went back to sketching. “Thanks, boss lady,” he tossed over to Amanda. “You saved me from another night of sin. Guess this means I have to be at work on time tomorrow, huh?”
He slid off the window sill, preparing to leave.
“Everything under control now?” Christine looked from Amanda to Marc. “Can we get out of here? According to Nurse Grumpy, Parkerson’ll be good as new in no time.”
“No time meaning three or four days.” Nathan looked more closely at Marc.
Marc ducked his head and turned to Amanda, his face firm.
“You didn’t tell me what you had done…what you were going to do,” he said quietly, his voice hard.
“You didn’t give me much time to discuss anything.” Amanda felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She didn’t like being reprimanded in front of her older friend and her younger employee even if they weren’t paying that much attention as they prepared to leave.
“Nor did you tell me in the cab.”
“You were busy explaining some important information. I didn’t want to interrupt.” She turned to Christine who had collected Nathan and was standing in the doorway. “Did you notice anything special when you got here?”
Nathan grunted and shrugged. “We thought Wilde was still hanging around, but it turned out to be some other guy.”
Amanda blanched. Marc stayed in the doorway with the strong light behind his back. “Thank you both,” he said. “I’m sorry we interrupted your evening. What you did was very important. Thank you again.”
He shook their hands and ushered them out the door, keeping his head down as he turned his attention toward the sleeping patient.
Nathan gave one last attentive glance at the large, muscular figure, the wide shoulders, the narrow hips, before nodding goodnight to Amanda and following Christine out the door.
Marc picked up the phone, punched several numbers and spoke quietly into the mouthpiece. He hung up.
“I called a private security firm. They’re sending someone over right away. We’ll wait until they come. Okay?” He didn’t speak as harshly as he had a few moments ago.
Amanda sat down in one of the hospital chairs, her head in her hands.
“I had completely forgotten you were you. I mean, not Antonio… Oh Marc, what if they recognized you?”
“Don’t worry about it. I think they had other things on their mind.”
“And I was feeling so proud that I had thought to call…” Her voice trailed off.
“We seem to have a little rivalry going on here. You want to take my job away from me.” His playful tone was back. She stood, feeling abject, grateful for his understanding, confused at her own actions and hoping he would come to her.
He did. His strong arms enfolded her. Their kiss was deep and fervent. Safe in each other’s arms. Amanda’s pulse heightened. Marc’s chest rose and fell quickly as she nestled against it. She never wanted to let this protective presence go.
Marc turned toward his sleeping brother. David’s head was bound and tubes fed him medication. Even in sleep, David Parkerson’s face was strained. Marc studied it for quite a long time.
“He doesn’t seem to have such a big ego, now.” Amanda hoped her callous observation might lighten the mood.
“Do you know the painter Giorgione?”
She thought for a moment. “Sixteenth century, Italian?”
“Very good, Ace. Giorgio da Castelfranco, known as Giorgione. Not only was he a great painter, he was quite a swinger: poet, lover, musician. Shook the art establishment by its short ones. Died young; caught the plague from a lady friend. Probably was a great-looking corpse. He was my brother’s MFA thesis. Boy, did David empathize.”
“David? Empathize with a swinger?”
“He was quite a hellion in his younger days. Did everything he could to get Dad to pay attention to him. Dad hated the art crap stuff that David loved. He wanted David to be a salesman, a businessman, anything that would bring in the bucks.” He sighed, continuing to stare at the sleeping man.
“David turned his thesis into a book about Giorgione. Nobody had studied him as thoroughly as my nosy, self- absorbed brother, not in 200 years. I was damned impressed. The book was gonna be published by Abrams. Dad was not impressed. Writers were almost as bad as art critics.”
Amanda looked up at the grim face, flickering with ghostly memories.
“What happened?”
“One of Giorgione’s drawings came on the market. There are only about half a dozen of his paintings that can honestly be attributed to him. Most of the time experts can’t tell the difference between him and Titian, for God’s sake.
“They came to my brother to vet it, to tell them if it was for real. David was in seventh heaven. Surely Dad would be impressed now. He looked at the drawing and said sure it was a Giorgione. It wasn’t just the technique. Only one man could have thought that way. Only one man could have had the invention and the imagination. The right paper and ink, that’s the obvious stuff, but Giorgione’s soul was in that drawing. David knew it had to be his. He just knew!” His brow furrowed and he looked away.
Amanda felt what must be coming, what must have happened, but she was amazed that even after all these years the feeling of surprise and disbelief that invaded Marc’s body, the pain that he suffered for his disgraced brother was as immediate and visceral as the original shock must have been.
“The forger’s book came out just as David’s book was about to be published. The drawing was fake. The book proved it. The forger didn’t even know about some dumb kid betting his whole wad on that particular drawing being real. It cost a very famous museum a lot of embarrassment and a publisher a lot of money. It destroyed David’s rep. Dad…” His voice caught, though his face remained implacable. “My father couldn’t laugh loud or long enough.”
He gave a harsh snort of angry derision. “It was the one thing that kept him going through the cancer. He died with a smirk on his face.”
Such unloving coldness in anyone was beyond Amanda’s comprehension. Her own father may not be demonstrative, she thought, but she had never doubted his love.
“But, your mother?”
“Mom worshiped the ground Dad walked on. She had better,” he added with a trace of resigned bitterness, “Since she never wanted kids anyway.”
“Oh, I can’t believe that. I know…”
Marc turned and faced Amanda. His face blank. “No, Amanda, you do not know what it’s like not to be wanted. And, pray God, you never will.”
Amanda held him tightly. Trying to impress through her body that life was not always like that, with parents so unloving, lives so shattered. Her father and brothers were far from perfect, but they were good men, they meant well. They could impart unknown and unmeaning pain but she knew they were there if ever she needed them. She couldn’t even begin to comprehend the emptiness of the childhood that Marc and his brother had endured.
Her body shuddered with a repressed sob.
“Aw, c’mon, babe. It’s not so bad. That was big brother’s hell, not mine. I was just surfing my little heart out. I didn’t give a fig about anything.” The lilting playfulness drained from his voice. He dragged a grin up, shoving the deep hurt aside. “I’m just playing on your sympathy, hoping to…”
She kissed him deeply, urgently, fervently. She wanted to make him well. Make him whole. But it was more than sympathetic concern. It was realizing that the man she was so attracted to was more and more a complicated human being.
The moods that swung over “Antonio” in their first time together in the Village that she had attributed to his concern with his disguise, now reappeared as part of his total character, as part of Marc’s struggle to deal with all the issues that made him the singular man he was.
He would be a struggle to comprehend, to deal with. But it would be an exciting struggle, ever new, ever fresh, as she discovered deeper and deeper depths in him.
His heart thundered against hers. Her own pulse throbbed in her temples. She so wanted to be a part of this man’s life. He would challenge her, he would thrill her; he would infuriate her and would excite her beyond all reason.
Marc’s fingers threaded into her hair pulling the strands through his strong fingers. His hand revolved to stroke
