Angel's Rest(71)

“Jack called. My—um, Jen’s husband is in the hospital. Heart attack.” He ran his hands through his hair and frowned. “I have to go … Pam has been through way too much. She was there for me, especially with Matty. I’m sorry, Nic. I’m gonna have to send you back to Eternity Springs by yourself. I’ll catch a flight to D.C. I hope you understand. They’re my family.”

And I’m not. “Of course I understand,” she replied, ignoring the pang of hurt. Now was the time to be his friend. “Don’t think twice about it.”

“Thanks. We can catch the shuttle from here to San Jose. It leaves in twenty minutes. If we hurry, we should be able to make it.”

“Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you at the door.”

“Thanks, Nic. You’re the best.”

His words rang in her ears as she gathered up the rest of her belongings. “You’re the best.” Yeah, right. She wondered if the day would ever come when the man didn’t make her feel like second best.


At the Mocha Moose coffeehouse and Internet café in Eternity Springs, Sage Anderson responded to an email from a gallery in Savannah, then sent off an e-card birthday greeting to an old friend from college. Finished with email, she checked the ESPN site for updates on March Madness standings, then sighed to see that the number twelve seed had whipped the number five seed and busted her East Region bracket. “Shoot, Sarah is going to kick my butt again this year,” she muttered.

Rising from her corner table, she wandered toward the bakery case, where a selection of cookies tempted her. The shop’s owner, Wendy Davis, was the only woman in town who could hold her own against Sarah when it came to baked goods. Her raspberry jam pinwheel cookies were as much works of art as Sage’s watercolors.

“Change your mind?” Wendy asked. “I have a batch of pinwheels hot from the oven.”

“You are a wicked woman.”

Sage took the warm cookie and her second cup of herbal tea back to the table and the computer. She clicked away from ESPN, and then her fingers settled on the keyboard as, from out of nowhere, the urge struck her to check up on the organization that had once meant so much to her. She even went so far as to type “www.doc” before good sense prevailed and she jerked her hands away from the keyboard as if they’d been burned.

What was that all about? Rattled, she brought her hands up to her face and massaged her temples. She could almost hear the monkeys chatter right now.

The lack of sleep must be getting to her. Nightmares woke her often, and in the small hours of the night she would try to exorcise the demons by painting, in the grip of a dark creative energy.

The work she produced those nights differed substantially from the bright, fanciful paintings that were attracting attention in the art world. That the midnight paintings frightened her was no great shock, since the scenes came right out of her nightmares. That she never wished them to see the light of day held no surprise, either, due to the personal nature of the subjects. Almost always, she painted over the images in daylight.

She had kept a couple whose images were impressionistic rather than detailed. Those she kept facing the wall and covered with a tarp. She knew they were the best work she’d ever done, but they were, and would remain, her dirty little secret.

Bells rattled as the café’s door opened, distracting her from her dark thoughts. Sage looked up to see Celeste arrive for their strategy session regarding Eternity Springs’ local arts and crafts show, held each June in Davenport Park. As part of her Angel Plan, Celeste wanted to elevate the status of the event by holding a juried show of Colorado artists in conjunction with it. The idea was meeting some resistence from a few locals who preferred the flea market crowd to gallery patrons, so Celeste had appealed to Sage to help win them over.

“Hello, hello,” Celeste said, tugging off her gloves and earmuffs. After placing her order with Wendy, she joined Sage at the table and set a large shopping bag on the floor. “I am so glad you suggested meeting here. I needed to stop by and place a cookie order for next week. I’m having a special visitor.”

“Oh? An old friend?”

“No, I’ve only spoken to her on the phone, but she seems like a lovely person. Her name is Alison Timberlake.” Celeste paused, preened, then announced, “Alison Cavanaugh Timberlake.”

“Of the Eternity Springs Cavanaughs?”

“If one goes back far enough, yes. Her branch of the family was a distant cousin to the Eternity Springs Cavanaughs. Our library has tremendous historical archives of the area, and our librarian, Margaret Rhodes, knows them forward and backward. Once I discovered that Cavanaughs settled in Denver, it was easy to track down Mrs. Timberlake. She lives there, is married to an attorney, and they have three children. I have a few ideas I’d like to discuss with her regarding family heirlooms. She jumped at the chance to come for a visit.”