Chapter Four

Nathan arrived at Elizabeth's home at exactly the time that they'd agreed upon and found her ready waiting for him.

"Where's LJ?" he asked as Elizabeth followed him out to his car. He'd assumed that she'd have a sitter or at least Julie looking after her son.

"He's with my parents," Elizabeth replied, touched that he had asked about LJ. "He's having a sleepover."

"Ah."

"Yes," Elizabeth said as she got into the car. "I guess my anxiety's showing, isn't it?"

"A little."

"It's the first time he's spending a night away from me," she confessed.

"Ah," Nathan said again. There were so many questions that he wanted to ask but he didn't know where to begin.

"It's not as if you and I are going away, or anything like that," Elizabeth continued, "but when I told Julie about our lunch and asked her to look after LJ she told my parents about it and they insisted on taking him for the night as well."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Nathan assured her, "and it's not as if you can't go and bring him back home at any time you like or better still join him on his sleepover."

"I know," Elizabeth sighed, "and he was pretty excited when they picked him up."

"So I guess you're the one having separation anxiety."

She took a deep breath and looked at him. "It's silly isn't it? It's not even night yet."

"It's a change," Nathan told her, "and change is always hard."

000

They arrived at Abigail's café, where they had agreed to have lunch and Nathan convinced her to get their food to go. There was a beautiful park, Centenary Park, about five minutes away from the café and they agreed to walk there and have a picnic.

Elizabeth was surprised to find that Nathan had come prepared with a picnic basket complete with fruits and baked goodies and a blanket.

"You came prepared," she told him as she took the blanket from him.

"I hoped that I could convince you to eat outdoors while the weather's still fine," he agreed.

"Can you believe I've actually never been to Centenary Park?"

"Really?"

'It's not for want of trying," she told him, "but all the times we planned to go something always came up and we'd put it off."

"I love this park," he told her, they had entered the gardens and were looking for place to sit. The park had quite a few people in it, most of them sitting and having picnics while a few where playing games. "It's in the middle of the city yet somehow wherever I'm here I can forget about the hustle and bustle of the city."

"It's surprising quiet considering how close it is to a major road," Elizabeth said.

"Somehow the trees manage to block out everything," Nathan told her. "That's the wonder of nature."

"Yes it is."

They found a spot and spread out the blanket and sat down and opened the basket and to-go bag that they'd gotten from café.

"I really should come here and do some painting," Elizabeth said.

"You should."

Somehow without meaning to she found herself telling him about the solo show; she didn't even know how she started talking about it, she hadn't even told her family about it yet.

"That's great," Nathan told her happily, "you deserve to have a solo show."

"Says somebody who's never even seen my work."

"I have seen your work," Nathan said, surprising her.

Elizabeth put down her drink and looked at him in surprise, she didn't display any of her paintings at home and she was positive that none been in Jack's office at the university.

"Actually," Nathan confessed, "I do own two paintings of yours."

"What?"

"I bought my first one about five years ago," he said.

Nathan remembered that day quite well; Colleen and Earl had insisted the join them for Christmas shopping that day and they'd even changed their plans to suit him. After they had left the Christmas market they had rejoined the main street and that when he'd noticed the painting in the display window of the gallery. Nathan wasn't one for art and he never noticed painting but the painting of the mountains, woods and lake, named Hope Valley, had caught his eye and he'd entered Gowen gallery.

The gallery was tastefully decorated and featured a wide array of paintings on different themes. Hope Valley was the only landscape painting on display and he was informed that the artist had only recently starting displaying her work at the gallery but with time more of her paintings would be displayed. Nathan had bought her painting and asked that he be informed when other works from the artist were brought in.

"You bought Hope Valley."

Elizabeth remembered the day that Henry had called her and told her that her first painting had been bought for a rather tidy amount. Violet and Julie had finally convinced Elizabeth to take her work to a gallery and after three disappointments, Henry Gowen at the Gowen gallery had accepted Elizabeth's work. He had told her that he saw a lot of potential in her paintings and had asked her to have five paintings ready to display. Elizabeth had only gone with the one painting and Henry had promptly put it in the window and told her to bring the other four as soon as she could.

When Henry had called her the next day, Elizabeth had been sure that he calling to remind her about the other four paintings only to discover that she'd sold her first painting. The four paintings had also been taken by collectors soon after they were displayed in the gallery.

"I did."

"You never said a word."

Nathan hadn't discovered that the Elizabeth Thatcher whose paintings he loved was the same Elizabeth Thatcher that was Jack's girlfriend until their engagement. At their engagement party someone had talked about Elizabeth's work as a landscape artist and even talked about some of her paintings; Nathan would have wanted to compliment her on her work but since he was doing all he could to keep away from her he had not done so. Instead he had marveled at the coincidence of it all.

"For some reason I found it hard to talk to you," he hedged.

"I thought you disapproved of me," Elizabeth told him, "that you thought I wasn't good enough for Jack or something."

"It just takes me a while to warm up to people that's all," Nathan said.

"Really?" Elizabeth was surprised, "when we met in the corridor you didn't seem to have any trouble talking to me."

"You caught me on a good day," he lied, laughing uneasily, "I'd probably just eaten."

Elizabeth laughed, there was something about his uneasiness that was endearing, but she knew that there was something that wasn't telling her. Somehow, she was willing to wait until he was ready to talk to her about it.

"Anyway," he changed the subject, "I may not be an art critic or anything like that, but I think that it's great that Gowen gallery finally recognized your talent and saw fit to have a solo show for you."

"Henry said that there are quite a few people who really like my work," Elizabeth said, "And I guess that it's true, I mean, you are one of them, so I the solo show makes sense."

"It does," he assured her, "and your work is that good. Do you how long it took me to get the second painting?"

"Tell me."

"I asked the gallery to contact when more of your works were available and they did a few days later however by the time I got there they had all been sold; this happened quite a number of times, until one day over a year later, I just happened to be in the gallery when the new paintings were brought in and I managed to get one."

"Really?" she hadn't believed Henry when he'd told her that buyers and collectors really liked her works. She had assumed that it was because her paintings were different from the abstract ones that they were bought.

"Yes," Nathan assured her. "Surely that article in the Arts magazine should put your mind at ease, if nothing else."

"Well," Elizabeth smiled at her, "the fact that it was written by one of my oldest friends made me think that it was biased."

"Of course Charles Kensington is an old friend of yours," Nathan laughed softly, he now remembered that he'd actually met Charles Kensington, artist connoisseur and writer, at the wedding.

"I thought he was just being very kind."

"He's probably kind," Nathan agreed, "but he also wrote the truth about your work."

They continued eating in silence, enjoying the soft wind and warmth that surrounded them.

"So how many paintings do you have ready?"

Elizabeth was silent for a while before answering. She was about to share with Nathan something she'd never told another living soul, she had wondered over the past two years why she had felt she had to keep it to herself but still somehow she had never told anyone about it.

"Henry thinks I have at least six half-finished paintings," she said at last.

"Ah," he nodded slowly, "so what is the truth?"

"I do have six unfinished paintings that I have shown him but I have more paintings."

"Don't you require about thirty paintings for a solo show?" he asked, surprising her with his knowledge about art exhibitions. At her look, he said, "it's just random information I picked up. So, how many paintings do you actually have?"

"After our honeymoon, I started working on a new project," she told him, "and it was a sort of departure from my usually paintings."

"What is it?"

"I started painting… only trees."

"But trees are part of the landscape, aren't they?" he asked her softly, "I thought you were going to say cats or something like that."

"I've never told anyone about it."

"Then I am grateful that you chose to share it with me," he said. "But why have never told anyone about it?"

"I worked so hard to establish myself as a landscape artist," she admitted, "I don't want to seem wishy-washy."

"I don't think you're wishy-washy."

"Thank you," she replied, "But I'm afraid that Henry would think otherwise."

"I don't think so," he told her, "but why don't we find out?"

"What do you mean find out?"

"We can go there now and ask him."

"What? No."

"Yes."

Elizabeth looked Nathan and saw the determination, interest and confidence in his face and nodded. They would go and see Henry.

"Okay, let's go and see him now."

000

Henry listened to Elizabeth and laughed in delight. Not only did Elizabeth already have more than enough paintings to show at that exhibition she was also going to add a new dimension to her work as an artist. He loved it.

Elizabeth couldn't believe it just accepted it without even seeing a single painting but Henry told her that he would stop by her studio to see them but he had confidence in her and was sure that they would be as amazing as the rest of her works.

As they speaking the door opened and a man, handsome and well-dressed walked into office.

"Henry," the man said, "I hope I'm not interrupting."

"Ah, Lucas," Henry smiled at him, "I thought you wouldn't be here until next week."

"You know me," Lucas replied, "I go where the wind takes me."

"Let me introduce you to one of our best artists," Henry said, "Elizabeth meet Lucas Bouchard, my honorary nephew and silent partner. Lucas, this is Elizabeth Thornton."

"Our superstar," Lucas smiled at her, "I really love all your paintings, they're exquisite, but I thought it was Elizabeth Thatcher."

000

"How was the date?" Colleen asked. She'd been surprised when Nathan had shown up at her house in the afternoon.

"It was fine," Nathan replied, "she loved the picnic."

"So what's the matter then?"

"Well we went by the gallery to, you know what, it doesn't matter," Nathan said, "what matters is somehow instead of taking a drive with Elizabeth this evening like I had planned, I had to leave her at the gallery."

"But why?"

"A work thing came up."

That Lucas Bouchard was quite taken with Elizabeth had been very clear to everyone present; her feelings were not so clear however when Lucas had heard about the new tree paintings he had insisted that they couldn't put off seeing them, it had to be done immediately, and since, as it turned out, Lucas knew quite a bit about art, Henry had changed his plans and the three of them had gone to Elizabeth's studio to see the work.

Elizabeth had apologised to Nathan about the interruption to their plans and had even tried to put off going to her studio until a more convenient time but Nathan had told her that it was okay, that he understood, and he did, her solo show was in three months, so she needed to get everything ready.

He really understood but only wished that Lucas Bouchard hadn't been quite so charming.

000