“You could make some enemies there in town, you know.”

“Blood is thicker than water.”

“We’re not related,” Carly reminded her. “There is no ‘blood.’ It’s all water.”

“A technicality.” Ellie laughed, as Carly had intended. “We might as well be blood. Look, they’re my paintings and I can do whatever I want with them. But I have to be honest, I do love the idea of having them introduced to the world right here in St. Dennis. It’s where Carolina lived and worked and raised her family. A lot of her subject matter was right here in town. Some things are gone—like the lighthouse—but other landmarks are still here. The town square, that tiny church on Old St. Mary’s Church Road, some of the homes that she painted.”

“Look, maybe you could approach them this way. Say that you aren’t sure that the conditions in the mansion are suitable for a display of this size and importance, so you need to determine exactly what the conditions are. If there’s too much moisture in the air, the paintings could be damaged. Too hot, too dry, too cold—”

“I get it,” Ellie told her. “If I can get them to agree to hire you—”

“They can’t afford me. Which is okay, I’ll donate my time as long as the exhibit has my name on it.” Thoughts buzzed around inside her head and she began to think out loud. “Maybe it could work. Maybe. Understand that the way the art world perceives the exhibit will have a direct effect on the value of the paintings when you are ready to sell them.”

“Okay, I’m hanging up now and I’m going to call the mayor and the president of the town council—”

“And security. There’s going to have to be real security—”

“Really, I’m hanging up—”

“Ellie, wait. If I could make a suggestion.”

“Certainly.”

“If I were you,” Carly began cautiously, “I’d ask them to call a special meeting to discuss this. Tell them you’ve thought it over and that you consulted with a pro. You know the paintings are very valuable and you are concerned about the security and the integrity of these works. If they are at all interested, tell them I’d like to make a trip down there to assess the conditions.”

“They’ll be interested when I tell them they don’t get the paintings until you’re on board.”

“And tell them up front that if the conditions aren’t right and the works can’t be shown properly—”

“Then the paintings stay in New York. The more we’ve talked, the less comfortable I am with the thought of handing over a fortune in artwork to people who have no idea what they’re doing.”

“Probably not the best way to present your case to them.”

Ellie laughed. “I’m hanging up now. I have calls to make. Thank you for your input. I knew you’d know what to do.”

The call disconnected and Carly placed the phone on her desk. It made her crazy to think that Carolina’s paintings would be shown anywhere other than Summit Galleries. This exhibit was all she’d thought about for weeks. Still … if she had control, if she were still calling the shots and debuting the works, did it matter where they were shown as long as her name was connected with the exhibit?

She grabbed her phone and sent Ellie a quick email:

Ellie, tell these people that you want to keep the existence of Carolina’s paintings hush-hush until a big splashy announcement can be made. It’s too much to hope that it could be kept a secret, but try to make them understand and appreciate the value of silence. Tell them that the greater the surprise, the bigger the news will be—that you want to bring as much positive attention to St. Dennis as possible. Then call me the minute you have something to tell!

She hit send and then sat back and prayed that the powers that be in St. Dennis had enough sense to know that what Ellie was proposing was the best way—the only way—to introduce the world to Carolina Ellis.

Over the next thirty-six hours, Carly jumped every time the phone rang or pinged with an incoming email. When Ellie finally called, she was bubbling over with news.

“You would have been so proud of me,” Ellie told Carly. “I was so cool. So collected. So professional. So—”

“Right. I’m sure you were. Now what happened?”

“Well, first I went over the things we discussed. You know, temperature, moisture in the air, security, that stuff. No one knew anything about any of that. So I said that I’d already discussed the situation with the owner of a very prestigious New York gallery and that I couldn’t possibly let my family’s legacy be put in jeopardy unless the conditions in the mansion were right.”

“Ah, that might have been piling it a little high.”

“Who cares? They bought it. Long story short, they agreed that you should come to St. Dennis ASAP and go through the mansion and see if it would—or could—work for an exhibit such as this one. I pointed out that if we could get this exhibit off the ground, we could make it a huge event with tons of publicity, and it would bring in a lot of revenue for the merchants and the restaurants and the B&Bs.”

“Nice touch.”

“I thought so.” Ellie sounded smug.

“So when should I come?”

“Oh, that’s the other thing. I hope you don’t have anything planned for the weekend, because I told them you’d be here on Saturday.” Ellie paused. “I hope that works for you.”

“It works. I’ll be at your place on Friday, so make something really good for dinner.”

“Will reservations do?”

“Of course. Oh, and Ellie? Tell Grace to please keep it all out of the paper …”

Chapter 4

CARLY stood in the foyer of the very impressive Enright home and marveled that anyone would give away such a treasure.

“This place is beautiful. It’s hard to believe the man just gave it to the town.” She doubted that she’d ever feel so philanthropic that she’d do the same.

“It is unless you know the man.” Grace Sinclair, as a member of the committee that was to decide the fate of the proposed art gallery, met with Carly and Ellie at the property on Saturday morning.

“The Enrights have lived in St. Dennis for over a century,” Ed Lassiter, who was there in his official capacity as president of the town council, explained. “I think Curtis wanted to make certain that the property was maintained and that it never fell into disrepair. That’s the chance you take when you sell a property. You have no control over who buys it or what they’ll do with it. But if you gift it with strings, as Curtis did, you can ensure that it will be properly cared for.” He added, “At least until the money runs out.”

“The word is that he provided quite handsomely for the maintenance,” Grace noted, “so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“One hopes.” Ellie took Carly’s arm and steered her into the first room off the hall. “This was used as a living room, I believe. As you can see, there’s quite a bit of wall space to display paintings.”

Carly walked around the room, noting the abundance of windows.

“There’s so much light in here. If this room were to be used as a gallery, the windows would have to be heavily draped or you’d run the risk of the colors in the paintings fading. Plus, with the light being uneven in the room, the paintings will be partially in shadow, which won’t show them off well. Artificial lighting would have to be installed and carefully placed if this room were to be used.” She paused in the center of the room. It was barely eleven in the morning, and already the temperature was in the eighties. “There’s no air-conditioning?”

“Window units. The house was built long before duct work was in use,” Grace explained. “Hence all the radiators.”

Carly looked at Ellie almost apologetically. “If the temperature and humidity can’t be controlled, you can’t hang the paintings here for any length of time. They’ll be damaged, some perhaps irrevocably.”

Ellie nodded her head. “I understand.”

The entourage followed Carly back into the hall and watched her climb the first few steps of the staircase.

“As grand as these stairs are, they really weren’t designed for the type of foot traffic you’re likely to have, especially during those first days of the exhibit. You’ll have people stumbling over each other, and bumping into each other, and the next thing you know, someone falls and there’s—”

“A lawsuit against the town.” Ed stated the obvious.

“Exactly. Also, there’s no real gallery space here. These are important works of art and they will need to be displayed in a specific way, and that wouldn’t be possible here.” Carly turned to Ed, who had the fullest, whitest head of hair she had ever seen. She tried not to stare. “I don’t really think this house is suitable, as magnificent as it is. I couldn’t recommend it as being an appropriate venue to display your paintings, Ellie. I’m sorry. I know how much you wanted to share them with everyone.”