The Marriage Portrait. Pamela Bauer
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Cassie answered, knowing perfectly well that Emmet was curious to know if she had a special man in her life. Every time she had sat down to begin another portrait, it never failed. She was asked the same question, “Are you married?”
And when she’d say that she wasn’t, she’d get a similar response, something like, “I can’t believe a beautiful girl like you is still single.”
Then she’d mention that she was a widow and the bemusement would turn to sympathy, producing comments such as, “Oh, you poor girl…to have loved and to have lost…he wouldn’t want you to be alone the rest of your life.”
Emmet and Dorothy had been no different from the other seniors and she suspected that Emmet’s curiosity about her guest this evening was spurred by his wife’s interest. Something that was confirmed by his next statement.
“You’re bringing a girlfriend.” He sighed. “Dorothy will be disappointed. She’d hoped that by the time all of the portraits were finished you’d have a young man and your next exhibit might be newlywed love.”
“No, I’m afraid I have no such plans,” she said with an apologetic smile.
He reached for her hand. “Not to worry. You’re young. You have plenty of time to make plans,” he said consolingly.
Cassie didn’t need to be consoled. She wasn’t pining after her dead husband, nor was she longing for a second chance at love. She was comfortable with her single status, which was probably why she found the “Everlasting Love” project so fascinating. In an era when so many marriages failed, it was refreshing to work with those that had remained solidly intact for more than fifty years.
“I’d like to say maybe you’ll meet some nice young man here tonight at the opening, but our guests this evening will probably all be senior citizens,” Emmet told her with a look of regret.
“I can’t think of a nicer group of people to share my work with on opening night,” she remarked. She was grateful when he was paged by the office to take a phone call and the subject of her personal life could be set aside. Cassie gave him another smile, assured him she’d be on time this evening and waved goodbye.
While he was gone, she went over to the portrait with the number one beside it. It was of her own grandparents, William and Mary Carrigan. Little had she known at the time she had drawn them that it would be the inspiration for an entire project.
She looked at the happy faces smiling at her and felt all warm inside. They were such dear people and, like the others, happily married for over half a century.
“Sharing. That’s the key to staying married,” her grandfather had told her on more than one occasion. “Never keep anything from each other. You must be best friends and share everything.”
Cassie sighed. She’d followed that advice during her short marriage to Darryl. Unfortunately, he hadn’t. A tiny stinging sensation erupted in her chest and she determinedly pushed such thoughts aside.
No point in thinking about the past. It was gone. So was Darryl. She was happy. She had a life—not the life that these senior citizens in her portraits had, but a good, fulfilling life.
As she gave one last glance to the exhibit, she told herself that everlasting love was wonderful—for some people. But not everyone.
Not her. She sighed, then went home to shower and put on her opening night dress.
“DR. MAC, I HAVE that information you wanted.” Tabitha handed him a small stack of papers. “Here’s a listing of the art galleries in Minneapolis and St. Paul and their current exhibits by local artists.”
“I didn’t realize there’d be so many,” he said, leafing through the stack. “Thank you. I’m sure this will be very helpful. I only hope it didn’t take up too much of your time.”
“Actually, it did, but if you clue me in on why you need this information, I’ll forgive you,” she said with an impish grin.
Michael debated just how much he should tell his assistant. “I’m looking for a particular artist, that’s all.”
“Would this be a female artist by chance?” He grinned. “As a matter of fact, it is. Satisfied?”
“So you want to go see her work, is that it?”
“I am curious to see it, yes,” he admitted. “If you had given me her name, I could have eliminated all the paperwork,” she said, nodding to the stack of computer paper on his desk.
“That’s just it. I don’t know her name.” Tabitha put her hands on her hips. “Then how do you expect to find her?”
“Looking at this list, I’m not sure I will.”
“Well, good luck. And if you need any more help, just let me know,” she said with a cheerful wave before shutting the door on her way out.
Michael was tempted to ask her assistance in his search for Cassie, but he figured the less he said about the artist, the more unlikely it was anyone would discover he’d met her at the dating service dinner. It wouldn’t be so bad if he hadn’t made such a fuss about being an unwilling participant, telling Tabitha he only attended the dinner because he hadn’t wanted to hurt Tessie.
His assistant had asked him about his evening out the following Monday morning. She’d listened intently as he’d given as brief an explanation as was possible, saying that although it wasn’t as bad as he’d expected, it wasn’t the way he wanted to meet women. Then he’d waited a couple of days before asking about the art galleries, not wanting Tabitha to question why he suddenly had an interest in art.
He didn’t. He’d always been a science guy, needing things to be concrete, not abstract. Which was why it was probably foolish of him to be entertaining thoughts that he and this Cassie could enjoy more than a couple of glasses of wine and some titillating conversation.
But he did entertain such thoughts. Ever since the dinner, she’d been on his mind often—which really had him perplexed. He wasn’t one to fall head over heels for a woman at the first meeting—certainly it had never happened to him before. Maybe his fascination with her had to do with the fact that Cassie wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe if she hadn’t told Claudia Dixon to blow him off, he wouldn’t now, six days later, be trying to figure out how to find her.
But he was trying to locate her. That’s why he’d had Tabitha go on the Internet and get a listing of the local art galleries. He hoped to find a Cassie among the names, but when he’d read through all of the pages without any success, he decided it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
For all he knew, she might have been a starving artist—and a not very good one at that. Maybe she’d never shown her work. Or maybe she only talked about being an artist but hadn’t actually created a single work of art. He threw the computer printout into a desk drawer.
He needed to forget about Cassie the artist. Meeting a woman through a dating service was not his idea of romance anyway. And he didn’t want his mother to get any more ideas on the subject, which meant there was something he had to do. He unlocked the center drawer on his desk and pulled it open. The only item inside was a black book.
He picked it up and flipped through the alphabet until he came to the ‘T’ section. When Rebecca Tollefson dated a guy, she made sure everyone around knew he was her possession. The thought made him shiver. Still he picked up the phone and dialed her number.
“Rebecca, Mac.”
After a throaty chuckle of delight, which conjured up all sorts of provocative images in his mind, she said, “I’m so glad you called. I thought you’d forgotten about me.”
“Now how could I do that? You’ve been on my mind a lot lately and I was wondering, are you free on Sunday?”
AFTER A BUSY WEEK at the clinic that had included several emergencies, which had robbed him of sleep on three out of the past six nights, Michael was not in the best