Tribute

she eased out of the room. She intended to go down to search out a bottle of water—preferably ice cold—but detoured to his studio. Thirst could wait for curiosity.
    When she switched on the light, the drawings pinned to his display board pulled her forward. So odd to see her face, she thought, on the warrior’s body. Well, her body, she admitted.
    He’d added her tattoo, but as she’d once suggested, it rode on Brid’s biceps.
    Wandering over to his workstation, she frowned at the papers on his drawing board. Small sketches covered them—sparse sketches, she mused, all in separate boxes, and each with a dotted vertical line running top to bottom. Some of them had what she thought she recognized as speech balloons, with numbers inside. She spread them out for a better look.
    It was like a storyboard, she realized. The characters, the action, some staging. Blocking. And if she wasn’t mistaken, the sizes and shapes of the boxes had been calculated mathematically as well as artistically. Balance, she mused, and impact.
    Who knew so much went into a comic?
    On the other side of the board, a larger sheet lay on the counter. More squares and rectangles, she noted, holding detailed drawings, shaded and . . . inked. Yes, that was the word. Though no dialogue had been added, the setup, the art, drew the eye across, just as words in a book would do.
    In the center, Dr. Cass Murphy stood in what Cilla thought of as her professor suit. Conservative, acceptable. Bland. The clothes, the dark-framed glasses and the posture defined personality in one shot. That was a kind of brilliance, wasn’t it? she thought. To capture and depict in one single image the character. The person.
    Without thinking, she picked up the panel, took it to the display board to hold it against the sketch of Brid.
    The same woman, yes, of course the same woman. And yet the change was both remarkable and complete. Repression to liberation, hesitation to purpose. Shadow to light.
    When she started to walk back to replace the panel, she saw another stack of pages. Typewritten pages. She scanned the first few lines.
    FORD WOKE HUNGRY, and deeply disappointed Cilla wasn’t beside him to slake one area of appetite. Apparently, he decided, he couldn’t get enough of her.
    She was all beautiful and sexy and wounded and smart. She knew how to use power tools, and had a laugh that made his mouth water. He’d watched her hang tough, and fall to pieces. He’d witnessed her absolute devotion to a friend, watched her handle acute embarrassment and lash out with temper.
    She knew how to work, and oh boy, she knew how to play.
    She might be, he mused, pretty damn close to perfect.
    So where the hell was she?
    He rolled out of bed, snagged a pair of pants and stepped into them on his way to hunt her down.
    He was just about to call her name when he spotted her. She sat at his work counter, legs tucked up and crossed, shoulders hunched, one elbow propped. He had the quick and fleeting thought that if he sat like that for more than ten minutes, his neck and shoulders would lock up for days.
    Walking over, he set his hands on her shoulders to rub what he imagined would be knotted muscles. And she jumped as if he’d swung an ax at her head.
    She pitched forward, caught herself, reared back as her legs scissored out. Then, spinning around in his chair, she clutched her hands at her chest as her laughter bubbled out.
    “God! You scared me!”
    “Yeah, I picked that up when you nearly bashed your head on my drawing board. What’re you up to?”
    “I was . . . Oh God. Oh shit!” She shoved the chair back, dropped her hands into her lap. “I’m sorry. I completely breached your privacy. I was looking at the sketches you had sitting out, and I saw the book. I just meant to skim the first page. I got caught up. I shouldn’t have—”
    “Whoa, whoa, save the self-flagellation. I told you before you could read it sometime. I just hadn’t written it yet. If you got caught up, that’s a plus.”
    “I moved things around.” She picked up the panel, held it out. “I hate when people move my things around.”
    “I know where it goes. Obviously, you’re lucky I’m not as temperamental and touchy as you are.” He lay the panel back in its place. “So, what do you think?”
    “I think the story is fun, exciting and entertaining, with a sharp thread of humor, and with strong underpinnings of feminism.”
    He lifted his brows. “All that?”
    “You know damn