The Next Day (Foothills Book 2) by Carrie Thorne (christmas read aloud TXT) 📕

makes me blush, but you know me. It’s like the sun is making love to the mountains. If that makes any sense? Not in a dirty way, I mean, there’s nothing overtly sexual about it, it’s more of a feeling. Like there’s a passion to it, and it’s not just serenity.”

“It does make sense. If it helps, I was absolutely thinking about sex and all the good feelings that go with it.”

Her mother blushed and dove into the bag and pulled out a croissant.

She continued, “I hadn’t realized the intimacy between the setting sun and the mountains before, but it struck me as the brush stroked the canvas.”

“Intimacy, that’s it. Anyway, I like it.”

“The auction went well.” Freya lifted Tammy’s coffee from the machine, delivering it to the island before retrieving her own.

Tammy eased onto a stool and took a bite of her breakfast. “The big one in Rome?”

Freya nodded. Her breath leached from her chest as she told her mother about the fat paycheck on the way, the bidding battle that had ensued, still lightheaded at the shock of it.

“That’s fantastic. I’m so proud of you.”

As much as she wanted to jump and cheer, her legs were floppy as unset jam. “They want me to send five more pieces now, with the hope of forming a long-term relationship if those sell well.”

“I can’t believe how things are coming together. You’ve worked so hard for this.”

“It’s so much pressure. The gallery in Florence is great, but there are so many and I’m one more tourist-pleaser. The galleries in London and New York are great, but they’re so big, I’ll be lucky if my paintings don’t collect dust. But this… this gallery is one of the most renowned and selective. But I don’t have five more like it. I have a few that I’m pleased with that I could send, but they’re not of the same caliber.”

Tammy looked back to the runner again. “I know these aren’t what they’re expecting, but send them anyway. Show them your range.”

“They’re expecting crowd-pleaser landscapes.”

“What’s the deadline?”

“Two months for all five, but they’re hoping I’ll send one now to hold my place.” Freya grabbed her coffee from the brewer and dropped onto her stool. She grabbed a croissant from the bag and ripped into it. “I’ve been home a month. I’ve painted two things, neither of which are even remotely like what I have done before. I have a website, a newsletter, a group of friends I adore… and a husband I don’t get to keep.”

Tammy set down her cinnamon roll. “So it’s true.”

Pinching her lips together, Freya managed a nod.

“You two seem really good together. Are you sure you don’t get to keep him?”

She shook her head. “In the last month, I’ve completed a handful of charcoals, one I gave as a gift to an undeserving cousin, two are of Zane–I couldn’t help it–and one of my foot. Seriously.” Her toes wiggled beneath her. “I gave him my best landscape as a gift, which I meant and I’m not taking back; he needed the serenity of that painting in his life. I have a few decent pieces in the closet of one of the spare bedrooms. And these two.” She nodded behind her.

“And?”

“And? The only things I have produced worth mentioning are inspired by my inebriated mistake of a husband. I can’t get him out of my head.”

Tammy sipped her coffee, pondering over the steam of it, then set it down again. She took a measured bite of cinnamon roll, chewed twice as long as she needed, then swallowed. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but that’s called falling in–”

“Nope. Don’t say it,” Freya cut her off, jumping to her feet and crumpling the breakfast packaging into a tiny ball. “That’s called blinding lust that kills your useful creativity, then when you think you’ve finally found a good rhythm, you discover he’s not who you thought he was. While he was all sweet and sexy and insatiable at first, when the urgency of falling in lust fades, where you thought there was love, there’s nothing but a few meaningless words passed with someone who doesn’t like your famous lasagna after all, he no longer finds your smile so irresistible, and wonders why you folded his underwear but didn’t match up his socks.”

Tammy sighed heavily, holding back the lecture Freya would refuse to hear anyway. “When is the divorce final?”

“Annulment,” she sneered, slamming the cabinet door after chucking the bag.

“When is the annulment final?”

“Two weeks.”

“Send the runner painting. Let them see your range. If they hate it, then they don’t deserve you and I’ll fly with you to find other galleries. Then no pressure the next two weeks. Build your website, your brand. Nurture your soul. Hang out with your friends. Get through this, however it works out.”

17

Cohabitating

“Once the annulment goes through, are we going to have to keep up this awkward, choose Freya or Zane? I like hanging out with you both and don’t like choosing one over the other.” Asher griped as he drove at a snail’s pace over the loose chip-sealed road, the scent of tar pervading the cab, glancing at Zane with an exaggerated glower.

Rubbing his hand over the scruff of his jaw, Zane sighed, “Hey, this is tough enough. I like hanging out with her too. More than I should. Look what happened last time we were together? Come on, your parents’ laundry room in the middle of a party?”

“I’m impressed. I think that’s the one room in the house I haven’t had a quickie in.” Slowing from ten to two miles an hour, Asher pulled off down an overgrown driveway and parked in front of a metal gate. He hopped out and pushed the thing open, dove back