“Mark—”
“No, I get it. My dad’ll be happy to have your help with the appraisals, anyway. Thanks.” He gathered up his tools quickly, wanting to get out of there.
“Maybe you can find somebody else to do it. There are so many artists in the area.”
He nodded. “Yeah.” He lifted his head. “The thing was the similarity. You really do paint like her.”
She said nothing, and he put his hand on the doorknob.
“What was her name?” she asked.
“She signed her paintings with her maiden name, Leah Dolan.”
“Leah Dolan was your mother?”
He brightened. “Did you know her?”
She shook her head. “Not personally. But I saw her featured in American Artist Magazine years ago. And some of her works were in an exhibition in the Myhren Gallery at the University of Denver where I was going to school. Contemporary Women Artists of the West. Her stuff caught my eye, and seriously, I pushed myself to try to master her technique.”
He shook his head. “That’s . . . unbelievable.”
“I’d always kept this part of the country in the back of my mind because of her paintings. When I saw the job opening, I had to take a chance.”
“And here you are.”
She shrugged. “And here I am.”
Mark remembered that interview for the magazine. His mom had been nervous and excited and mortified at the same time. “She said giving that interview was like holding one of us kids up for the whole world to pick apart. But she was proud of it.” It was the last interview she’d given. He vaguely remembered something about an exhibition tour.
“I remember her picture. You look like her,” Riley said.
He nodded, feeling her gaze focus on his face. Mark had inherited his mother’s olive skin, dark hair, and angular features, though most people told him he was built like his dad, broad and lanky at the same time. His mom had never seen how tall he’d gotten. He looked away. People studying his face was never comfortable.
“I look like my dad,” Riley offered. “He is quite Irish.”
His laugh rushed from him, brief and unexpected. “Wouldn’t have guessed with a name like Riley Madigan.” He met her gaze again.
She smirked.
He waited for her to say more. To call the connection a sign. To change her mind about the project.
When none of that happened, he reached for the door again. “Thanks for lunch.”
“Thanks for helping fix things. Really. I feel safer. That other knob was always sketchy. Here.” She went to the desk and grabbed half of the glass knob he’d broken off. She held it out to him. “For your collection.”
He took it from her and smoothed his thumb over the facets. “Thanks.”
He opened the door and stepped outside, taking a deep breath of the fresh cold. It had been too much to ask. After what she’d seen of him, she probably figured she could only take Mark Rivers in small doses. He shook his head. She didn’t need his work, and she didn’t need him hanging around, showing up and breaking things and scaring her to death. Forgetting to make sure his face was hidden. Forgetting he wasn’t the old Mark anymore . . .
He was quick down the stairs and just loading his toolbox in the back of the truck when he heard her call his name.
“Mark! Wait.”
He stopped, reining in his hopes that she’d changed her mind.
She ran up to him, still barefoot, carrying the garbage bag. “I could use some help with the renovation.”
“The what?”
She motioned her head toward the house. “You said you’ve worked at restoring houses. If you consider helping me, I’ll consider painting your nativity.”
The breath left his lungs, and he tried to play it cool. “Okay. Yeah.”
“I’d like to see the photos you have before I commit.”
He hesitated a fraction. Being near her for so much time during the project—that was not a small consideration. But he thought of his dad bent over that leger. “Anything you need.”
“The house needs to be done by summer.”
He looked back at the house. That was a tall order. No wonder she guarded her time. “Why the deadline?”
“I’m hoping to turn it into a vacation rental.”
He frowned. “So, if you do that, where will you go?”
She folded her arms and shrugged. “It depends.”
“On what?”
She paused.
“Sorry,” he said. “None of my business.”
“I just haven’t decided if this is where I want to stay. Forever.”
He nodded, considering what his tiny town looked like to the seasonal tourists visiting the valley. “That’s fair. Hard for Miracle Creek to compete with bright lights, big city.”
“That can get old, too.”
He took a deep breath. “What do you want done with the house?”
She counted on her fingers. “Open up the wall between the kitchen and front room. New light fixtures. Update the bathroom. Floors, paint. More insulation in the attic. And update the rest of the electrical outlets, I guess. Exterior paint and new gutters when it warms up in the spring. Windows.”
His eyebrows rose at the length of the list.
She set the garbage bag on the ground and drew her arms tightly around herself. “Look, I wasn’t completely honest with you back there. I have this thing. With Christmas. It’s hard. I spend the whole season just . . . trying to look past it. It’s not that I don’t want to help you.”
He nodded. “Christmas is hard for a lot of us.”
“I guess we both have some considering to do.”
“I guess we do.”
As Mark pulled away from the house, he couldn’t tell if the ache in his chest was from his fear that she’d say no, or that she’d say yes.
Riley locked the front door, running her hand over the new hardware. She picked up her half of the glass knob and polished it in her sweater. It was still beautiful, even attached to its wrecked metal base. She set it back down on her desk and padded to the spare bedroom.
Winter light filtered through the bare lilac bushes outside the window. Her painting easel
