dana and Zoe. I thought Dana told you.”

“Told me what?”

“That we’re buying the house, going into business.”

“What house? What business?”

“The house on Oak Leaf. And our business. Businesses, I suppose. My gallery, Dana’s bookstore, Zoe’s salon. We’re calling it Indulgence.”

“Catchy,” Jordan decided.

“I can’t believe I’m jumping in like this.” She pressed a hand to her stomach. “So unlike me. I’m terrified. Well, I don’t want to be late.” She stepped over, caught Flynn’s baffled face in her hands and kissed him again. “I’ll call you later. We’re hoping you’ll do a story on our new enterprise. Nice meeting you, Jordan.”

“Really nice meeting you.” He watched her walk down the hall. “Nice legs, killer eyes, and bright enough to light up a cave. You got yourself a live wire there, buddy.”

His lips were still vibrating from hers. “Now that I’ve got her, what am I going to do with her?”

“You’ll figure it out.” He moved over to top off his coffee. “Or she will.”

“Yeah.” Flynn rubbed a hand over his heart. There was a flutter in it. Maybe that’s what came from handling a live wire. “I need more coffee, then I need to talk to you and Brad. You guys aren’t going to believe the dream I had last night.”

Chapter Thirteen

“I can’t believe they didn’t show it to you.” Dana dug the key to Flynn’s house out of her purse.

“Neither can I. I didn’t even think,” Malory added, as annoyance propelled her from the car to Flynn’s front door. “I just assumed Jordan was having it shipped. Plus the three of them were half naked. It was distracting.”

“Don’t blame yourself.” Zoe gave her a bolstering pat on the back. “And anyway, you’ll get to see it now.”

“They’re up to something,” Dana muttered. “I can just feel it. When the three of them get together, they’re always up to something.” She unlocked the door, pushed it open. Waited a beat.

“Nobody’s home.”

“They were just getting up when I was here a couple of hours ago.” Malory walked inside without a qualm. “And now that I think about it, Flynn did look like he was up to something.”

“They’ll try to cut us out.” Ready and willing to work herself into a rant on men in general, Dana tossed her keys back in her purse. “It’s typical behavior for their species. Oh, we know better, don’t you worry your pretty head, little lady.”

“I hate that.” Firing up, Zoe hissed a breath between her teeth. “You know how an auto mechanic always gives you that smirk and says he’ll explain the problem to your husband?”

Dana sucked air through her nose. “That burns my ass.”

“If you ask me, that Bradley Vane’s at the bottom of it.” Zoe set her fists on her hips. “He’s just the type to try to run everything and everyone. I pegged him from the get-go.”

“No, it’ll be Jordan.” Dana kicked a shoe out of her way. “He’s an instigator.”

“It’s Flynn’s responsibility,” Malory disagreed. “It’s his house, they’re his friends, and . . . oh, my God.”

Light slanted across both paintings as they stood propped carelessly against the wall just where Flynn had left them. Her heart squeezed with admiration and envy at the sight.

She walked toward them slowly, as she might a lover who both dazzled and titillated. Her throat ached as she knelt on the floor in front of them.

“They’re beautiful,” Zoe said from behind her.

“They’re more.” Gently, Malory lifted the portrait of Arthur, tilting it toward the light. “It’s not just talent. Talent can be technical, achieve a kind of perfection of balance and proportion.”

She came close to that, she thought, when she painted. Fell just short of technical perfection. And miles away from the magic that made an image art.

“It’s genius when you’re able to take that talent beyond technique and into emotion,” she continued. “To message, or just to simple beauty. When you have that, you light up the world. Can’t you feel his heart pounding?” she asked as she studied the young Arthur. “His muscles quivering as he takes the hilt? That’s the power of the artist. I’d give anything—anything—to be able to create like this.”

A shiver ran through her, twin snakes of hot and cold. For a heartbeat her fingers seemed to burn. And for that heartbeat something inside her opened, and lit, and she saw how it could be done. Must be done. How she could explode on canvas into art.

The knowledge filled her to bursting, left her breathless.

Then was gone in an instant.

“Mal? Malory?” Zoe crouched down, took her shoulders. “What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing. I got dizzy for a second.”

“Your eyes went funny. They went huge and dark.”

“It must’ve been the light.” But she felt strangely queasy as she pulled her purse over and took out her magnifying glass.

Using the natural light, she began a slow, careful study of each painting.

There was the shadow, just the hint of a form lurking deep, deep in the green of the forest. And two figures—a man and a woman—watching the boy, the sword, the stone, from the far background. From a chain at the woman’s waist hung three gold keys.

“What do you think?” Dana demanded.

“I think we’ve got a couple of choices.” Considering them, Malory sat back, rolled her shoulders. “We can convince Brad and Jordan to have these sent to experts for verification of whether or not it’s the same artist. And by doing so, we risk this entire business getting out.”

“What’s the other choice?” Zoe asked her.

“We can take my word for it. Everything I know, everything I’ve studied and learned tells me the same person painted both of these. The same person who painted the portrait at Warrior’s Peak.”

“If we go with that, what do we do with it?” Dana demanded.

“We figure out what the paintings are telling us. And we go back up to Warrior’s Peak. We ask Rowena and Pitte how at least two of these works were done more than a century apart.”