Chapter Sixteen

When he looked like he was about to say something, Kara did the only thing that came to mind at that heart stopping moment. She ducked her head and walked as fast as humanly possible out of the room.
She headed right upstairs to get the last washing to hang on the washing line and she would be through for the day.

Breathless and with a pounding heart, she carried the heavy basket as quickly as she could down the stairs.
She would ignore it. It didn't happen. It didn't happen! No, she did not just kiss Lucas. No, it didn't freaking happen!

Kara dropped the basket on the ground beneath the washing lines and stared at the sky.
Oh my God, she'd just kissed Lucas. She swallowed, moistening her dry throat. She'd let him put his mouth on hers... for more than a second and... it felt good.
She flinched at the realization. She liked his mouth moving over hers, she couldn't lie. What the hell was wrong with her? He was a man! They were certified evil from the depths of hell with a confirmation stamp from Satan himself! She couldn't let herself be swept away by one of them just because he had a pair of lips that made her weak. Everyone had lips, there was hardly anything special about his!

With a scoff, she pulled out a pillow case and gave it a good shake, her frustrations evident. Damn that Lucas. She'd stolen from him, fine! But that didn't give him the right to... to bloody ambush her mouth!
Besides, she would work herself to the bone if it meant she could repay him sooner and get herself out of here. And with the salary Celeste and François would be so kindly paying her, along with her paintings, it wouldn't take too long. Lucas would get his damn money.

Still pissed at Lucas as well as herself, Kara hung up the rest of the washing and ran in to leave the basket in the laundry room, giving thanks to all things Holy when she didn't run into Lucas.
With her mind on one thing, she left the main house and stomped all the way to her own quarters. Kara let her anger flow. The more emotion she could channel, the better her painting would look.

She blocked everything out.

She didn't feel the sun beating down on her, she didn't feel the breeze in her hair.
She didn't feel the calculating pair of eyes that watched her movements from all the way past the barn.

Kara slammed her door shut and hurried across her living room. With the swipe of an arm, she drew open the long curtains that covered her glass sliding doors and exposed the glorious view that had been hidden.
The land stretched gloriously ahead. Every dip and curve hiding a path to a river, a bend to a pond and calling for adventurous feet to explore.
Kara wanted to, but she wanted even more, to paint.

Quickly and excitedly, she drew her brand new canvas forward and ran her fingertips across the cover.
She then darted into her room to exchange the comfy woolen top for a slightly large, equally comfortable black t-shirt. Wearing all black, nothing in her clothing could subconsciously influence her colors, it was something Kara believed.
Finally, she threw back the huge cover, exposing the first cloth page. Kara loved this canvas. The pages weren't made of simply paper. It was a strong clothy blend with a papery feel that allowed her to paint as she would on paper, but was strong enough to never tear. She sighed at the delightful thing.
Kara felt her heart begin to hammer as she mixed colors. She knew exactly what she was going to paint, but... what if it had been too long? What if she no longer could? A slight panic broke out in her heart at the thought and Kara forced it down.

She set the dozens of paints on the table besides the canvas and lifted her brush. With a tremble in her hand, she dipped it in water, then carefully removed the fluid to leave the brush damp.
She twirled the smooth wood around on her fingers for a minute, eyeing the paints. Then with a gasp, she lowered it and picked up the pencil. Frustration with her hesitation at the one thing she adored biting away at her.
She clenched her jaw, fighting off a pout.

This was all Lucas' fault! If he hadn't done what he did, she would be in the right frame of mind right now!
An annoyed huff blew her cheeks out and Kara advanced on the canvas, her hand soon flying over it, a frown of concentration on her face.
She drew in details that had nothing at all to do with the original picture she had in mind. The sharp, jagged end of a cliff appeared along with the cooked slant of a castle roof that pointed high up toward a dark sky. After a minute, Kara was curving the head of a teddy bear laying on the ground.
Her mind, her entire soul was engaged in what she was doing, she couldn't even stop to wonder what a teddy bear was doing by a castle on a cliff.
Satisfied, Kara lay the pencil on the table and stared at the canvas. She knew what she was drawing. Something inside her and something outside. She never put in too many pencil details, all her life, just a few for guidance.
Reaching for the large paint trays, she drew them closer on the tables, her eyes never leaving the canvas. The brush was still damp. Good.
Kara stroked the dark grey paint like a lover's caress and brought the brush to the top left of her canvas.
She paused.

A flick of her wrist.

That was all it took to shatter the hold that had enclosed her inner artist for so long. It was like a fever that spread through her entire body as she painted, letting every single member of her body know that the hands were holding a brush and painting again.
The heart was finally beating again.
She was consumed by it, watching as this beauty emerged on the canvas before her. The sky was dark, it was stormy and it was a hell nobody wanted to be found in.

Reaching into its raging, cloudy depths was the brave tip of the roof of a dark castle. It stretched up high into the sky, sitting dangerously on the jagged cliff, beneath which an angry ocean roared.
Kara hand flew over the canvas, concentrated on the left side for now. The right side would come. Oh, it would come, by God.
She stared at the canvas, the mouthpiece of her soul, where it spoke without words. Released its secrets in silence. The tears slid down her face as she worked, she didn't feel them. Her arms ached, but the throb wasn't even acknowledged.
Towards the middle of the page, away from that dark castle, on the ground, Kara traced out a pattern of white spikes. Bones. Two skeletal legs lay on that rocky ground beneath the dark sky, eaten away by its evil.

Hours had passed. She was hungry and ached to rest her arms, but still she continued. The sun began her setting and cast a warm glow over the ranch. Kara noticed not the setting, but only how beautiful the image on the canvas looked in its glow.

Her heart beating, her blood racing from excitement, she dumped the brush in a jar of paint thinners and grabbed another one, dampening it in seconds.
She stilled then. And stared at the right side of that canvas. It sat empty and pure. She'd make it beautiful.
Kara picked a beautiful blue and drew it over the sky. The very first stroke of that blue sky tugged on her mouth, curving her lips into a smile. A blue sky. She'd get her blue sky one day and all that came with it. Thinking of that 'all', Kara threw herself back into her work. The sky had a few clouds, but they were white and fluffy and the type you would lay on the ground to make pictures of. Pictures in the sky.
Next came her green meadow. It stretched vastly across the canvas, green and warm, inviting bare feet to dance across it.
A lake gave an immediate sense of peace to the painting and Kara smiled dreamily at it. Its waters glistened, reflecting the white clouds.
Soon on that green earth stood a breathtaking farmhouse. Its windows crystal shiny and its porch large and welcoming. Kara's hand worked, transferring the deepest desires of her soul onto her canvas.
There rose out of the ground two trees. An apple tree and an orange tree. They gave shade to a lovely white horse and his mare as they grazed away on the green grass.
Then towards the middle of the page, a little closer to the lovely farmhouse, on the ground, Kara followed the outline of a little stuffed teddy bear's head. It lay on the ground, smiling up at the blue sky, its fat teddy arms stretched out beside its body.
It was at peace, even though the legs and the feet were indeed hard, cold, bone, stretching out into the left side of the painting.
Kara paused and straightened. Blinking twice to clear her blurring vision, she blended her painting.
The dark castle sat, hanging on to that jagged cliff, held up on land only by its attachment to that strong and sturdy farmhouse that made its other part.

The sky was darkened over that castle, but the thunder never struck, its power held back only by the clear blue sky that made up its other half. And there, on the ground, a little distance away from the house, lay the teddy bear. Halved between life and death, but not torn. Held in and able to bear the torture of the skeletal legs, only by the blessed blue and lovely scene that its eyes could see on that other side.
The side that mattered the most.
Her life was begun in too much darkness for Kara to ever forget. The nights curled up hungry beneath the kitchen table while her step-father screamed his lungs out, drinking himself into a stupor. Then she was sent to France and everything took an even shittier turn.
Kara wasn't going to dwell on it. No, she wasn't going to sink away in self pity because truth was that self pity really never helped anybody, otherwise, she'd cannonball right into a huge pool of it.
It was the belief in a happier future, a bluer sky, that kept her going. Kept her from falling off that jagged cliff. She'd make it.
Kara stared, drawn and locked into her own art. It mesmerized her that she could do this. It always had.

"Kara."

She flew around with a shriek, her paint brush flying straight out of her hand.
And hitting Lucas square on the chest before falling to the ground.
Kara stared, wide eyed and shaken as he frowned down at the large brown blot on his chest.

"Oh, God," she breathed, putting a hand to her heart. "Why did you have to sneak up on me?"

He balanced boxes on one hand and pointed a finger at his chest.
"What the hell is this?"

She huffed and walked forward to pick her brush up.
"It's just paint, relax."

Lucas dropped the boxes on the table before turning back to her with a slight frown.
"You threw a paintbrush at me? Really?"

Kara quickly put the brush in the jar of thinners and put her paint stained hands on her hips. "Excuse me, but you let yourself into my cottage! I thought you were..."

She trailed off and Lucas raised a brow. "Thought I was what? Or who?"

She didn't answer. But if she had, he wouldn't have heard her. His gaze had gone past Kara's shoulder. And had fallen on her painting.

Lucas stared, absolutely gobsmacked.

Silently, he walked past her and towards it. He reached the canvas that still glistened with semi-dry paint and stared. He couldn't help it.
Kara bit her lip hard. What was he going to call her? Weirdo? Nightmare-Da Vinci? The kids in her high school class always had a lot to say about her paintings and the darkness in them. She could shrug them off, but if Lucas told her she was weird for painting like this...

"You... you did this?" Lucas asked when he could finally speak again.

"Yes," Kara whispered timidly. She picked at the paint dried on her fingers, refusing to look up and see the disgust on his face.
Lucas took in a breath. "Mon Dieu...it's the most hauntingly beautiful painting I've ever seen," he whispered.
Kara's head snapped up. "What?"
Lucas turned around and stared incredulously at her. "I can't believe....Did you...?" He shook his head. "You did this?"

Kara nodded slowly. Lucas stared at her. Not only was she so damn beautiful, but she was also incredibly, unimaginably, freaking amazing at artistic paintings. Where the hell had she been hiding that talent?

"You're amazing," Luc heard himself say. Kara's eyes widened and then...dear God, and then the most gorgeously delighted smile bloomed over her face. Lucas felt like his heart had stopped.
"You really think so?" she questioned happily.
He nodded.
"Well...good," Kara said then. "I'll go to the market with Celeste tomorrow and see how much I can get for it. A few hundred would be enough."

Lucas frowned. He didn't like that idea. "You're going to sell it?"
Kara hesitated. She looked at the painting that she would admit she was absolutely and totally in love with. She didn't want to give it to some stranger who wouldn't even know or appreciate its meaning. But she had to.
With a sad shrug, she nodded.
Lucas' jaw clenched. "But why? It's absolutely stunning."
Kara ignored her blush. "I need to make a living, okay! I'm selling it tomorrow, that's it."
"Fine. Let me buy it," Lucas said, shoving his hands into his pockets.
Kara scoffed and moved around him to draw closed the curtains behind her canvas as the sky darkened.
"I will not take your money just to give your own money back to you," she stated in irritation.
Luc's brows rose. "You're selling your painting to pay me back? Well, don't do it! Just give me the painting."
Kara froze and turned to face him. He was dead serious, she saw it in his eyes.
"No."
Lucas groaned, annoyed.
"Why the bloody hell not?!" he demanded. She couldn't be serious. She absolutely loved her painting. He could see it in the way she kept staring at it and touching it or the canvas casually. Damn it, she would keep it! Even if he had to threaten her into it.

She crossed her arms. "Because I vowed to pay your money back and that's what I'm going to do."

Lucas stared at the painting. It touched the depth of his soul. How the hell had she managed to do it? The dark sky, it... God, it looked like a real dark sky! The horses! What the hell.
He shook his head in amazement. Kara had to turn away to hide her blush. But she wanted him to leave now. He'd still kissed her earlier and she was mad about it.

Luc turned to her and closed the distance between them. "So this is the reason why you locked yourself in here the whole day without a morsel of food?"

Kara frowned when her stomach chose that moment to rumble loudly. She inwardly scowled. Her stomach always had been a bit needy.
"I have food in my little fridge there," she jutted her chin out towards the kitchen. Luc waved it away and reached for the TV remote.
"Leave it, I've got pizza."
He flipped open one of the boxes he was carrying to reveal a thick, steaming hot food that Kara had never really seen before. Its scent had her mouth-watering.
Then he leaned back, propped his feet up and put the TV on. Kara's attention was quickly stolen from the Pizza and riveted to his muscular legs, crossed at the ankles.

"Uhh... what are you doing?" she demanded shakily.

Lucas looked up at her blankly and then for the first time since she met him, his mouth curved up in a wide, absolutely adorable grin.
"Oh," he said. "Didn't I mention it? I'm sleeping here tonight."