“I’d suggest her moving in with Sophie and me, or into the rental property next door to us for a short spell.” I’d just opened my mouth to shut that idea down when he looked me straight in the eyes. “But there’s no one else I’d trust to keep her as safe as you will.”
Swallowing harshly, I looked away from him at what was still visible of the woods for the time being. “How can you be so sure?”
“A man feels like that about a woman, he’d stand in front of a pencil. Even if it meant he died because of it.”
Then, not saying anything else, he shut the door and started the engine.
The words had a lot of weight to them, and words like that took time to sink into your bones. But once they did, they settled there and became part of you for the rest of your life.
A bit like Sienna Blake.
Chapter Six
Sienna
Five days later…
“What about this one?” Jinx asked, holding up another sketch for me to see.
Reaching out to take it from his hands, I couldn’t get over what I was looking at. It was like the 3D flowers and vines had been woven into the paper. The background was a dark turquoise color, and the vines were cream, but the flowers were bright splashes that made them pop out at the viewer, drawing your eye to the intricate beauty of their petals.
“You’ve drawn all of these since Saturday?”
“It’s no big deal,” he shrugged, sifting through the others in his pile. “I draw between clients and during my downtime at the bar. Hell, I usually do it before I go to sleep because it relaxes me. Some of these aren’t new, but I included them just in case.”
Staring at him wide-eyed, I shook my head in disbelief. “If I tried to do something like this, it’d take me about two months.”
“That’s because your canvas is ceramic, not paper or skin. I’ll bet if you had to design this on a vase or bowl, you’d get it done within a couple of days.”
He’d be wrong there.
“It’d take me about three weeks to finish this off on one of them, and that’s after I’d lose my mind trying to draw something like this onto it as an outline first. That part would probably take me at least a month to do.”
“That’s where I come in handy, then. If it’s only a matter of drawing an outline onto it, I can do that. I can even help you with the color, too.”
Eyeing it, I mentally transferred the design onto the project I was currently working on—a five-foot-tall vase. I’d never attempted to do one as big as this, but it seemed like I was branching out in directions I never thought I’d take in every aspect of my life just now.
And if the mental image in my mind was right, this design would look outstanding on it.
Turning the paper over, I squinted at the back. “How did you color this in? It looks like it’s watercolor, but you can see that it isn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before.”
Leaning over my shoulder, he pointed at some of the shading on the petals that helped make them stand out more from the vines and background. “I’ve got watercolor markers. They’re markers that come with one you fill with water to make the watercolor effect. I apply the color in these areas, and then I sweep the water pen over it to spread it across the rest of the petal. After that, I just go over it again once it’s dried to deepen the details.”
With the tips of his index and middle fingers, he traced over the petals of two flowers close together. “I’ve added a slightly different shade on this one and a purple here, then I used the water pen to soften it.”
I might not be as good at art as he was but I needed those pens in my life. Now.
“Where did you get them? How do I get them?”
Grinning at my excitement, he pulled his phone out. “Do you have any drawing pads?”
“Just A4 sized ones because I keep forgetting to get a large pad instead of the sheets of paper I use for work. I need to get one of those huge ones, so I can just paint and smudge to my heart’s content.”
Chuckling, he hit his screen a couple of times. “Okay, they should arrive the day after tomorrow.”
Squealing and making the dogs whine, I threw my arms around his neck and gave him a fierce hug. “Thank you! I usually can’t sit still to draw like that and I hated doing watercolors in high school, but I’m so excited.”
Jinx squeezed me tightly, but as always, he let me decide when to end the contact.