The Stolen Canvas Read Online Free PDF Page A

dog.”
    “Whatever,” she said, letting go a long sigh. Pretentious initials aside, he was still the overgrown little boy with grand ideas that never came to anything. Ah, she knew how to pick them.
    “Hold onto your hat, Tara my girl. We’re going back to Stony Point. When those snooty townsfolk ticked me off, I said I wouldn’t go back …” He gave her a rare kiss on her forehead and looked down at the handworked pillow. “Now there’s something in that old backwater town that just might be worth the trip.”
    Perhaps the place held some good memories for him. A place where pink roses bloomed, and where one could look out on the ocean. Her mother had seen such a world.
    “People in these parts are dying to buy up Mrs. Holden’s needlework. I saw one in the Brown Library the other day—and a big write-up about the artist. And to think I knew her as a kid. Me and Wally used to do stuff for her at that big house on Ocean Drive.”
    Tara dropped down on the couch across from him. Jem was talking about picking up and leaving again. She was desperately tired. “Je …” She caught herself. “J.C., you know I haven’t been feeling well lately. I can’t …”
    “Country air is just what you need!” he said. He didn’t look at her. He was seeing something beyond the room. His eyes gleamed with that frightening, yet magnetic shining he got when he was excited.
    “I don’t understand …”
    “There could be a fortune in that old house. And your mother was a friend of the lady who owned it. You read it … that sweet stuff about being welcome and all.” His lips curled in a confident smile. “I hear her granddaughter lives there now—a widow who inherited the place from Mrs. Holden. And you’re going to show up at Grey Gables.”
    “I’m not !” Tara crossed her arms over her chest.
    He ignored her protest and pushed out his lower lip in a thoughtful gesture. “We’re going to that little Maine backwater burg, but you’re going to show up alone. You won’t know me. You’re just a girl alone who’s learned her mother has died; you have no place to go and no one to turn to. You just want to meet the lady who comforted your mother in her last years.”
    “And then what?” Tara demanded wearily. “What good is that going to do?”
    “Just leave it to me.” He stroked his jaw in concentration. “We’ll go slow. We have to be real careful. Now, grab that junk. We’re getting out of here; I’ve got some thinking to do.” He got up, cradling the pillow and letters in his big hands.
    Tara followed, shivering in her thin jeans and sweater. Her arms full of cartons and bags, she didn’t even close the door behind them. The landlord would come and throw the remaining pieces of her mother’s life in the trash bin. Poor Claire Andrews. All that was left of her was one skinny failure of a daughter who hadn’t even said goodbye.

3
    It was late when Annie said goodbye to Alice. They’d gone out to lunch at a vintage tea room and had taken their time coming home. It had become their practice to make Tuesdays special, beginning with the Hook and Needle Club meeting; today had been no exception. They stopped at several roadside vegetable stands, found some luscious-looking strawberries, Granny Smith apples, and sweet corn with variegated yellow and white kernels. Their arms were bulging when they finally decided to call it a day.
    After seeing Alice off, Annie dined late on frosted wheat cereal for supper. She answered her email, spruced up the kitchen, and took the sweet corn out to the porch. The messy task of shucking was best done outside where the wind or plucky birds could take the silky hairs stripped from the ears. Boots followed with a look of intrigue on her whiskered face, but Annie expected little help from the feline quarter.
    The sun hung low, melting into bands of gold and dusky rose. Strips of charcoal clouds rose as though chased upward by some unseen hand. That subtle light, as day