Read The Jewel of His Collection for Free Online Page B

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    Violet stood at her easel, glaring at the blank canvas that had been sitting there gathering dust since her return to Owensport four years ago. She’d hoped that being back in her hometown would spark her creativity back to life, but all the art supplies that she’d so carefully lugged up three flights of stairs remained untouched. More than once she’d been tempted to throw everything into the garbage or at least hide it away in a closet, but some inner demon had always stayed her hand. Instead, one corner of her living room remained set up as a miniature art studio, a perpetual reminder of her failures.
    With the Madden exhibit, she was failing again. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, but since Ian shot down her plans four days ago, she’d been adrift, unable to come up with a better idea, or any idea at all. She’d driven Leroy crazy moving the mockups around, but she kept hearing the echo of Ian’s voice condemning her choices as passé.
    Her mind was as blank as her canvas, and both seemed to mock her. Picking up a tube of cerulean paint that wasn’t completely dried out, she squirted a dab onto her palette and poked at the blob with her favorite brush. “Paint something,” she whispered. Maybe getting something onto the canvas would open up the floodgates of inspiration. “Paint anything .”
    Casting her gaze around her living room, her attention fell on the glass vase that had been the first piece she ever bought at a gallery. Back then she’d been a poor college student, and spending five hundred dollars for a knickknack was incredibly irresponsible, but she’d wanted it, telling herself that soon enough she’d be selling enough of her own work to make up for the hit to her bank account.
    She’d lived on ramen noodles for three months afterwards, but Violet had never regretted her purchase. Now, she let her brush glide over the canvas, rendering the vase’s curves in a new medium. For an hour she painted, tinting the cerulean to perfectly capture the vase’s highlights and shadows, and when she was done, she stopped to look at her work.
    Technically, it was perfect, the brushstrokes layered with precision. It was also utterly soulless. The painting said nothing because Violet had nothing to say. It was flat, lifeless, and passé, just like her exhibit.
    Cursing under her breath, Violet raked her hand through the wet paint, smearing cerulean from one side of the canvas to the other, obliterating her attempt at art. Hunter Madden could reproduce an entire meteor shower, and she couldn’t even paint a vase. What business did she have trying to exhibit his work?
    She had none, but if the museum was going to succeed, she was the only chance it had. Flopping onto the ground, she glared up at the smeared painting, laughing to herself when she realized it had far more energy now in its ruined state. At least now it said “anger” when before it had said nothing at all.
    Feeling too drained even to bother standing up, she crawled over to her coffee table and grabbed one of her old textbooks, flipping it open to the dog-eared page showcasing Madden’s Mountain Sunrise . The painting had always soothed her nerves, and now was no exception. Taking a few deep breathes, she concentrated on the swirl of pink and orange that spoke of hope and wide open spaces despite the tiny canvas.
    Jerking her head up, Violet looked at her own smeared canvas and then back down at the book before jumping to her feet. When she held the page in front of her canvas, her instincts were proved right. The cerulean offered the perfect contrast to Madden’s painting, the airy blue supporting his vision instead of distracting from it. If it were solid, it would be too much, but the smearing broke up the color just enough to keep it from being oppressive.
    Closing her eyes, Violet tried to picture the exhibit space, imagining the far wall painted in swirls of cerulean with the tiny canvas hanging directly in the middle,