Mariah Stewart - On Sunset Beach

“You have art galleries in all those places?”

Carly nodded.

“You get around.”

She shrugged. “It’s business.”

“Which is your favorite?”

“My favorite gallery? After New York, the one in Istanbul, I suppose, although I’m thinking of selling my interest in it. I don’t really get there often enough to justify holding on to it, and the woman who runs it really wants to buy me out.” She grinned. “She promised me visitation rights, though.”

“What do you like about it?”

“I love the city. The architecture. The views from the rooftop restaurants. The history. The artists. And of course, the food.”

“The doner kebab.” He nodded knowingly. “The manti.”

She shook her head. “I don’t eat lamb.”

“How do you eat in Turkey if you don’t eat lamb?” He frowned.

“Oh, please.” She laughed. “Patlican dolmasi. Biber dolmasi. Hamsili pilav.”

“Let’s see, that would be stuffed eggplant, stuffed peppers, and you’re going to have to help me with that last one.”

“It’s a rice dish with small fish.” She was grinning.

“You’re a vegetarian?”

“No. I just don’t eat baby animals.” Before he could comment, she said, “So you’ve been to Turkey. Vacation?”

He shook his head. “It was just a stopover from one place to another.”

“You should go back when you can spend some time there. The city—Istanbul—is one of the most remarkable places in the world. A friend of mine described it once as being the perfect convergence of the old and the new. That’s certainly true of the art scene there. The museums and the galleries are packed with vibrant contemporary works. They’re world class, really.”

“Including your own, of course.”

“Of course. But I can’t take credit for its success. My associate there, Elvan Kazma, is responsible for the exhibits. She has an amazing eye for talent.” Carly pointed to the paper squares and rectangles that hung on the wall and on the partition. “But it’s this exhibit you’re here to talk about, right?”

“Right. I think the residents of St. Dennis might want to know how you came to be interested in working here. You know, why someone who owns galleries in all those places would want to spend time working—unpaid, if I understand correctly—in a little place like St. Dennis.”

“I’ve been friends with Ellie since sixth grade, so when she moved here, of course I came to visit. I am falling in love with the town, I don’t mind saying it. It certainly has its charm, and it’s a place where people seem to care about each other. I’ve met some terrific people here.” She hesitated. “What exactly did your mother tell you? About the artwork, I mean.”

“She didn’t really have much time to tell me much,” he admitted.

Carly seemed to be debating with herself. “There are some things you should probably know that you can’t put into the article. At least, not this article. Not yet.”

“O-kay,” he said.

“Let me tell you about a St. Dennis artist named Carolina Ellis.” Carly told him everything, about how Carolina was Ellie’s great-great-grandmother, how her husband had tried to stifle her talent, how she’d painted so many works that had been stored in Ellie’s house and had even given some away to friends and family members. How a few of Carolina’s works had made their way into regional museums before Carolina had been recognized as a great talent, and how, eventually, a few of her paintings had gone to auction and fetched some hefty dollars, enough that the art world began to take serious notice.

“So few of her works were available, and so little was known about her,” Carly told him, “but her paintings were so strong, and her talent so incredible, that the few pieces that were available were prized.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of her. Then again, I don’t know a lot about art.”

“There are a lot of people who haven’t heard of her, but that is going to change, once this exhibit opens. The paintings we found in Ellie’s house …” She shook her head as if she still couldn’t believe what they’d found. “You have to see them to believe it. Once this exhibit opens and the art world sees what we have here, Carolina Ellis will be recognized for the great artist she was.” Carly smiled, somewhat ruefully, and added, “I had hoped to be able to introduce her—and her work—at my gallery in New York. Manhattan’s the hub of the art world—well, one of the hubs, anyway—and the thought of being the one to bring this woman’s work out of the shadows—or more accurately, the attic—was the sort of thing everyone dreams of doing. You know, like an athlete hopes to play that game that people will talk about forever, or a writer hopes to write that one book that shakes the literary world. That’s how I felt when I thought about being the one who would …” She shook her head again.

“So what happened?” he asked. “How did it go from you showing the paintings in your place in New York, to setting up this place here?” His gesture encompassed the carriage house.

Carly explained how the vision of the gallery had grown, and how the town council wanted to use Curtis Enright’s gift. “And then someone—your mom, I think—remembered that Carolina was a St. Dennis girl, and that some of her paintings had been auctioned in New York. It was no secret that Ellie had inherited the house Carolina had lived in with her family, and that some of her paintings were hanging on the walls.”

“So they asked Ellie if they could borrow them.”

Carly nodded.

“And they wanted all of Carolina’s paintings, the ones from the attic as well, I’m guessing.”

“They don’t know about those. Actually, no one except Ellie and Cam—and your mother—knows about those. That’s the part I’d like you to leave out of your article, if you don’t mind.” That rueful smile again. “They know that Ellie has a number of paintings hanging throughout her house, and they believe that’s what they’re getting.

“I’d wanted to make such a splash at my gallery with these paintings,” she explained. “Something the entire art world would sit up and notice.”

He nodded. He got it. “So if you can’t do that there, you want to do that here.”

“Exactly. But we don’t want anyone to know just yet what we’re planning.”

“Doesn’t that piss you off? That you had something spectacular planned that would draw big-time attention to your gallery, and it was snatched away from you?”

“Oh, I don’t look at it that way. I’m still getting to introduce the world to Carolina’s work, and that’s the important thing.”

“That sounds like rationalization, if you don’t mind my saying.”

“I don’t mind. I admit that at first I was really disappointed when I had to cancel my plans.” She looked momentarily wistful, then her face brightened. “But I still have the pleasure of setting up this new gallery, and bringing the attention of the art world to this lovely town, and that’s a good thing, so what’s to be angry about? I mean, Carolina’s paintings being shown are what’s important here, and the exhibit’s going to be great, no matter where we hold it.”

“Are you going to tell me there’s no resentment at all?”

She shook her head. “None whatsoever.”

“Okay, then.” He pretended to jot something in the notebook, but what he really was doing was trying to wrap his head around the fact that she was cool with the fact that her gallery wasn’t going to get to do the exhibit. He was pretty sure if he’d been in her shoes, he wouldn’t have been as easygoing.

She glanced at her watch. “Do you think you have enough for the first article? I promised Ellie’s sister I’d drive her to her field-hockey tryout this afternoon, since Ellie’s working.”

“Oh. Sure.” He tried to tuck the notebook into his back pocket but it was just slightly too big to fit. He tried to fold it, but the cover was too hard. The effort left him feeling just a little foolish and he hoped she hadn’t noticed.

“Do you want to schedule next week’s interview now?” she asked as she gathered her purse and her iPad and her phone, which she’d left on a nearby stool.

“What’s a good day for you?”

“I’m here every day, so whenever you need to write next the article …”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know the schedule for the paper.” He hesitated. “How ’bout early in the week … say maybe Tuesday? That way, we can be sure to meet the deadline.”

“Sounds great. I’ll be here.”

She was obviously leaving, having turned off the air-conditioning and the lights, so Ford had no choice but to follow her out the door.

“So I guess I’ll see you on Tuesday. Same time?” he asked.

“Great.” She stopped next to the big SUV and opened the driver’s-side door and slid in behind the wheel. “I’ll see you then.”

He would have liked to have just stood there until she’d gone, just to look at her, but he was parked behind her. He walked back to the car and got in and backed out of the driveway far enough to let her pull out in front of him. She waved as she drove off.

The last thing Ford had expected was what—who—he’d found when he stepped inside the carriage house. Carly Summit had all but knocked him off his feet. She was not only very easy to look at, but she was interesting in a way a lot of women in his experience had not been, and he was drawn to her in a way he hadn’t been attracted to anyone since Anna. Anna of the golden hair and the brilliant blue eyes and the heart and soul of a pacifist, a woman who was totally devoted to the job that she did, a woman who truly believed in the good of everyone she met. Apparently, the rebel soldiers she and the others had met up with hadn’t gotten the memo on that last part.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but a glance at his watch told him he’d been there for almost two hours.

So it was true, he thought as he made the turn onto Hudson Street. Time really did fly when you were having a good time—and the two hours he’d spent in Carly Summit’s company had been the best two hours he’d had in a very long time.

THE bleachers at the high school field were just a few feet too far from the tree line to have offered any shade before late afternoon, and Carly was lamenting the lack of sunscreen. Gabi had yet to run through the drill that was a required part of the tryout for the varsity field-hockey team, so Carly thought it would be rude for her to leave her seat and go back into the air-conditioned comfort of her car, so she stayed where she was. Some things, she reminded herself, you just had to suck up, and this was one of them. Early July on the Eastern Shore could be hot and muggy, and today was all that and more. She brushed sweat from her forehead and tried to find something positive in the experience, but it was tough with the inside of her head about to boil over like a cauldron of bubbling soup. She tried to distract herself by thinking cool thoughts, but the image of Ford Sinclair standing in the doorway of the carriage house left her anything but cooled off.

Ford had been wearing a dark blue polo shirt that deepened the storm-cloud gray of his eyes, and khaki shorts, and looked more like the adventurer he was supposed to be than he had the first time they’d met. His sunglasses had hung from the V of the shirt placket and his hair was a few weeks past needing a trim. Her heart had all but stopped when he walked in. She tried to remember the last time she’d had such a reaction to a man, and sadly had to admit it had been probably never, unless the first time they’d met counted. Or the day he’d turned up at the tennis court …