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Excerpt:

"My Father said there was no money in Art," she huffed and took a long swallow from her glass, "he insisted I get a real job."

"Dads," Cain said in a dreamy tone as he looked at a painting of a garden. Something about it called to him. It was so real he thought he could almost smell the patch of honeysuckle as it radiated its sweetness under that bright summer sun. Something about it seemed familiar but he couldn’t pin it down. "They can be real assholes." He finished his glass and slipped his arm around her waist when he heard her start to choke. "You ok?"

"Fine," she stammered even as she blushed. "You’re so right, real assholes," she agreed getting her reaction under control, "but they’re not here now."

"Thank God for that," he said with more grimace than smile.

"Yeah," she sighed and drank down the last of her glass, "more?"

Cain, who normally had such sharp ears and was such an excellent judge of people, was still so captured by the painting that he missed the whole thing. Instead he pointed at it and asked, "Where is this?"

Jesse didn't miss a beat even as her breath caught in her chest, "Devil's Hop Yard, it's a park in Connecticut." She stopped for a second as she took him in and then casually asked, "Do you like it?"

"Devil's Hop Yard," he repeated still a distant tone as he stared at it. Cain had been all over the world several hundred times and the name seemed familiar but he couldn't say he'd ever been there.

"Earth to Cain," Jesse chuckled as she snapped her fingers in front of his glassy eyes.

"Hello?"

That brought him back around and he tried to cover the moment with a laugh, "Sorry. Yeah, I love it, it's beautiful, it's like, like, I've been there before."  He reached out to touch it but she grabbed his wrist.

"Nope, no touch, we do not put our greasy finger prints on the paint," she said with a serious grin.

"Oh, yeah, right," he muttered as he felt her leading him away from the artwork that he just couldn't take his eyes from until she fully pointed him towards the second hand couched with their thick blankets and the burning hearth next to them. "More wine?" He asked trying to force himself the rest of the way out of his daze.

"There's a delayed echo in here," she cooed as she plopped down on one of the couches and held up her empty glass. Silently she cursed herself for displaying that painting. She never intended for him to see it and convinced herself he never would. Even if he did, it was just a painting. In the end, her pride won out and she felt it was too good not to put on the wall of her little Art Studio.

"What about those?" Cain asked as he filled their glasses and pointed off to one corner where canvases were standing back to front. "What's over there?"

"Oh, God, no," she moaned. "Those are not for viewing." She laughed. "They're just, well, one day I'll just paint over them."