Thoroughly irritated with her cowardice and immaturity, she made herself turn in the gate and drive up to the house, determined to see Ben and clear the air. But when she got there, the studio and house were both dark as pitch, and Ben’s car was nowhere in sight.
Obviously, he wasn’t sitting around alone, moping about their relationship. Why should she? She should go back to town, open the gallery and take advantage of the last-minute Christmas shoppers roaming the streets.
In the end, though, she simply went home, too emotionally exhausted to cope with anything more than a hot bath and warm milk and her own lonely bed. With any luck Ben, who’d managed to torment her all day long, would stay the hell out of her dreams.
* * *
After forcing himself to go into Middleburg to grab a beer and some dinner after Destiny’s visit, Ben spent another tortured night dreaming of Kathleen and an endless stream of paintings that began as landscapes and turned into portraits, always of the same woman. By morning he was irritable and in no mood for the 7:00 a.m. phone call from his brother.
“You’d better read the paper,” Mack announced without preamble.
“Why?”
“Destiny and Pete Forsythe have struck again.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” he mumbled, still half-asleep, but coming awake fast.
“Get your paper, then call me back if you need to rant for a while. I’ve been through this, so you’ll get plenty of sympathy from me. Richard, too. This is vintage Destiny. It’s our aunt at her sneakiest.”
Ben dragged on a pair of faded jeans and raced downstairs, cursing a blue streak the whole way. He had a pretty good idea what to expect when he turned to Forsythe’s column. After all, the gossip columnist was Destiny’s messenger of choice when all her other tactics had failed. Letting the entire Metropolitan Washington region in on whichever Carlton romance wasn’t moving along to suit her was supposed to motivate all the parties. It was the kind of convoluted logic he’d never understood, but he couldn’t deny it had probably pushed things along for Richard and Mack, despite the havoc the column had wreaked at the time.
He opened the paper with some trepidation. There it was, summed up right in the headline: Art Dealer Courts Reclusive Carlton Heir.
“But is Alexandria art expert Kathleen Dugan, known for finding undiscovered talent, looking for something other than paintings to hang on the walls of her prestigious gallery?” Forsythe asked. “Word has it that she’s after something bigger this time. Marriage, perhaps?”
Ben groaned.
“That’s what insiders are telling us,” Forsythe continued, “but artist Ben Carlton, who rarely leaves his Middleburg farm, may be a reluctant participant in any wedding plans. Then, again, when it comes to the wealthy Carlton men, love does have a way of sneaking up on them when they least expect it. Stay tuned here for the latest word on when this last remaining Carlton bachelor bites the marital dust.”
Ben uttered a curse and threw the paper aside. “It’s not going to work, Destiny. Not this time. You’ve overplayed your hand.”
He picked up the phone, not to call Mack, but Destiny, then slowly hung up again before the call could go through. What was the point? This was what she did. She meddled. She did it because she loved them. Misguided as she might be, he could hardly rip her to shreds for acting on her convictions.
Unfortunately, he was at a loss when it came to figuring out a way to counteract that piece of trash that Forsythe had written based on his latest hot tip from Destiny. Truthfully, it didn’t matter to him all that much. He didn’t see enough people on a daily basis to worry about embarrassment or awkward explanations.
Kathleen, however, was right smack in the public eye all the time. He could just imagine the curiosity seekers this would send flooding into her gallery. Maybe she’d be grateful for the influx of business, but he doubted it.
He should call her, apologize for his aunt dragging her into the middle of this public spectacle, but he couldn’t see the point to that, either. The one thing Kathleen really wanted to hear from him he couldn’t say.
Of course, there was one thing he could do that would at least give people pause, if not make that article seem like a total lie. But did he have the courage to do it?
He spent the entire morning waging war with himself, but by noon he’d made a decision. He began crating up all the pictures in his studio. It took until midnight to get them boxed to his satisfaction. He’d gone about the task blindly, refusing to pause and look at his work for fear he’d change his mind. He owed this to Kathleen, this and more. Maybe if he gave her the showing she’d been working so hard to get, it would prove to the world that whatever was between them was all about his art.
Besides, with Christmas only two days away, it was the only gift he could come up with that he knew she truly wanted...and that he was capable of giving.
* * *
Christmas Eve day dawned bright and clear, but Kathleen thought she smelled a hint of snow in the air. The prospect of a white Christmas normally would have made her heart sing, but today all she could think about was what a nuisance it would be when it came time to drive to Providence, where her mother and grandparents were expecting her in time for midnight services at the church that the Dugans had attended for generations.
There still hadn’t been another peep from Ben. She’d thought for sure he would call when that ridiculous item had appeared in the morning paper the day before. He had to be as outraged as she was to see their private relationship played out for the entire world to speculate about over their morning coffee. Maybe he’d been too humiliated or,
