When Adam Came to Town. Kate Kelly

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      CHAPTER TWO

      TWO DAYS LATER, Sylvie dropped the phone into its cradle and wandered over to the dormer window of the attic room Pops had made into a studio for her years ago.

      She’d woken depressed and tried to convince herself the low pressure system moving in from the ocean was the reason for her foul mood. The clouds looked saturated with rain, but none had fallen yet. There wasn’t a breath of wind outside. The ocean, for once, was a benign presence, still and crystalline. She should go for a brisk walk along the beach, get her heart pumping and clear her head of the debris left from her brief conversation with her now ex-boyfriend, Oliver, whom she’d left behind in Toronto.

      Oliver was a sophisticated, cultured man, and everyone envied her relationship with him. Even her father and brothers, for Pete’s sake. No matter how many times she explained to them that Oliver had a doctorate degree in museum studies, not medicine, they referred to him as Dr. Templeton. When he’d visited her two months ago, nothing had been too good for the doctor. Lobster, scallops, boat rides out to watch the whales. Her family had fallen in love with him. Which, now she thought about it, wasn’t an unusual reaction to Oliver. She was the problem, not him. To make matters worse, he’d seemed genuinely interested in everything her father and brothers had talked about. But that was Oliver. He made everyone believe they were fascinating.

      In fact, during the entire two years they’d been a couple, she had thought about breaking up with him on more than one occasion. But when she tried to talk about it with her girlfriends or her family, or even Oliver, they looked at her like she was crazy. Small wonder. Her sole reason was that her handsome, considerate boyfriend annoyed her to no end. She always felt she had to be on her best behavior around him. And if she ever did let her guard down, act snotty and throw a fit, he’d say it was her artistic temperament and would she like a back rub? She didn’t want a back rub, and she didn’t want him to be so damned nice. She wanted...well, that was the problem. She had no idea what it was she wanted, but it wasn’t Oliver.

      This morning she’d taken the coward’s way out and ended the relationship over the phone. The gesture had been mostly a formality. She’d only seen him twice since she’d moved back home and had assumed he’d gotten on with his life.

      To her surprise, he’d done his best to change her mind, just as he had every time she’d told him she needed a break from their relationship. Yet this time she’d sensed something different. He hadn’t sounded upset as much as annoyed—probably because he was far too self-contained to blow up. Too bad. She’d have welcomed a shouting match. Something that she could rip into. Something...real. The only thing she felt was relief.

      Their lives had dovetailed together perfectly in the beginning. He owned a respected art gallery, and took a chance on her as an unknown artist—a chance that had paid off for both of them. Her career had taken off under his guidance and had been capped off when a corporation commissioned her to paint six seascapes. She’d managed to paint four before she returned home to help take care of Pops.

      How could she have guessed that here, at the edge of the ocean, her muse would desert her, and she wouldn’t be able to complete the last two seascapes? This was where it had all begun. Where she’d won her first drawing contest. Where she’d spent endless hours learning and perfecting her craft.

      And now Oliver was hinting that she’d run out of time. The buyers wanted their paintings, and if she couldn’t come up with them, the damage to her reputation, not to mention his reputation, would be irreparable. Bottom line, either she pulled it together and started painting again, or she’d better start shopping around for another career. Which was a slight exaggeration, and beside the point, because if she couldn’t paint, she couldn’t paint. But damn, she wished she could get it all back. Well, not Oliver necessarily. But she truly loved painting.

      A burning sensation shot through her chest, a sure sign of an oncoming panic attack. She plopped into the chair by her desk, stuck her head between her legs and started counting. Life was difficult enough with her father still not completely recovered and her being blocked, she didn’t need this. The panic attacks had to stop. Maybe she should forget about her career for now. Forget about everything, except resolving her issues with her family.

      Except she hadn’t even told them what she’d remembered about the night her mother died. She was waiting for Pops to get stronger. And then she’d ask her questions, and maybe somehow magically, she’d get her life back. Problem was, the longer she stayed in limbo, the more she wondered if she wanted to go back to her old life.

      When СКАЧАТЬ