She turned back toward the way she’d come from the ferry, then about halfway to the dock, she turned onto a road that went into the heart of the island. She hadn’t been on this road for ten years, but the deep gloom that shrouded it was very familiar.
She passed a scattering of orchards and old bungalows, then spotted her turn. She slowed to a crawl and for a moment thought of just turning around and going back to the gallery to look at paintings and do this later. But instead, she braced herself and turned onto a narrow lane choked by trees and overgrown brush trees.
She went up a small hill and knew the exact moment when she crossed the boundary into the land where she’d been born and lived for eighteen years. She saw the house right away, despite the untended vegetation that pressed all around it. The faded blue walls were chalky and weather-stained. The windows were blank, but unbroken, and the porch sagged precariously.
She pulled the car to a stop and just sat there staring at the house. Why had she dreaded this so much? There was no repeat of the ridiculous tears from the day before. This place meant nothing to her. It was just an old, neglected place that, now that she’d seen it, she could mark off her list and put up for sale, as she should have done years ago, after her father had died. She’d forget about it the way she would this island, forever. She pulled away and didn’t look back, just the way she hadn’t looked back when she’d walked away from the house after graduation with eleven dollars in her pocket.
By the time she drove back into town, her mind was on art. She’d taken up collecting a few years ago when she’d spotted a canvas in an art gallery in New York. It was just a simple work by an unknown artist, depicting a road that wound through a rocky countryside, going off into a horizon splashed with the rich colors of sunset. It drew her in, and she’d bought it on impulse.
Since then, she’d picked up a few paintings here and there with similar themes, roads or paths heading into the distance to an unknown goal. She never analyzed why she felt a connection to those scenes, but in every city she visited, she sought out more of the same. Sometimes she found something, most times she didn’t. But she was going to do the same thing on the island. It would be one spot of pleasure in this ordeal.
She drove slowly along the main street, which was a lot busier than the day before. She passed the Snug Harbor B&B and spotted Angelo’s gallery on the other side of the street another block down. She pulled into what appeared to be the only available parking spot and climbed out of the car.
Her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her pocket and flipped it open. “Hey, Roz, what’s going on?”
She turned to head up the two steps to the wooden walkway. Just as Roz started to tell her about a distribution meeting that had been called for the next day, someone ran into her left side. She would have gone right off the edge of the walkway if a hand hadn’t grabbed her by her upper arm.
A voice was saying, “Oh, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” The voice was familiar. As familiar as the deep blue eyes she met when she turned toward the voice. Joe.
Seeing him right by her, holding her, startled her as much as the collision moments earlier had, and she found herself acting without thinking, jerking back and free of his touch. “You almost knocked me into next week!” she said.
Joe let her go, but didn’t move back. Instead, he hunkered down, then quickly straightened up. He had her phone, was offering it to her. She stared at it, knowing she must have dropped it when they collided, then she heard Roz yelling through the earpiece, “Alegra? Alegra! What’s going on?”
She took it quickly from Joe and pressed it against her ear. “Roz, I’m sorry, I dropped the phone. I’ll have to call you back.” She flipped it shut, then turned the phone over in her hand. It had a scuff mark, but other than that, looked okay.
“You didn’t kill it,” Joe said.
“That’s all I’d need.” She pushed it into her jacket pocket. “It took me ages to download all my information into it.”
His eyes flicked over her, then back to her face. “I bet it did.”
Was that sarcasm? She felt a touch of heat in her face. “I’m fully connected now.”
That brought a crooked smile to his lips. “I take it that’s a good thing?”
It occurred to her that he, for some reason, had come back here whipped and beaten, and because of that, resented anyone he saw as successful. The man was handsome and sexy, but he was an islander and obviously a loser. It was a combination that should have killed any attraction she felt for him. But it didn’t. “Whatever.”
He frowned. “You know, that’s truly annoying.”
“Excuse me?” She frowned right back at him.
“The word whatever. It’s annoying. It shows indifference to something, maybe even scorn. It’s a lousy word that gets used far too much. People should just say, ‘I don’t give a damn.’”
The heat in her face now wasn’t entirely a product of being irritated by his penchant for defining words, good or bad. It was because she was anything but indifferent to this man. Instead of arguing, she said with exaggerated pronunciation, “Whatever.”
To her surprise he chuckled roughly and held his hands up, palms out. “Okay, okay, I give up.”
“Good decision,” she said.
He cocked his head to one side and considered her for a long moment. “Were you coming here to see me and give me a good human-interest piece for the paper? I can see it now. ‘Alegra Reynolds of Alegra’s Closet fame, visits our island for—’?”
She cut that off with a fast, “No,” as she realized she’d parked right in front of the Beacon. He must have been coming out of his office. But as the single word hung between them, she had second thoughts. She’d planned to avoid all the islanders until the time was right to tell everyone who she’d been and who she was now; she hadn’t wanted anyone to stumble over her past identity until she was ready. But maybe there was a better way.
Joe, no matter what he’d been in the past, ran the only newspaper in town. What if she let him see Alegra Reynolds, what she accomplished, where she was going, the things that would provide background to the story that would surely be front page news? For when she went to the ball on the last night of the festival, when she finally stood up in front of the islanders and handed them a check to go into a fund for town improvements, an amount that would stun most of the people there, it would be a big story. Meanwhile, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for one person to know what she’d accomplished in the years since she’d left the island.
He’d seen her hesitation and continued, “Nothing too intrusive. Just a ‘Guess who’s at the festival’ sort of story.”
“Sure, why not?” she asked.
“Great. If you have time later on, maybe we can—”
“I was on my way to Angelo’s art gallery. I had to park here—it’s packed by the gallery.”
“Parking’s pretty tight with the festival starting tomorrow. That’s why Angelo has a parking area behind his building.”
“Good to know for future reference,” she said, and had an idea how to start passing information to Joe. “Since you’re a local, is there any secret about approaching Angelo if I want to buy something?”
“You mean, to get a deal?” he asked with a crooked smile.
She nodded. “It never hurts to save money.”
“One thing to keep in mind is, Angelo Paloma is very protective of the artists he shows. He likes haggling and selling the product. The only suggestion I’d have is, don’t accept the first price he gives you.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
He nodded. “I’ve got a bit of time on my hands at the moment. Why