A Man to Call My Own

Chapter 30

MARIAN TOOK A LEAF from her sisters book and spent the rest of the day in her room. To keep from driving herself mad with her own thoughts, she asked Rita to help her find Kathleens painting supplies. And once that had been easily accomplished, she carried them all to her room.

"When Chad showed up for the promised talk with "Amanda," he'd have no luck. Amanda's tactic of hiding in her room was an old one, since she actually felt she was punishing everyone else by denying them her presence.

Marian was hiding for a much different reason. She didn't want to be around to see Chad waiting around for her sister to make an appearance, or to be asked to talk Amanda into coming down. She wouldn't be surprised if he asked. But he wasn't going to find out, at least today, just how much he'd blundered in his conclusions.

She still couldn't believe he'd done that. God, she'd been so elated that he could actually want her, her, not Amanda. But she should have known better. He'd wanted Amanda from the start, and that wasn't going to change. Just because she was Amanda's twin.

He probably thought all along today that she was Amanda, and the worst part was, it was her own fault. What she'd told him last night—that Amanda liked to play tricks on people by pretending to be her— would have been fresh in his mind.

She probably should warn Amanda that Chad was under the mistaken impression that he'd made love to her. But then she'd have to listen to her sister gloat about her fallen virtue, despite the fact that her own had fallen long ago. Marian just couldn't stomach that on top of everything else that had happened today. Besides, it was no more than Chad deserved, to have both sisters refusing any intimacy with him. Maybe in the future he'd pay closer attention to just whom he was making love to, the dense man.

A few hours after she started painting, she finally began to relax enough to take note of what she was painting. She was surprised. She didn't paint from sketches because while she was rather good at sketching, she didn't enjoy it as much as painting. But then she painted just as well from memory, so didn't need to do both.

Actually, she shouldn't really be surprised at what had taken form on the canvas. Though she'd been trying to put him out of her mind, he was still lurking there. So finding the basics of Chad's face staring back at her from the easel merely had her shaking her head in disgust at herself.

It was a good resemblance, though. She hadn't lost her talent through lack of use. The eyes needed work, not the shape, but the color. The chin needed more definition so it would look stronger. The skin tone would have to be darker to reflect his deep tan. And she should probably add his hat, tipped low as he usually wore it. ...

What was she thinking? She wasn't going to finish a portrait of him. She removed the canvas, set it behind the easel so she wouldn't have to look at it, and replaced it with a fresh one. She'd have to be more careful, at least until she could restock Kathleen's supplies.

There had only been four large canvases to work with, two medium-sized ones, and one miniature, but Marian wasn't a slow painter. She could finish a portrait in one sitting if she put her mind to it and was careful, so the supplies wouldn't last her very long.

She decided on a different sort of portrait, while the memory was still somewhat fresh, one that actually amused her to paint. It wouldn't amuse Amanda, if she ever got a look at it.

She painted her memory of the train robbery, in particular, Amanda's sitting down with her look of shock and gunpowder all over her face just after she'd been shot at. The passengers around them were a blur, had been a blur at the time, so she left them that way. The two robbers who had marched down the aisle were in the picture, the one who'd shot at Amanda more clearly defined. Though she could only depict half of his face, since the other half had been covered with his bandana, his eyes were rather distinct, more golden in color than brown, and very round in shape.

She started smiling before she was even half done, her mood greatly lightened. Though there hadn't been anything amusing about that robbery as it was happening, Amanda with her face blackened from gun smoke and shocked into silence, was priceless. Maybe she'd let Amanda have a look at it when it was finished, after all.

She grinned at the thought, but knew she wouldn't. Amanda would destroy it, just like she'd destroyed the last picture Marian had done of her diat didn't show her at her best.

She was surprised when the light faded and she realized that it was almost evening. But then she always seemed to lose track of time when she painted. The knock came at the door shortly thereafter.

"Dinner in fifteen minutes," she heard Rita call out.

She wasn't planning on going downstairs, not tonight anyway, but she did want to catch her aunt to let her know that, before Kathleen went down. She retrieved her spectacles. While she was painting was the only time she refused to wear them. Of course, she always painted in private, where she wouldn't be interrupted, so it didn't really matter.

The second knock at the door came before she reached it. She assumed it was Rita again, making sure she'd heard her, but Kathleen was standing there when she opened it.

"I was told you started painting this afternoon," her aunt said. "May I see your progress? Or do you prefer to wait until you've finished each piece before anyone views what you're working on?"

"I don't mind," Marian replied with a shy smile, and opened the door a bit wider.

"Oh, my." Kathleens surprise was genuine as she approached the easel. "Did she really get that close to gunfire?"

"She was shot at when she wouldn't give up her purse without a fight."

"That was—rather brave of her."

Marian grinned at her aunt's pause. "No, it was about as stupid as she can get, when there were four of them, all with drawn guns, and we had no reasonable way to prevent the robbery. She's lucky he only tried to scare her."

"Or he missed."

"That, too."

Kathleen had to cover her mouth to hide her own amusement over the depiction of Amanda's surprise.

"You're very good. It looks just like her, despite the gunpowder."

"It's all right to laugh, now that the danger is over. Her expression was quite funny."

Kathleen released her humor with a chuckle. "Still is. I'm impressed, sweetie. Staring at this makes me almost feel as if I were there and—oh, my."

"What?"

"I just noticed, the robber, I think I know him. Goodness, he looks just like John Bilks who used to work at the general store in town. He got fired when it was discovered that some money was missing from the cash box. The owner wanted him arrested, but there was no proof that he actually took the money. He moved on soon after—and has apparently progressed to train robbing. I'll bet the sheriff would like to see this painting."

"I'm pretty sure Amanda would object to that," Marian replied with a grin.

Kathleen, squinting her eyes at the painting, said, "You think so?" and they both chuckled. But then she suggested, "Maybe a miniature then, of just John Bilks? We can give it to the sheriff when we go to town on Saturday—and get you more canvases while we're there. You're obviously a much faster painter than I ever was. Were there at least enough in my old supplies to hold you over till then?"

"Yes, I—"

Marian didn't finish. Kathleen had moved to the side to look over the material that had been dug out of storage—and caught sight of the half-finished portrait of Chad still leaning against the back of the easel.

"Oh, my," Kathleen exclaimed before turning to look at her. "Your talent is simply amazing. And you do this from memory, don't you? Yes, you must. Incredible—and I'm glad you like him. Now, there's no need to blush about it. Any young girl your age would."

Marian looked down. "It's not that, it's—no one has ever complimented me on my painting before. My father insisted I had no talent, that I was only wasting my time—"

Kathleen cut in angrily, "Mortimer was a bastard, I'm sorry to say. If he could say something like that, I have no doubt it was because his 'favorite' had no talent in that area. She doesn't, does she?"

"No."

"As I thought. It probably infuriated him that you outshone her in this. And you should have known better. Just look at this painting. You've already captured the heart and breath of him, and it's not even finished."

"He does have an interesting face."

Kathleen burst out laughing. "Interesting, huh? I suppose you could put it that way. Now come on, dinner's waiting. Let's get downstairs before Consuela sends out the posse."

Marian didn't move. They'd been talking too long for her to claim she had a headache as she'd planned to do. But she wasn't about to sit down to dinner with Chad, not tonight, not until she lost the urge to shoot him on sight for the conclusion he'd drawn.

"You go ahead, Aunt Kathleen. I think I'm going to turn in early—"

"Oh, come on, you still have to eat. And it's just the two of us tonight. Chad's already begged off. He ended up hanging around my kitchen for quite a while this afternoon for some reason, and Consuela stuffed him to the brim. She can't stand to have a man underfoot without feeding him."

"Well, I suppose I could eat a few bites."