cousins and enjoy the time getting to know you both.” He smiled. “It helps that I decided I already like you.”
“Same here,” she replied with an answering smile, and he was relieved to see it.
He held open the door for her. “Let’s talk about the press, security, and how to handle all the friends that are about to show up at your doorstep. Then you can have a couple hours of peace to adjust to this before we plan tomorrow’s news conference.” He laughed at her expression. “Giving back the money is not an option. You’ll get through this fine. I promise you that.”
“And to think I thought just this morning that life was finally so peaceful. It’s not going to be that anymore, is it?”
“Not for a while,” he agreed, understanding the turmoil the change itself was going to cause. “You’ll adapt, because it’s necessary, because it is what is.”
“Yes. I am glad I have more family.”
“So am I.” He was going to like having more family, and it was his nature to want to protect where he could. “Coffee first. Then we’ll talk about details. Have you ever met the police chief? He’s a friend of mine.”
“Am I about to?”
“For dinner tonight, I think; his sister makes a fabulous chocolate cake.”
Chapter Five
SHE WAS RICH.
The thought clashed with years of feeling short of money, and the reality began to take substance as Marie walked the sidewalks back to her gallery. The Denart, a few of the other paintings she loved… she could collect for the first time in her life.
The sack she carried brushed her knee. She’d taken Daniel’s advice and stopped at her favorite paint-supply store and bought the paints and tools she’d always wished she could afford. Her studio was about to be her safe haven and retreat from this uncertain place she was in. Security upgrades, unlisted phone numbers, background checks on future staff she hired… there were serious changes about to arrive in her life.
The gallery would become a visitors’ stopping place, browsers hoping to meet her rather than buyers coming to shop, and the need for more staff would be immediate. The studio would be her place to push back against some of those pressures. Tracey would have it easier, Marie thought, for she’d left her job with a medical counseling group to continue her schooling. The changes in lifestyle necessary to accommodate the unfortunate facts coming along with the new wealth could be factored in without a problem.
The sidewalk in front of her gallery had a few people waiting for the crossing light, and against the brick wall a man in a jacket and jeans waited beside the door to her private entrance to her apartment above the gallery. He had seen her approaching and was watching as she walked toward him. A compact man, dark hair, and eyes that studied her with more than casual inspection, his hands holding leather gloves rather than wearing them. Her steps slowed.
“Marie?”
“Yes.”
“Lieutenant Connor Black. Daniel sent me.”
She flushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting. Please come up.”
“It’s no problem; Daniel caught me on this side of town. And I hear shopping is good thinking time.” He pushed away from the wall as he smiled, and she caught the change just that smile caused as it lightened the intensity of his face and made hazel eyes soften.
She smiled back at him. “Shopping for work: some paint supplies, and I still stood and debated with myself the prices for which kind of brush to buy.”
He laughed. “I doubt that will ever change. Daniel asked for a quick answer on what kind of security needs you might have for the next few days, and I had an ulterior motive for agreeing with his request. Your sister Tracey is dating Caleb Marsh-my partner.”
She turned from wrestling with her key in the old lock. “Marsh is-” She beamed. “Oh, I adore him. Do you have time for a cup of coffee first? I would say we have a good deal to discuss.” She got the door to unlock, and he held it for her.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever thought of Marsh as adorable, but lately the man has looked happy in a way I haven’t seen in years; for that reason I already like your sister a great deal.”
She led the way up the stairs to the second floor. The hallway turned and made its way across the gallery space below. “Storage rooms and utilities are on the east side, and we combined rooms on this side to create an apartment flat.” She unlocked the middle door and turned on the flat lights. “Please come in. Lieutenant-”
“Make it Connor, please.”
“Connor. It’s been four hours since I first got the news. I admit I’m still in a bit of a fog about it all. You’ll have to tell me what you need to see.”
“I’d say that fog is understandable.”
“I’ve been trying to figure out what to tell Tracey, but the words aren’t there yet.” She set down her packages on the dining-room table.
“It’s not a small thing, finally putting a name to the father you didn’t know,” he commented.
She relaxed. Beyond a glance around the flat his attention had stayed on her, and his words were unexpectedly kind. “Thank you. That’s been the bigger of the shocks; the money doesn’t feel real yet. But I knew Henry in a casual way-he bought paintings from me, I served him coffee, and all the while I was sitting across from my own father.”
“Makes you mad?”
“Yeah. Furious. But it’s another emotion for after the shock of all this fades. Please make yourself comfortable. Look around. I’ll start some coffee.”
The apartment was large and open, the kitchen counter one of the few room dividers beyond the door leading into the bedroom wing. She found the canister of coffee and filled the carafe with water, glad to be back in her own kitchen and on her own turf. She set the coffee to percolating and pushed open lids to find something to share. She bit into a shortbread cookie and found it still fresh; she got out a check-patterned blue-and-white plate to set out the rest.
She watched as Connor walked around looking at some of the artwork she had displayed around the living room. She’d hung a set of small oil portraits capturing four generations of one family, and on the far wall a fascinating piece that tried to capture the feeling of an urban city market. She particularly loved the small watercolor beside the clock, the scene capturing water flowing over a cliffside and falling into the sea below. She tried to keep variety in the art around her, to keep her own perspectives ever widening for what was possible to accomplish with paint. Over one of the couches hung her newest addition, a bold study in cubes and lighting, its vivid reds and greens dominating the white-painted brick wall behind the canvas. Connor’s expression was difficult to judge. “What do you think?”
“You’ve got good natural lighting, and the tall ceilings-it makes this space really great. And the paintings-those are pretty nice too.”
She smiled at the soft teasing she could hear in his reply. “Tracey calls it our brick warehouse, but she laughs as she says it. She’s the one who figured out how to get the stencils to work on brick.”
He turned from studying the waterfall. “You’ve got a nice home. It’s elegant, Marie, and at the same time comfortable.”
“I think so.” She pulled out a tray and when the coffee was done brought it over to the low table set between the two love-seat couches.
He took a seat in the barrel chair and accepted the coffee mug she offered. “Thank you.”
“I can almost see the lists being written; you took one look at this place and nearly winced.”
Connor smiled. “Actually, this place I love. It’s that old door and lock downstairs, the dim hallway, the fire escape coupled with very old windows-there will need to be some work done in the next twenty-four hours to make it safe for you and Tracey to be here.”
“I’m not willing to consider moving away from the only home I’ve known in the last decade just because I
