Love Starts with Elle(37)

“Prayer. Talking to a God you can’t see, listening for a voice you can’t hear, clinging to whatever faith exists in your soul.”

“Sort of like running on ice.”

“At times, yes.” Miss Anna wagged her finger. “But don’t mistake prayer for inactivity.”

“Right, because sitting here is wildly active.”

“Mercy a-mighty, we may be sitting, but the heavens are moving by the power of our words.” Miss Anne flicked the air with her wrist. “Don’t you forget that, missy.”

Elle smiled, scooping her hair behind her ears. “All right, I won’t.”

Miss Anne clung to the back of the first pew and pulled herself up. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Enjoy your walk home.”



Wednesday morning after prayer, Elle drove to Leslie Harper’s real estate office to find a property for her new gallery.

The money she’d set aside from the first gallery’s sale should get her a decent place with some left over for minor remodeling. She could be open by late summer. Tops.

“You couldn’t have picked a better time to find a new gallery.” Leslie was an überpro Realtor with intense exuberance. Elle had gone with her once to show an old broken-down double-wide to a young couple. Leslie patted the rotting aluminum side as she stood strategically in front of a gapping hole. “I tell you, a little paint and curtains in the windows . . . Good as new.” You won’t even notice how the entire thing is listing starboard, about to fall off the blocks.

The woman could sell water to a drowning man, and Elle knew she could make deals in the county like no one else.

For a while, they talked needs and price, then Leslie dangled a listing in front of Elle, looking quite pleased. “What do you say to the second story of the Bay Street Trading Company? Hmm? It’s only for rent, but I believe we can talk them into a lease with an option to buy.”

“Leslie, the Bay Street Trading Company? It’s a perfect location.”

“It’s your lucky day.” Leslie came around her desk. Tall and waifish, she seemed to sail instead of walk. “I’m really sorry about you and Jeremiah. If ever there was a match made in heaven, I thought y’all were it.”

Elle kept focused on the listing. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Suppose not. Well, want to check out the Trading Company?”

They drove in Leslie’s Lexus down Bay Street as she called to let the owners know she had a serious prospect. But first, a stop in Common Grounds because Leslie wanted a double espresso. Like she needed a jolt of caffeine.

“All right, let’s go see your new gallery.” Leslie said “new” with two syllables.

Down the sidewalk and up the outside stairs to the second floor of the Bay Street Trading Company. Elle wanted the space from the first glance. “Leslie, it’s beautiful.”

Bright, spacious, with polished hardwood and clean white walls. Even a bit of track lighting in place.

Leslie walked the perimeter, her heels thudding. “With a little modification for a gallery, I believe you can move right in, Elle.”

Elle gazed down on Bay Street from the wall of windows. This was it. Home. “How much?”

Flipping through her listings, Leslie looked up with a done-deal grin. “In your price range. Best hire the workers because I do believe you’ve found a new gallery.”



Kelly Carrington surveyed her appearance in the hallway mirror before heading down to breakfast, checking the patched seam in the back of her stockings, pulling her sweater tight around her middle.

Chet was out there fighting with all the other boys, facing danger or hunger, and all she could think of while getting dressed was how she wanted a new pair of stockings.

“Kelly, breakfast is getting cold. Come on, sugar.” Mama’s face appeared over the banister. “Are you wearing a sweater? Kelly, it’ll be a hundred degrees today.”

“Be right there, Mama.” A hundred degrees? Not this early in June. But it would be hot. She’d wear the sweater anyway, at least until she got to work at the Gazette.

Before going down, she pulled out last night’s letter to Chet. It was short and full of all the news going on around Beaufort, but not with her. She promised herself she’d tell him the next time she wrote. Or the next.

Are you well, Chet darling? Warm and dry, well fed and comforted? Do you have time to laugh or even cry?

She certainly did.



Heath looked up from the story, picturing Kelly, a mixture of imagination and Elle Garvey. His initial boating-day research had turned Elle into his muse. She had all the qualities of a great heroine—beauty and angst.

But did he want to write a love story? Set in Beaufort? In his head, it made no sense, but when he started writing Kelly’s point of view, his heart shifted to her. She had a story to tell.

Nate’s definitely going to have a coronary.

It was late and Heath decided to call it a night. Shutting down his laptop, he lay in bed on top of the sheets. Tracey-Love slept on the other side, curled and hidden under the covers.

For a long time, he chased sleep as words and ideas rattled around his head, every once in a while bumping into the vision of a strawberry blonde with green eyes and an armful of bracelets.

He couldn’t forget the feel of her back under his hand as they danced, nor the fragrance of her hair. Something like a meadow, warm and earthy.