LITMIR.BIZ

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my sister, Caidy, in the painting. The one whose wedding we had here yesterday.”

      She had suspected as much. Somehow that made everything seem more heartbreaking. “She was a lovely child,” she said softly.

      “Who grew into an even lovelier woman.” He smiled, and she was suddenly aware of a fierce envy at the relationship between Ridge Bowman and his family members. The family was obviously very close, despite the tragedy that must have affected all of them.

      She thought of her half brother and their tangled relationship. She had loved him dearly when she was young, despite the decade age difference between them. In the end, he had become a stranger to her.

      “How much do you want for it?” Ridge asked abruptly. “Name your price.”

      “What?” she exclaimed.

      “That’s why you came, isn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow, and she didn’t mistake the shadow of derision in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

      He thought she was trying to extort money from the family, she realized with horror. She was so startled, she didn’t answer for several seconds.

      He must have taken her silence for a negotiation tactic. His mouth tightened and he frowned. “I should be coy here, pretend I don’t really want it, maybe try to bargain with you a little. I don’t care. I want it. Name your price. If it’s at all within reason, I’ll pay it.”

      She shook her head. “I—I don’t want your money, Mr. Bowman.”

      “Don’t you?”

      “When I read the stories online about your parents and their...” Her voice trailed off, and she didn’t quite know how to finish that statement.

      “Their murders?”

      She shivered a little at his bluntness. “Yes,” she said. “Their murders. When I read the news reports and realized the artist of that beautiful painting had died, I knew I had to come. The painting is yours. I won’t let you pay me anything. I fully intended to give it back to you and your family.”

      “You what?” He clearly didn’t believe her.

      “I have no legal or moral claim to it. It rightfully belongs to your family. It’s yours.”

      He stared at her and then back at the painting, brow furrowed. “What’s the catch?”

      “No catch. It’s yours,” she repeated.

      She didn’t add the rest. Not yet. She would have to tell him, but he was so shocked about her volunteering this painting to him, she wasn’t quite ready to let him know everything else.

      “I can’t believe this. You have no idea. It’s like having a piece of her back. My mother, I mean.”

      The love in his voice touched a chord somewhere deep inside. She thought of her own mother, bitter and angry at the world and the cards she had been dealt. Her mother had raised her alone from the time Sarah was very young, working two jobs to support them because she wouldn’t take money from her ex-husband. Sarah had loved her but accepted now that her mother had never been a kind woman. Barbara didn’t have a lot of room left over around her hatred of Sarah’s father to find love for the daughter they had created together.

      “Can you tell me,” she asked him, “was this piece part of the...stolen collection?”

      After a moment, he nodded, his features dark.

      What other answer had she expected? Sarah pressed her lips together. She couldn’t tell him the rest. The dozens of pieces of art she had found in that climate-controlled storage unit.

      She also couldn’t tell him what she suspected.

      She was suddenly exhausted, so tired her eyes felt gritty and heavy. She wanted nothing but to sleep again, to ease the pain of her injuries and the worse pain in her heart.

      “Do you have any idea how your father obtained it?” he asked. “We’ve only found two or three pieces from the stolen collection in all these years. They seem to appear out of thin air, and we can never trace them back to the original seller. This could be just what we need to solve the case.”

      She couldn’t tell him that. She didn’t have the strength or the courage right now when she was hurting so badly. She would have her father’s estate attorney deal with all the particulars, as she should have done from the beginning.

      He would eventually know everything, but she wouldn’t have to face those piercing green eyes during the telling.

      “I’ve told you all I can. I found it among my father’s things, as I said, and now I would like you and your family to have it. Take the painting, Mr. Bowman. Ridge. Please. Consider it a Christmas gift if you want, but it’s yours.”

      “I can’t believe this. I’m...stunned.” He smiled at her, a flash of bright joy that took her breath away. “Thank you. Thank you so much. I can’t begin to tell you how happy Caidy, Taft and Trace will be. You’ve given us a gift beyond price.”

      “I’m glad.” She mustered a smile, even though it made her cheeks ache. “I’m so tired. Can I rest now?”

      “Yes. Of course.” He picked up the painting from the bed and held it gingerly, as if he couldn’t quite believe it was in his hands again. “Caidy left a lot of her clothes here. Would you like me to find a nightgown for you to change into so you can be more comfortable?”

      “I can do that. Thank you.”

      “You have nothing to thank me for. Not after this.” He gestured to the painting in his hands. “I’m supposed to check on you a couple more times in the night. I’ll apologize in advance for waking you.”

      “Apology accepted.”

      He headed for the door. “If you need anything else, call out. I’ll probably sleep on the sofa in the family room off the kitchen.”

      She wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary, that she would be fine, but she was just too exhausted to argue—especially when she somehow knew he wouldn’t listen anyway.

      Chapter Five

      Ridge closed the door behind him with one hand, the other still holding the miraculously returned painting. He stood in the hallway for a long moment and just gazed down at it, wondering what on earth had just happened in there.

      He felt odd, off balance, not sure what to think or feel.

      Something major had just happened. It wasn’t only that she had returned this painting he thought he would never see again. He had felt a link between them, a tensile connection that seemed to seethe and pulse between them.

      Or maybe that had been a figment of his imagination. Maybe it was simply late and he was tired after a long, strange day.

      He carried the painting to his office and propped it on a chair across from his desk where he could look at it and remember.

      The painting was created with tenderness, out of a mother’s love. That came through in every single brushstroke. Caidy would be so pleased to have it back in the family. She should really be the one to have it. Though he supposed it wasn’t technically his to give, as it belonged to all of them as joint heirs to their parents’ estate, maybe he could talk to Taft and Trace about the three of them giving it to their sister as a wedding present.

      He looked at that sweet little girl in the painting cupping a fragile flower and her whole future in her hands and couldn’t help but think of his own sweet little girl. Destry had grown up without a mother’s love—though not really, when he thought about it. Caidy had stepped up to play that role after Melinda left, and had done an admirable job.

      He frowned, wondering why his thoughts seemed to be so focused on his ex-wife today. He hadn’t thought about her this much in months, not since early spring when he had finally paid a private detective to track her down,

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