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There was another M.S. original at the back of the crate. “Gage!” I said as I pulled it out. He turned, abandoning the box that he’d just gotten to the back of.
“Two,” he breathed as he again came to stand next to me so we could both look down at the picture. This one was mostly trees, and a slip of rocky shore.
I felt like rejoicing and crying and I was still just a little turned on. I took a step away. “Let’s go ask the owner about these,” I said. We headed back toward the front where the two customers she’d been chatting with were now browsing a shelf near the front window.
“Oh my!” She brought her hands to her mouth when she saw that I was carrying two paintings. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Yes,” I said, the excitement I felt clear in my voice. “These are by the same artist.” I set them down on the mahogany counter. “Are you able to tell us where you got them?”
She frowned as she tapped a finger to her chin. “I’m sorry, but I can’t recall. Most of those pieces in the back, I’ve had for many years. My daughter used to help me collect items for my store before she got married and moved to New Hampshire, so there’s a chance she picked those up. I add to the collection now and again, but I rarely look through them.”
My shoulders dropped. Damn. “Are you able to tell me anything at all about these paintings?” The irony that I was posing as an art appraiser and yet was asking for a professional opinion about two pieces of art didn’t escape me.
“Hmm,” she hummed as she leaned forward and perused the two paintings, moving her head as she looked from one to the other. “I’d say they’re charming, but not masterful. The artist does seem to possess a talent for evoking emotion.”
“Yes,” I agreed, delighted by the fact that my instinctive assessment matched up to this woman’s more knowledgeable opinion.
Gage stepped up next to me as he removed a business card from his wallet. “If you happen to remember where you got these, or see any others like them with these initials, will you give me a call?”
The woman took the card and glanced down at it. “Certainly, Mr. Buchanan.”
I moved to take my credit card from the small wallet I was carrying around my wrist, but the woman waved me away. “No charge. Consider it my contribution toward identifying your artist.”
I let out a breath as I lowered my arm. “That’s very kind of you.”
“I can’t believe it,” I said as we were walking to Gage’s car.
He smiled over at me. “Our treasure hunt started on a high note,” he said. “But you know what I’m wondering, right?”
I looked over my shoulder at him as he opened my door. “If there’s another diary entry behind these?”
“Exactly. Get in and let’s find out.”
He walked around the car and got behind the wheel and started to take one of the paintings off my lap, but I put a hand on his. “Let’s open the backs of these once we get back to Faith’s.” I saw Gage nod in my peripheral vision as I ran my hand over the glass, my heart giving a thump. My father painted these. His hand drew these lines. I stretched my own fingers out, wondering which parts of me that obviously didn’t come from my mother, came from him. Or perhaps his mother, or her mother before that. I suddenly felt part of a larger whole whereas all my life, I’d only considered myself a Mud Gulch Casteel. My father and his family felt close all of a sudden, closer than they’d ever felt, and I realized that since I’d arrived in the Pelion Lake area, I hadn’t felt that pull that I’d experienced all my life.
Had I simply been too involved in my treasure hunt to notice it? Or had it gone away because I’d arrived just where I’d been meant to be?
I felt energized, not only because I’d just found two pieces of art, but because the last diary entry we’d read had mentioned the founding member flirting with my mother, reinforcing that I was on the right track. He was the important man she’d told me about. I was so incredibly glad I’d taken the risk and followed what I believed to be my mother’s nudge.
I lay my head back on the plush leather of Gage’s rental car, turning my head just enough to look at him without him being able to tell that he was being observed. My eyes wandered over his strong profile, lingering on the crease between his brows. What was he thinking so hard about? Did he realize how much he frowned when he thought no one was watching? What are you so troubled by, Mr. Perfect?
The more time we spent together, a better picture of Gage Buchanan emerged. I considered what we’d talked about in the car before arriving at Haven’s Gate, about his continued assertion that he was honored by the pressure he felt to carry on his father’s legacy. Did he even realize how tense he got when he talked about his incredible luck? His immense privilege? His duty to make his parents happy? There was no joy in the subject for Gage. Did he realize that he spoke on the subject as if it was rehearsed, like he’d been repeating it in his head all his life? I didn’t think he did. Which made me suspect something about it was less than natural, like maybe he was attempting to convince himself of something that wasn’t true.
So what is true, Gage? Who are you without all the trappings of being the perfect son? What would you do if you could do anything at all?
I’m not as perfect as I seem.
Thinking about the sacrifices Gage made for his father made me think of Romeo. And maybe that’s why Gage’s situation needled at me so much. Honestly, hearing him talk about it rubbed at me like sandpaper. Perhaps in some way, I took it personally. Because my uncle had made a sacrifice too. Romeo had been forced to give in to the pressure of family commitment despite his own dreams.
My gaze moved away from Gage to the scenery moving past the car. My heart gave an unusual squeeze as I caught glimpses of the rocky shore of the lake through the trees. Something about the view of the lake felt…familiar somehow. No, that wasn’t the right word, and I couldn’t exactly figure out what was. Maybe because there was no singular word. Ever since I’d first caught the glimmer of this lake, I’d felt a ball of emotion rise up in my chest. I’d felt joy, and longing, and peace and even…a strange grief for something I couldn’t name. I glanced down at the watercolor in my lap. Maybe it was that I was looking at the true-life vision of what my father had looked on with his own eyes as he’d painted it. Just as I could tell there was love in the painting of my mother, I could sense that there was love for this place. Maybe the part of him that had loved Pelion Lake had somehow passed on to me.
“What are you thinking about over there?” Gage asked, breaking me from my reverie.
“My father,” I said. “He loved this place,” I said with certainty, lightly tapping on the glass of the painting.
Gage nodded, glancing down at the framed pieces in my lap. “I agree,” he said, obviously understanding that I was making the statement based on the emotion present in the art.
Butterflies fluttered in my stomach at the thought that my father, right this very moment, might be only a few miles from me.
