“What’s the artist’s verdict?” she asked. Seeing the warmth in her expression softened his mood.
“Today is evaluation and cleaning,” he said, pointing out the areas of damage that needed to be stabilized before any retouching could take place.
Holly picked up a tube of oil paint from the table, admiring the color. “So no painting today, then?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s the very last step. Cleaning and prepping is a delicate process. I don’t want to disturb any of the original, but I want to do a thorough job so that the next layer of paint adheres properly.”
“What about color matching? I’m guessing that will be tricky, with the original being so old?”
“Maybe not. Modern paints are comprised of different pigments, so there is a far greater range of colors. Don’t worry. I’ll take my time finding the right match before I put brush to wall.” He turned to look at her. “It’s going to be a bit of a process, I’m afraid. Probably a week, at least.”
This news appeared to come as a surprise. “I see.” She paused. “The thing is, I have a wedding party coming in tomorrow, and they’ve reserved use of the entire inn through the weekend. So we’d need to pause your work for a little while.”
“Pause?” Restoring the painting had been his idea; he’d thought of it as a final curtain call, where he could decide when he exited the stage. “For how long exactly?”
Holly could tell she’d upset him. “It’s just four days, but I imagine it can’t be easy to work with all the interruptions around here this time of year. If you’d rather, we could put this on hold for the offseason.”
“Offseason?” he barked. Ezra cleared his throat. There was no need to startle the young woman. “No, no, I’m afraid that’s just not possible. I won’t be here.” The words came out before he could stop them, tumbling into the parlor like a dark cloud. God, he hoped she would not understand what they meant.
“I see.” Holly was still puzzling this out in her mind, he could tell. “Are you going to visit your daughter?”
At the mention of Amy, Ezra felt his insides give. “Yes,” he lied. “I am. So I need to get this project done as soon as possible.” He stared at his shoes, unable to meet Holly’s gaze.
“Of course we want nothing more than to accommodate your schedule, since you’re the one helping us. I just need the parlor Thursday through Sunday. After that it’s yours again.” She paused. “I’m sorry I didn’t clarify that earlier. I’m not used to commissioning artists.”
A small laugh escaped him. “I’m not used to being commissioned.”
Commissioned or not, in his heart Ezra was an artist. As much as the thought pained him, he would make this work for Holly. Even if it meant sticking around a few extra days; even if it meant changing course once more.
Ben
Damn it if Holly Goodwin didn’t look good. Better, even. To be fair, he’d known exactly where he was going the day he delivered the oysters and he’d known that there was every chance he’d run into her. Holly, who’d had no warning whatsoever, had been caught off guard. And still she looked great.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to him. Holly had always been beautiful, but there were times over the years that Ben wondered if some of his attraction to her came from all the memories shared. After all, it was impossible not to feel intimacy with someone with whom you’d shared so many milestones. However, seeing Holly again, Ben realized it was not so much about attraction as it was about pull. Holly Goodwin had always pulled him in. As the awkward long-limbed girl he’d fallen into friendship with, Holly had been the least tough of their summer group of friends. Back then the group shifted each summer, but there was a handful of regulars. He and Jonah; Greg, whose parents rented the house next door every summer for the month of August; Sandy, his older sister. Other kids came and went allsummer, but that was their regular crew. Among them, Holly had seemed the most innocent. At first she was afraid of the fiddler crabs they caught in their nets in the tidal pools. When they jumped off the low cliffs along the shore, Holly held back. Later, when they pilfered beer from their parents and passed them around the beach bonfire, Holly took the smallest sips. While other kids teased her about those things, Ben always felt a sense of protectiveness for her. Besides, Holly was the smartest among them. She knew the tides like the back of her hand, even if they were the ones out boating in them. Holly was never without a book, even when they biked into town for ice cream. At fourteen, it was she who figured out how to sneak out in her grandfather’s truck, jump-starting the engine by popping the clutch when it rolled far enough downhill from the inn so as not to be heard. Ben had never met anyone else who knew how to do that. When you looked closely at Holly Goodwin, there was a lot more pluck than appeared on the surface. Seeing her walk through the kitchen door yesterday, Ben saw it again. Despite her linen suit and her no-nonsense ponytail, there it was in her unwavering blue-eyed stare. He’d not been able to shake the feeling it gave him since.
Jonah found him staring out the window in the upstairs office. “Got a minute?”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Thanks for filling in on deliveries. Any chance you’ve got a few more days in you?”
“I think I can muster a few.”
“That was too easy.” Jonah looked at him. “You saw her, didn’t you?”
“Saw who?”
His brother laughed. “I knew it. Wow, that must’ve been something.”
“It was a quick hello. I was working.”
“My ass,” Jonah said, sitting on the edge of the desk and crossing his arms. “How is she?”
They’d both known Holly, and each other, too long for Jonah to let it go. Plus Jonah was downright nosy. “I wish I could say more,” Ben admitted. “I walked in the kitchen and there she was. We said hello, made small talk about seeing one another in the magazine, asked after each other’s family, and then I left.”
“That’s it?”
It was, sadly. “We were surrounded by staff and standing in the middle of her chef’s kitchen. What else do you want?”
