One night Cady asked, "Do you miss being a real estate mogul?"

"No, I don't."

"Really?"

"I let go of all that in prison. You told me Walt retired because he didn't want to be sheriff for too long, like Lucian Connally. Well, I stayed too long in business and real estate. I was successful for a lot of years but doing more began to consume me and I cut a few ethical corners to make things happen faster. It's easy to justify it to yourself at first. I don't want to do that anymore, and a number of options are closed to me now even if I did want to pick up where I left off."

"But if you hadn't borrowed bail money from the casino …"

"I'd be dead. I don't regret it but there are consequences. I didn't enjoy prison but it was good for me. It strips everything away and forces you to rebuild yourself. Do you know, even the meditation garden was an affectation before? Oh, I used it occasionally but not for its true purpose. It was a quiet place to plot the next move. I could have turned my phone off and shut myself in my study with the same result. It's different now. I go there to empty my mind and find out what comes to fill it. Everything that has happened to me, including prison, brought me to this point. In fact, the best things in my life – you and the twins – happened to me while I was inside."

"Jacob, darling, that's true for me too. You and the twins are all I truly need."

Jacob kissed her. "You know instinctively what's important. I had to learn it."

"But we ended up in the same place, together."

"I wasted a lot of time getting there."

"You would have been waiting twenty-five years for me to catch up anyway."

Cady came home one day to find Jacob at an artist's easel.

"I didn't know you painted."

"I don't anymore."

"It looks like you do. That's really good."

"I tried to be an artist decades ago. Haven't picked up a brush in twenty years."

"Did you paint as Blankenship or Nighthorse?"

"Nighthorse. I took that name to separate my art from activism and eventually changed it legally."

"Why did you give it up?"

"I got busy with other things. I wasn't very good and I didn't want to be a starving artist."

"You like to be the best at whatever you do."

"I've been rethinking that so I'm painting again for fun."

Even though Jacob was still rich, his restless nature drove him to achieve but his previous occupations weren't available to him so he set up a studio in the house and worked on his art. When he felt his skill had returned sufficiently, he painted a wall mural in four panels. It was a scene of Wyoming in each season. Cady knew right away that Jacob had painted what he missed when he was in prison. She loved it; Jacob was moderately pleased with the effort.

One weekend Jacob asked Cady to pose for him.

"I need practice with body parts if I want to do a portrait or add human figures to a scene. Hands and feet are especially tricky but I'm rusty with everything – lines, curves, angles."

"So you want to paint me nude at seven months?"

"No painting, just drawing."

Cady agreed because it sounded like fun and she figured it would lead to more. She wanted that because sex was about to end for awhile. She was almost thirty weeks and her size would make it uncomfortable soon.

Jacob placed her on a mattress. He made sure the room was warm enough that she wouldn't get cold lying there. He did a few whole body sketches then concentrated on individual parts, positioning each one precisely before drawing. Cady soon decided that life models were underpaid. Jacob was completely focused on her but there was nothing sexual in it. He was absorbed in his work. She finally called a halt because she had to pee.

When she returned she said, "I'm bored."

Jacob was studying his sketches. "It's only been two hours."

"It feels like much longer. I thought this would go differently, you know, with me naked."

"Ah." Jacob smiled. "Can you do another fifteen minutes?"

"I suppose. I'll follow the advice Victorian mothers gave daughters for their wedding night: Close your eyes and think of England."

She lay down and closed her eyes. And was startled a few seconds later when she felt something against her nipple. She opened her eyes to find Jacob swirling a soft brush over first one then the other.

"My last piece is erect nipples," he explained.

"Are you going to be painting a lot of erect nipples?"

"Probably not but I'd better be prepared."

Hers were certainly erect, Cady thought. Pregnancy had increased the size and sensitivity of her breasts and nipples. She lay there feeling more and more aroused. Or maybe that should be titillated considering the part of her body it started with. By the time Jacob closed his drawing pad she was flushed and panting a little. He joined her on the mattress.

"Now tell me, in detail, exactly how you envisioned this afternoon ending."

Later Cady said, "That was probably the last time we'll have sex."

Jacob waited a moment before saying, "I was hoping to hear 'until after the twins are born' at the end of that sentence."

"Oh, sorry. I was thinking it; I just forgot to say it."

"That's a relief."

"I also forgot to say I can still blow you."

"Very generous. I'm happy to return the favor."

"Better not; it could cause contractions. Twins are usually early anyway. We don't want them to be premature because mommy and daddy couldn't control themselves."

"These babies exist because mommy and daddy couldn't control themselves."

One day in her eighth month Cady came home to find Jacob carefully removing each panel of the wall mural.

"What the fuck are you doing!"

"I'll paint you another one. I sold this."

"Who to?"

"Omar Rhodes. He stopped by to say hello and made me an offer I didn't want to refuse."

"I would have bought it."

"I wouldn't sell a painting to my wife; I'd give it to you."

"Then give me this one. Or make an exception and let me pay whatever Omar is paying."

"Ten thousand."

Cady stared. "Okay, sell it to Omar. I said you were good."

"Omar has more money than sense and he indulges his impulses."

"True, but he also has a better sense of value than you think."

Jacob wrapped the panels and Omar sent a truck for them.

The four by eight foot panels were leaning against his huge entry hall and Omar was in a chair with a glass of scotch admiring them when his wife Myra arrived home.

"Look what I bought, babe."

"A tetraptych."

"I thought it was a painting in four pieces but I like your word better."

Myra cast a critical eye over them. "They're good. Who's the artist?"

"Jacob Nighthorse."

"I'm surprised. Hidden depths, I guess. How much?"

"Ten thousand. How'd I do?"

"If he gets famous, it's a steal. If not, it's still a good deal."

"Where should we put them?"

"The atrium. That glass wall where the light shines in at a weird angle. This will block it."

We'll have to get someone to install the panels over the glass."

"No, it needs a special frame with hinges so the end pieces can close over the center pieces. There's too much light in the atrium to leave it open all the time. It shouldn't be displayed open anyway, it should be revealed."

"You're a genius, my love. I leave it in your hands."

Myra was interested in Jacob Nighthorse's history as an artist. It might be worthwhile to find some of his early works. She called a friend in Denver who owned a gallery but Miles Layton wasn't in favor of the idea.

"He was a minor talent twenty to thirty years ago. Technically capable. I actually have one of his paintings that I like very much because of the brushstrokes. But a vital spark was missing from his work and he's virtually unknown now."

"I'd like you to take a look at something we acquired."

Miles showed up, studied the panels for a long time and finally shook his head. "I don't think it's a Nighthorse. The technique is reminiscent but the depth and maturity is beyond anything I would have expected. And it's not signed."

"Oh, it's Nighthorse for sure, he lives nearby, but that's not what I'm asking. I want to know if we have something special here."

"Absolutely; it's astonishing. I wouldn't have believed the same person painted mine and yours, even with twenty years between them."

"Well, he's gone through some life changes recently."

"That could do it. I'd like to see more. Does he have a studio?"

"Yes, but I think he only paints as a hobby now."

The gallery owner shuddered. "Tell him to give up his day job and put together a portfolio. This level of accomplishment is rarely a fluke. Something fanned the spark that was missing before."

Myra passed along the advice but before Jacob could take it Cady gave birth.