But he passed all that as he followed the young woman. The storefront was actually small, but they came to a very large back room. It was a workroom, paintings in progress everywhere. There was a kitchenette, table and chairs, bathroom, lots of shelves and cabinets.

“Dad, Mr. Riordan is here.”

Dad? Colin wondered.

A very tall Native man with a long black braid hanging down his back turned from a work in progress, but it wasn’t the usual Native art. It was a wildly colored abstract of a Native mother and child. Colin stared at it openmouthed. He had no experience with abstract art; he had no idea if it would be considered as good, but he loved it. His surprise was complete.

“It’s nice to meet you in person, Colin,” Shiloh said. He wiped off his hands and stretched one toward Colin. “Let’s have coffee and talk.”

“I’m interrupting your work,” Colin apologized.

“It’ll keep. I want to hear about your painting. How do you take your coffee.”

“Just a little milk,” he said. But what he thought was—what’s to talk about? After seeing the paintings in the front of the showroom, he was completely intimidated—this man was a master. And forget about Colin’s wildlife art, what he really wanted to know was why this Navajo was painting in two completely different genres.

But Colin held his tongue and accepted a cup of coffee and a chair at the table in the back room. “Your daughter is a lovely young woman.”

“Thank you. She’s twenty-three, an accomplished artist in her own right though she’s still experimenting a great deal. I have three daughters, aged seventeen, twenty and twenty-three. They all help out here from time to time but it’s Samantha’s true passion. She wants her own gallery one day.”

“This painting,” Colin said, indicating the abstract. “I didn’t see anything like this out front. It’s a completely different approach to Native art. Are you experimenting?”

Shiloh shook his head as he stirred a mug of coffee for Colin. “This is something I love and believe myself to be good at, but because I’m Navajo and can produce competent Native renditions, this is what people who know me, who know my store, want from me. I’m not making complaints—I’m good at Native art and it holds a special place in my heart. It’s the first thing I ever sold and I’m marginally famous in some art circles for it. I’m happy to provide it and I do my best. But the abstract is unique and makes my heart beat a little faster.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Who knows why.”

“The paintings on display in the front of the gallery are so good, I didn’t want to come inside. Remarkable work.”

“Thank you. It pays the bills. I ship my other work like this to Los Angeles.” Shiloh sat down across the table from Colin. “When did you first notice that you could draw?”

Colin took a sip of his coffee. “Six?” he answered. “Something like that. You?”

Shiloh smiled. “About six, I think. When I first showed an inclination, my parents had me painting symbols on artifacts to be sold to tourists visiting the reservation. My family were ranchers. They did whatever they could to make a living, but no one ever considered fine art. That would have been out of their realm of experience.

“And where do you like to paint?” Shiloh asked.

“I like to be on the top of a hill in the natural sun, but I have a sunporch that works. It’s in the house of a woman I’m with. Even though it’s good, I still go outside to paint if the conditions are right. And I prowl around with a camera to get shots of wildlife.”

“Some of the pictures you sent by email interest me—they’re very good.”

“I’ve never shown them to a professional before. After seeing your work, I can’t believe I had the nerve. But after all the painting, I find the animals work best for me.” He grinned almost shyly. “If you’re ever in the market for aircraft, I’m not bad at those. I did a wall mural of a Black Hawk once.”

“And where will you go with this personal best of wildlife art?” Shiloh asked.

“First? I’m going to Africa to shoot the Serengeti—big game. Lions, gazelle, tigers, elephants, et cetera. And the landscape they live in. Then all I intend is to get better.”

Shiloh leaned back in his chair and asked, “How did you get from age six to the Serengeti?”

“Thirty-four years?” Colin asked.

He nodded solemnly. “I hope you won’t take thirty-four years to tell it, but don’t leave out the important things.”

“And how will I know which things are the important things?”

Shiloh smiled lazily. “You’ll know.”

So Colin began. He spent fifteen minutes on his high school art, his Army career and part-time drawing and painting. Then he spent forty minutes on his crash, rehab and temporary residence in Virgin River. And finally, Jillian’s insistence that he try to find out if his work was worth anything. And his reluctant agreement that he should know.

“I assume you have supplies with you?”

“Like painting supplies?” Colin asked.

Shiloh gave a nod. “So you could stop along the way if you found the perfect spot or if something interested you.”

“Yes.”

Shiloh Tahoma stood. “Then let me take you to a favorite place.”

“Do you want to see my work before you waste a lot of time?” Colin asked.

“It won’t be a waste of my time,” he said. “You’re parked on the street?” When Colin nodded, Shiloh said, “I’m in a white SUV. I’ll come around from the back and you can follow me.”

Colin was left standing in the studio while Shiloh Tahoma left by the rear door. A little confused as to what purpose this would serve, he found himself slowly leaving through the front. Samantha was standing in the gallery talking to a man who might be a customer, a neighbor or a friend. She paused in conversation to look at Colin; she tilted her head and smiled. “Your father,” Colin said. “He wants to show me a place. To paint, I think.”

Samantha smiled and let her chin fall in an accepting manner. Then she went back to her conversation.

By the time Colin got behind the wheel of his Jeep, Shiloh was beside him in his SUV, waiting. Colin followed the Navajo for about thirty minutes out of town, into the desert, into the red rocks of Sedona, up a mountain road and finally the artist pulled over. For the entire time he was driving Colin wondered what this was all about. Would there be a test of some kind? Did the man want to see what he could do? What were the Native’s expectations of him?

But when the SUV stopped right along a deserted cliff with an amazing view, Shiloh got out and lifted up his hatch. When Colin got out, as well, Shiloh said, “We have a couple of hours of good light at best. Get out your gear and let’s just slap some paint around.”

“So you can see what I can do?”

“I imagine I’ll see what you can do when I look at your work later. I just hate to waste good light.”

Seriously? Colin thought. We just sip some coffee, drive into the desert, slap around some paint?

But he had looked up Shiloh Tacoma on Google and knew he was a respected Native American artist who also sometimes taught at the university. He might be a bit weird, but still—he was at the top of his game. So Colin went along. He pulled out an easel, his paints, a palette, a collection of brushes, some turpentine, some rags. He set up and with charcoal, outlined his brand-new, completely unplanned and uninspired painting. And he decided he’d just throw it all out there and pretend. He outlined the monstrous red rocks, but he didn’t fill them in. Instead, he left the charcoal outline and drew a very large mountain lion lying on a lower shelf of rock. And that was what he went after with paint a half hour after starting.

“I usually paint alone, but I think we have a few things in common.”

“Like what?” Colin asked.

The Navajo shrugged. “We’ve had our hard times and we both used art to help us get stable again. Mine weren’t like yours. I never crashed anything. But the mother of my daughters died. It was very difficult.”

Colin looked over at him; the man continued to paint and didn’t gaze back. “I’m sorry,” Colin said.

“Thank you. I have a good woman in my life now. My daughters like her very much. It takes away the sting. I’m not very wise about these things, but I think if you paint and draw when life gets hard, it means you’re an artist in your soul.” He shrugged. “Maybe I just made that up. What’s your goal for your art?” he asked.

Colin chuckled. “To get decent at it.”

“I see. To make money?”

“I have a pension from the Army. Not much, but enough. I just would like to be good. What’s the point in giving it so much time if you’re not good at it?”

“Are you accustomed to being very good at everything you do?” Shiloh asked.

“Generally. I suppose.”

“You must think you’re good or you wouldn’t have called me.”

“I wondered how far from good I was, but it was the woman in my life who insisted I find out if there’s any worth in my paintings. She thinks they’re brilliant, but she’s biased.” He laughed and shook his head. “She’s gardening on a large scale—special fruits and vegetables, the rare kind that fancy restaurants buy in limited quantities for garnish—odd peppers, heirloom tomatoes, white asparagus, beets the size of cherry tomatoes…. I guess she’s an artist, too.”

Shiloh looked at him, lifted his chin and smiled. “You believe in each other. That’s nice.”

Then they were silent for a long time, painting. It was by far the strangest time Colin had ever spent. Then, almost two hours into the exercise, Shiloh put down his brush, looked at Colin’s painting and said, “Nice. I’ll see your other work now. I assume it’s in the Jeep?”

“It is,” Colin said. “Crated and covered. I’d prefer to set it up in your studio with decent lighting.”

“We’ll get to that,” he said. “Open up a couple for me. Your favorites.”

For a moment Colin felt the enormous pressure of finding his best, but he dismissed that immediately. He thought this whole audition could be a waste of time. He might get some encouragement, but it was doubtful he’d get anything more. “Three,” Colin said. “Here? Now?”

“Here,” he said. “Now.”

Colin’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. He was a bit confused.

“Quickly,” Shiloh said. “Before we lose the light. Need help?”

“Please. Open this one,” he said, passing a large canvas draped in protective cloth. Colin used a box cutter to remove a cardboard crate from another. He intended to show Shiloh the buck, the herd and the eagle.

When all three were open, two large canvases leaned against the rear bumper while one stood up in the back of the Jeep.

For the first time since he’d met the man, Shiloh smiled and his eyes were warm. “Splendid. Now we’ll have dinner at my home and talk.”

Kelly made gourmet pizza for Denny and he raved about it; he said it was heaven. Then while Denny helped Jack serve a dinner Preacher had made earlier in the day, Kelly fixed a special menu for Preacher, Paige and the two little ones. For the appetizer, she prepared the same tray she had originally made for Colin and Jillian—her sampler.

“I have to learn how to make these stuffed grape leaves. And the stuffed mushrooms,” Preacher said, inhaling the food. “Do you think anyone at Jack’s would eat them?”

“They’ll eat anything that’s good, John,” his wife said.

Their first course was cream of pumpkin soup, then salad, then chicken Parmesan with anchovies, black olives and asparagus tips. For dessert, her special lemon cake with coffee. He raved through the meal, then finally sat back in his chair and rubbed his belly. “Oh, my God,” he said most reverently. “I think I’m beginning to see the problem with full-time work in a diner. As the cook, I almost never sit down to a full meal. I taste all day. I’m never stuffed and never hungry. I just ate like a pig!”