Brush Strokes

  Brush Strokes

  A Novel

  Janelle Stalder

  BRUSH STROKES

  Copyright 2014

  Published 2014

  Amazon Edition

  Cover Design by Mae I Design and Photography

  Ebook Formatting by White Hot Formatting

  Amazon License Notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please don’t participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is also available in print at most online retailers.

  Other works by Janelle Stalder

  EDEN SERIES

  Eden

  (Book One)

  Eden-West

  (Book Two)

  Eden-South

  (Book Three)

  Eden-East

  (Book Four)

  NEW WORLD SERIES

  Switch

  (Book One)

  Masked

  (Book Two)

  Tested – Coming soon!

  (Book Three)

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Other Titles

  Dedication

  Prelude

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Breathe In

  Breathe Out

  Next

  Epilogue

  Coming Soon

  Switch Prologue

  Switch Chapter One

  Impulsion Chapter One

  Contact the Author

  To my Grandma and Grandpa,

  For being the perfect example of what true love looks like, and continuously inspiring us all.

  Love you

  Jelly a.k.a. Miss. Lady ;-)

  xoxo

  Prelude

  An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one. – Charles Horton Cooley

  It’s funny how life can take an unexpected turn. It seems like no matter how carefully we plan things, or envision where our lives will go, something can happen to turn it all on its side. Love can do that. Love can make people do things that are completely out of character and push them to limits they didn’t even know were possible. They say all you need is love, but how true is that?

  When you love a person so much that being with them feels like you can breathe easier, when just their nearness is the oxygen inflating your lungs, is that the kind of love where it’s all you need? Where hunger is something insignificant compared to the need and appetite you feel for only that one person?

  Or does love make fools of us all? Is it simply infatuation and lust clouding our sense of judgement? Or is that just what cynical people think?

  ***

  Colt knelt beside me, his lips moving over and over again, my name falling from them. I couldn’t hear him, my ears now ringing so loudly I was afraid I might have gone deaf. I watched as Colt’s body jerked violently, falling beside me. His lips still moved, caressing my name as though it were the only prayer he knew. We lay beside each other, our blood pooling around us, and I couldn’t help but think we looked like some modern version of Bonny and Clyde. I reached out my hand and found his, gripping it.

  It’s funny how life takes an unexpected turn.

  One

  Life imitates art far more than art imitates life – Oscar Wilde

  Olivia

  The blank canvas glared at me mockingly. Go ahead, it taunted. Paint something. I blew a piece of my bangs out of my eyes and sat back, the unused paintbrush dangling in my hands. What the hell was wrong with me? I’d been home for a week now and hadn’t been able to paint one thing. It was unheard of!

  “You’re such an asshole, Olivia Banks.” I looked up to see my best friend, Ella, standing in the doorway, hands on her hips, mouth turned down in a frown. Her clear blue eyes narrowed as I met her gaze.

  “Well hello to you too,” I said with an easy smile.

  She sputtered, walking further into my room. “Don’t you ‘well hello to you too’ me! I just saw your mother down at Bulk Barn and she had to tell me that you’re home. And guess what?”

  I knew what, but I played along. “What?”

  “Seems you’ve been home for a whole freakin’ week! What the hell, Olive?”

  I turned back to my yet-to-be-even-started painting and decided that it was useless. There was no way I’d get anything done with Ella here, not that I was getting far before she arrived. Placing the brush on the easel, I looked back at her, guilt sitting heavily in my stomach.

  “I’m sorry,” I offered. She rolled her eyes, throwing herself down on the edge of my bed. “Look,” I started, “it really hasn’t been a whole week. I got home Saturday, and I’ve just been so busy unpacking and getting settled that I haven’t had time to call anyone.”

  “It’s Saturday, Olive,” Ella replied in a bland voice. “So, yeah, it has been a whole week. And that excuse you just gave me? Complete bullshit. You’ve been gone now for two years, and when you finally come home you can’t take five minutes out of your ‘busy’ schedule to call your best friend?”

  Okay. So she was mad. I got it. I’d be mad too if the situation was reversed. The truth was, I hadn’t been home for so long I was worried that things would be too different between us. Sure, we spoke on the phone off and on, and we’d send each other emails and cards for our birthdays and what not, but after being away for so long one would assume things would be a bit…I don’t know…awkward.

  I’d been away at the best art school in the country for my sophomore and junior years. I felt – out of touch with things back home. And it was a small town, so being away for two years pretty much made you a leper in everyone’s books. I had no idea what was going on with most of the people I had grown up with. Well, except Ella. Damn. I really should have called her. Now I felt like an ass.

  “I really am sorry,” I said, getting up to sit down beside her. “You have every right to be mad at me. I’m a terrible friend. I guess I was just afraid to see people again.”

  She turned to look at me with her big eyes all round and puppy-dog-like. It was like a physical punch to my gut. I was used to that look, it had gotten us out of trouble countless times in the past, especially if it was one of our dads who was giving us crap. I do
n’t think any man with a beating heart could look at her sad face and not give in to her every whim. It was a talent really. I wish I had it.

  “Even me?” she said with a small pout. I shrugged, speechless. “I’ve been waiting for forever to have you back, Olive. I’m so damn happy you’re here I want to crawl out onto your roof and scream it to the whole neighbourhood.”

  “Please don’t do that,” I said quickly.

  “Fine. The point is, we’re best friends, no matter how long we’ve been apart. You shouldn’t be scared or worried to see me. We’re BFF’s. That second ‘F’ stands for FOREVER, Olive. Forever. Got it?”

  I laughed, hooking my arm around her neck and giving her a tight squeeze. How could I have ever thought it would be weird between us? It’s Ella. We’d been twin souls since she moved here in grade four and we both showed up the first day of school wearing the same purple dress with white polka dots. If that’s not fate, I don’t know what is.

  Ella rested her head on my shoulder. “I’ve missed you, Ollie. Things were so lame without you here.”

  “Aw, it couldn’t have been that bad.”

  She sat up, cocking one eyebrow. Another one of her talents that I lacked. Damn my untalented eyebrows. “Are you kidding me? I’ve been dying here without you. You’re the only thing that keeps me sane half the time.”

  “Then I’m not doing a very good job,” I teased.

  “Ha ha. Seriously. I can’t wait for the first day of senior year when I get to walk into that school with you by my side again. I’ll finally be able to have real conversations with someone, instead of what sales are going on at the mall, and what colour of nail polish is in season. I swear to God, Olive, I’ve pictured killing Reagan so many different ways in my head, I’m afraid for her safety.”

  “I’d actually love to hear some of those,” I said with a laugh. When Ella first told me she had become friends with the most popular girl in our school, Reagan Kennedy (no she’s not related, although she’d like people to think she is) I almost threw up. It had left a sour taste in my stomach and I ended up having one of my panic attacks that night when I went to bed. I was so scared Ella would turn into another one of Reagan’s robots that she wouldn’t be the same Ella I had grown up with. But thankfully the armour we built over the years of wit and intelligence stood against the mind-numbing stupidity that emanated from her and that whole group of girls.

  I still didn’t like that she had been friends with them for the past two years. I couldn’t help but wonder how that would change things when we went back after summer break, but it was nice to see Ella didn’t think it would be a problem. I knew for sure I wasn’t going to be accepted into that group. Reagan had made it very clear how she felt about me freshman year. I was the strange art girl. Anything outside of the mall and People Magazine was strange and foreign to her.

  I got up and started recapping the paints before they dried out. My eye caught movement outside of my window and I turned my head to see what it was. Damn. Now that I was looking, I couldn’t seem to force myself to look away.

  “Hey!” Ella’s voice snapped at me. I almost pulled my neck from whipping my head around so fast. My cheeks flamed like I’d just been caught doing something horrible. I didn’t think ogling my neighbour qualified as ‘horrible’ per se. At least, I hoped it didn’t, because I’d been doing it since he moved in to the house next to mine when I was ten.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Uh, no. What did you say?”

  Her lips pursed like they always did when she was unimpressed. “What are you looking at out there that you’re completely ignoring me?” She stomped over (literally) to my window and I had the strongest urge to pull the curtains shut and tell her ‘nothing’ like a completely obvious nut. Instead I just froze and waited for her reaction. The smile I knew was coming spread across her face.

  “Colt Morgan, huh? Still got the hots for him?” She grinned at me, wiggling her eyebrows. I decided then that I hated her eyebrows. Maybe I could shave them when we had a sleepover…nah. Then she’d look like that girl from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and that was just creepy.

  “Shut up,” I said, turning to finish the task I had originally set out to do. My paints were like my babies. I always took care of them, which meant making sure they never dried out.

  “I bet he looks different than from what you remember,” she continued, like she couldn’t tell I really didn’t want to talk about it. For eight years of my life I’ve had the biggest crush on a guy I’ve never done more than nod my head at. Not one word. Not one smile or wave, or any form of communication other than a nod. I was so lame. He probably thought I was such a freak, which meant that even if I wanted to, there was no way I could speak to him now. Nope. My life would be spent watching him from a distance as I became an old, lonely lady with ten cats.

  Crap. I hated cats.

  Against my will, I walked back over to stand beside her and looked out the window. He was still out there, leaning beneath the hood of his 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle that his father had bought him when he was thirteen. Who the hell buys a thirteen year old kid a classic car? Seriously! His father also ended up walking out on his mother the following day so clearly he wasn’t the best parental role model. I remembered watching him when his father got home with it. The roaring sound of the engine had caught my attention while I sat in my window, painting the cherry blossoms on the Stephenson’s lawn across the street. I still remembered the look on his face too. It had been – priceless.

  It was also the last time I really saw him smile like that since that following day after his dad left. From then on he rarely smiled, rarely said hello to me as I walked by with my head down and my shoulders hunched, rarely showed up for school or any school functions. Colt Morgan had gone from an okay student to a bad student in less than five days. It was probably a record.

  The sun gleamed off his naked back, his head invisible beneath the hood. Tattoos covered his arms, and part of his back, but didn’t take away from the smooth, bronzed perfection that was his body. I gave myself a good mental shake.

  “Doesn’t the man own a damn shirt?” I muttered with a huff.

  “Dear God, I hope not,” Ella said on a sigh, fanning herself with her hand. Colt stood up at that moment, wiping his hands on a towel hooked through one of the belt loops on his jeans that hung dangerously low on his narrow hips. He ran his hand through his messy, dark hair, completely unaware that he was being gawked at by two girls. “That man is so hot it hurts to look at him sometimes.”

  “How has he been the last two years?” I asked, trying my best to hide my genuine concern. I really didn’t know him at all, but I’d lived beside him for so long it kind of felt like I did. When we were really young he used to say hi to me, and then as we got older it had just been a nod in my direction. I always wondered if that was because I never said hi back and he had just given up, or if he had just gotten too cool to say hello to the weird art girl that lived next door.

  By the last year that I was here before leaving for school, it had turned into nothing at all. I would see him out of the corner of my eye when I’d get home and walk up the path to my front door. I knew he’d see me too, but he’d just stopped acknowledging me all together. It had hurt. I don’t know why, considering he owed me nothing.

  “He runs with a pretty bad crowd,” Ella was saying. “Reagan and all the girls flirt with him endlessly, it’s kind of disgusting.” I turned my head to look at her. “No, don’t worry, I never flirted with him. One, I know he’s your soul mate and I would never do that to you. And two, he kind of scares me.”

  Another boy walked out of the garage, his voice calling out to Colt and causing him to turn so I could finally see his face. It was still perfect. The same sharp lines that made my fingers itch to paint him. The same perfect lips that begged me to capture them on canvas. And the same haunting grey eyes that were almost silver. The ones that I had seen in my dreams more times than I could count.
>
  “Now that one I am definitely not scared of,” Ella said, growling. Wait. Did she just growl?

  “What are you? A cougar now?”

  She laughed. “That, my absent friend, is Colt’s best friend, Rannon. Also known as my future husband.” I observed the other boy, taking in his bleached out hair that was almost white, the contrast to his golden skin making it actually look good. It was shaved short on the sides but longer on the top, swept back off his face. Clearly it was a styled look and yet he carried it off as though he couldn’t care less how he looked. His face was all angles from what I could see, but I could definitely understand why Ella was attracted to him.

  “Is that right?”

  “Yup!” she said happily. “Isn’t it perfect? We’re going to marry BFFs.”

  “Your craziness has developed tenfold since I’ve been away.”

  “I know.” She laughed again.

  I watched the two boys as they talked, gesturing to the car’s engine now and again. I could just make out the silver gleam of the lip ring at the corner of Colt’s mouth. It should have been a travesty, piercing something that perfect, but somehow the jewellery just made it better.

  “So this Rannon guy, you talk to him at all at school?”

  She snorted. “As if. Like I said, your man down there scares me, and so do most of his friends. But I still think he’s the one. I just have to work up the courage to make him realize I exist.”

  “Well don’t ask me for any advice with that one,” I muttered, watching them outside. “I’m pretty sure I’m the choir you’re preaching to.”

  “Maybe that should be our goal this summer,” Ella said, clapping her hands. “Operation ‘Make the Bad Boys Notice Us’.”

  “Uh, no. I’m still the freak, remember? Just because you’ve become Miss Popular, doesn’t mean I have. If he hooks up with those kinds of girls, there’s no way he’d give me the time of day.”