Diana Welheim wasn’t a bad person. At least not intentionally.
So what if she stole a job from a handicapped person? It was her dream job. She had to achieve it somehow. If you
weren’t going to fight to get a job, then how were you going to get it?
Still, she thought, sipping her coffee. That was pretty mean. But easy.
And easy was, after all, good. Besides, what handicapped person could really be a landscape artist? They’d have
to move around, and Joshua Evans just didn’t cut it. Not according to her new boss, Ellen Maybourne, anyway. "So,
it wasn’t your fault, Diana," she thought aloud, standing up. Some coffee spilled out of the side of her cup
and landed on her white jeans, and she groaned. "Damn it."
Sighing, she grabbed a blue dishtowel off of the glass table in front of her and wiped the pant leg of her jeans
off, then frowned down at the unmoving spot and threw the dishtowel back onto the table. Setting the cup down next
to the dishtowel, she hurriedly walked from the kitchen into her living room and started up the long spiraling
staircase to her third floor bedroom.
It was a pretty big house for a single woman. A single woman with no children, no husband; nothing. But Diana didn’t
care. At least not anymore. She’d been single for three years now, and it no longer mattered to her. After her
fiancée died in the car crash, along with her unborn child, she’d been trying to work for a living. Now,
she finally had the job she always wanted. She’d get paid to do what she loved.
And what she loved was art.
Diana stopped in front of the door to her room and turned her head sideways. Her gaze caught her dead daughter’s
room, and she let a soft sigh escape her lips. Exquisite could have had so much...so much. But the room had never
even been slept in.
And Exquisite was dead.
Tearing her gaze away from the closed door, Diana took a deep breath and started into her own room.
"How could you do this to him?" David Evans fumed, glaring at Ellen Maybourne. "How could you take
away his job? He’s handicapped, for crying out loud! All he wanted to do was paint landscapes!"
"And that takes talent, Mr. Evans, which your brother did not have. Must I repeat myself?" Ellen leveled
a hard gaze on David, which he returned. He bent over her desk, placing his hands on the top of the wood.
"It was his dream, Mrs. Maybourne. You stole that from him. I’ll make sure you rot in hell--along with that...that
woman who stole his job from him!"
"If you do not leave my office, Mr. Evans, I’ll have to call security. And I advise you not threaten me again."
David backed away from her desk and glared at her. "You’ll pay, and you’ll pay good."
Ellen tilted her head upwards and gave him a look that said, "I don’t give a damn." David threw one last
angry look at her before storming out of the room.
"Damn it, David; I told you to leave it alone," Joshua Evans said as his brother wheeled him to the car.
"I couldn’t just let her do that. Whoever this Diana Welheim is, she’s going to get what’s coming to her."
David helped his brother into the passenger’s seat of the car, and then folded his wheelchair and put it in the
trunk. He hurriedly climbed into the driver’s side and slammed his car door shut.
"She knew you were handicapped, Josh," he continued, fumbling around with his car keys and finally fitting
them into the engine. "She knew that this was the only job you had a chance at."
Joshua sighed, rolling his eyes. "I don’t care, David. I don’t CARE. Do you get it? It doesn’t matter to me!
Just leave things be."
"No," David replied, shaking his head adamantly as he pulled out of the parking lot of the art museum.
"They deserve it."
Joshua groaned and leaned his head against the window of the car, knowing that once David made up his mind, there
was no stopping him. Now, two people’s lives would be ruined, and all because of Joshua.
