Fugitives of Love Read online

  Synopsis

  Brenna Wright loves discovering new artists and showing their work at her New York Art Gallery. Recluse Sinclair Grady creates magnificent stained glass windows from rare sea glass while coveting her privacy on the secluded beaches around Pemaquid Point, Maine.

  When Brenna comes across Sinclair’s work, she knows instantly that this is one of her biggest finds. But for Sinclair, one horrific secret from her past makes her reluctant to leave her self-imposed exile and take a chance with Brenna. And when feelings erupt between them, their chance at love sets in motion a potentially devastating series of events that could not only sabotage their relationship but could destroy Sinclair’s life.

  Fugitives of Love

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  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Fugitives of Love

  © 2012 By Lisa Girolami. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-60282-631-1

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, New York 12185

  First Edition: February 2012

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design By Sheri ([email protected])

  Cover Photo By Lisa Girolami

  By the Author

  Love on Location

  Run to Me

  The Pleasure Set

  Jane Doe

  Fugitives of Love

  Acknowledgments

  My most humble thanks to Shelley Thrasher, my editor and teacher.

  To Sandy Thornton, the Comma Queen, thank you for keeping those small little marks in line.

  Carsen Taite, thank you for your law expertise and the chats on the phone when you should have been working.

  A big huzzah to the entire BSB staff. All of you are my heroes and heroines.

  And, for my readers, a most heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you.

  Dedication

  For Susan, the woman who makes me laugh so much I cry.

  Chapter One

  The wind blew onshore that day. It didn’t much matter to Sinclair Grady because she could do her collecting whether the breezes blew on-or offshore. But as she looked up and surveyed the cumulonimbus clouds growing in dark mass and density, she sensed a sea-breeze front forming. That meant possible thunderstorms and, depending on how quickly the nor’easter developed, less time to gather the pieces she needed to finish her latest stained-glass window.

  Sinclair had hiked out just after low tide that morning to search the crevices of the boulders that made up most of the beach. Her favorite spot, the rocky point closest to the southern end of a grouping of white spruce, hadn’t produced much sea glass so far.

  Yesterday, the satchel that hung from her belt was full. It had been a great day, which might have contributed to the fact that she’d found only these few pieces of white and green glass that currently made up her booty.

  About two hours into her hunt, Sinclair climbed onto a rocky ledge that cantilevered over the turbulent sea and sat down. The pegmatite rock formation was chillingly damp and cold. Lately, her heart felt the same way: dampened, inhospitable, and not at all comfortable.

  She gazed out over the expanse of frigid, gray water. A lobster boat circled slowly around the buoy of a trap. Its lone inhabitant shut off the engine and reached for the bright red-and-white buoy with his rope hook.

  Though she sold only an average of one art piece a month, she would never call herself a starving artist. Each stained-glass window was a one-of-a-kind design, set with rare and valuable pieces of glass tumbled from the sea. The designs, depending on who interpreted them, evoked emotions ranging from poignant and moving to profound and stirring.

  Sinclair never agreed or contradicted the buyer’s emotional assertions because all of those feelings, and more, came from deep inside her. The emotions flowed through her hands as she toiled every night creating her art.

  One enthusiastic buyer had recently commented that the deep blues and greens of her purchase suggested the excitement of a new life starting.

  But no matter how much sea glass Sinclair collected and no matter how many stained-glass windows she built from the treasured jewels that washed up from the sea, she doubted that observation accurately assessed her work. Constructing a new life for herself seemed impossible.

  *

  “Twenty days until opening night and we’re looking really good,” Brenna Wright said as she and her team busily catalogued paintings and sculptures for the gallery’s new show.

  Six staffers hung artwork and painted pedestals for sculptures while Brenna surveyed the three exhibit rooms, inhaling the fresh smell of new paint. They would cover the front desk in the first room with a tabletop on opening night, for the hors d’oeuvres and wine. Most of the people would congregate there. Since the exhibition consisted of more paintings than other media, they would hang in the first and second rooms. The back room would house the sculptures and other mixed-media pieces. Each room had movable box walls to allow for more display space and a few stylish chairs for contemplation.

  All the walls were stark white, illuminated with cable and halogen track-lighting systems. The concrete floor had been stained dark red, and the ceiling was black to control light bounce.

  She loved the commotion and excitement when her team fired on all cylinders toward one fruitful goal. “Lucy, how’s the RSVP list coming?”

  Lucy clicked through a few screens on her laptop. “Just about a full house. Three hundred and sixty-seven confirmed so far.”

  “Brilliant. You’re the best assistant ever.”

  “Your popularity and this gallery’s success made it happen, but I’ll still take the compliment.”

  The upcoming show, titled From the Hand of the Artist, featured not only the works of Manhattan’s best talent, but personal stories from all of them about their specific experiences while creating their art. The placards, placed just under each work of art, spoke about channeling certain muses or the unconscious flow from brain to brush. The artists also credited dreams, arguments, epiphanies, love, and angst-ridden rumination for their creations.

  All the artists would speak about their artwork, which always elevated sales tremendously. Buyers loved to rub elbows with artists, and hearing them describe their personal inspirations heightened the excitement that caused wallets to spring open with increased frequency.

  And that would be another coup for her. The competition, especially the Shanks Gallery, would be envious again. She thought constantly about staying ahead of her rivals and would do just about anything to deny them profits and fill her pockets.

  Standing in front of a framed watercolor, Brenna said, “Carl, you’ll remember to take the glass out of this frame, won’t you?” The reflection told her that she needed to cut her brunette hair. The scissor-cut styling had almost grown out. And she could see most of her five-foot-eight frame, which meant the painting had to hang higher.

  “I’ll do that when I change the hanger,” Carl, Brenna’s assistant curator, said. “It’s too low.”

  “Read my mind.”
>
  “And we still need the Leone piece. She’s already sent us three of them but she still has the last one. I have the measurements but need to place it correctly with the other paintings in the back gallery.”

  “I’m going over there tonight to pick it up.”

  “Personally?”

  Brenna drew her answer out to end dubiously. “Yes.”

  Carl stared at her with his usual pixie-like pursed lips.

  Brenna frowned. “Don’t make me ask why.”

  “Don’t make me state the obvious.”

  “Nina isn’t a factor.”

  “Nina’s always a factor. I swear she cranks out paintings just so she can see you.”

  “She can see me anytime she wants. All she has to do is come down here to the gallery.”

  “Which she does. A lot. And you’d better cover that tattooed arm of yours. I hear she’s a wildcat when it comes to body ink.”

  “Carl,” Lucy said, “Nina isn’t Brenna’s type. Lay off.”

  “Lay would be the operative word, yes.”

  Lucy harrumphed. “That’s all you think about.”

  “And Brenna doesn’t think about it enough.”

  Brenna shook her head in annoyance. “Carl, more hanging, less talking.”

  Chapter Two

  It was just after one o’clock and Brenna was stuck in traffic, as usual. On her way over to Nina Leone’s SoHo loft, she thought about Carl’s comments. He was right that she didn’t consider relationships often. Sure, she went out with women every once in a while. Some were even interesting enough to take home. But they rarely saw each other for more than a night or two only. Was she just too picky? Of course, when she took women to her parents’ house, one certain look from her mother would always remind her of the devastating consequences of her first, and only, real girlfriend. She had to be extremely selective. Picky or not, she felt lonelier with the women she met than when she wasn’t dating.

  She simply never felt fulfilled, whatever that meant. And if she didn’t know, maybe she’d never achieve that satisfying contentment or whatever it was that never seemed to materialize.

  She knew what satisfaction in her career felt like. Just after she graduated from Columbia University’s arts-administration program, her parents had financed her gallery and Brenna began work in earnest. Because of a senior-year internship in Paris, she named her exhibit and sales space L’Art de Vie, the art of life. She had initially shown and sold the artwork of her college peers, launching many lucrative careers while building her business into a multimillion-dollar enterprise.

  Along the way she’d weathered some dips in the economy, and her parents backed her financially from time to time to float the staff and keep them in electricity. But Brenna had been single-minded in her efforts, especially after almost losing her business because of the serious slip in judgment that was her last girlfriend. Since then she’d spent every waking moment culling through magazines and the Internet, scouting artists and networking with those who could further her business.

  Now well-known artists and agents solicited her for exhibitions, and she hadn’t had a slow quarter in the last six years. Success came easily. People said her parents’ bankroll had caused it, but no one doubted her workhorse ethics. She was often accused of being spoiled and not accepting no for an answer, but while she hadn’t struggled like most of her college friends, she loved what she did and was extremely determined. Selling art was just as exciting for her as it was for the artist who created it.

  Her love life, on the other hand, was far from fulfilling. L’Art de Vie nourished her and provided everything she could ever want, except a complementary and loving relationship.

  *

  Sinclair selected a coveted piece of cobalt-blue sea glass as the centerpiece for the window on her work bench. From there, she would lay in lighter-blue pieces of glass for the surrounding areas, working the pattern out toward the edges where foamy white and light-aqua pieces completed the design.

  She chose to work to a mix of Elton John songs from the seventies. She loved the melodies, and the works created the same calming ambience she had so desperately turned to as a child.

  The rain came down rather insistently, starting with sporadic tapping on her roof, like polite requests to enter. But the growing storm quickly took on the characteristics of a nor’easter, developing into great wind gusts that shook her house. The clouds darkened abruptly, and the pattering of rain suddenly transformed into loud reverberations above her, like powerful applause from an enthusiastic concert hall.

  She took a break and walked over to the French doors that led out onto the back deck of her home. Even through the sheets of rain, the ocean looked spectacular from there, a view she couldn’t have afforded anywhere else. But in this secluded part of Maine, along a coast not conducive to sunbathing, let alone comfortable picnics for the tourists that congregated mostly to the south, land proved much more affordable. With public beaches like Popham Beach State Park in Phippsburg available, tourists didn’t care to venture out to the sizeable and sometimes sharp rocks that made up her backyard.

  That’s why she’d picked Pemaquid Point. She didn’t want anyone looking into her home from the shore, and she especially didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to find her. Yet she fervently wished that she hadn’t had to take those measures.

  Sinclair inhaled deeply, trying to release the unrelenting slab of sorrow wedged inside her and exhale it into the atmosphere, away from her. She blew out her breath until she emptied her lungs and paused. But the anguish hadn’t budged.

  A small squirrel scurried through the downpour to her door. He stood up at the glass, attempting to look in.

  Sinclair laughed and scooped up a peanut from a bowl on her kitchen table. She opened the door a crack and knelt down. With one hand, she pushed her long, curly blond hair away from her face and reached out with her other, holding the peanut between her finger and thumb.

  “Hello again, Petey,” she said.

  His tail twitched with a mix of excitement and caution as he guardedly and jerkily stepped closer. He then opened his mouth and took the peanut. He stepped a few feet away and rested on his back legs, quickly shelling the nut with his teeth, chewing rapidly and devouring his snack.

  “You don’t care about the rain, do you, little guy?”

  Her only nearby neighbor finished the nut and came back for another, and she marveled at how gingerly he accepted it. If the storm kept up, he absolutely would care about the rain so she grabbed a handful of peanuts and deposited them just outside her door. Petey froze mid-chew, seeming to assess his good fortune, then resumed chewing.

  As far as this storm went, she would weather its onslaught, and if she was lucky, the first low tide might provide a jackpot of tumbled sea glass.

  *

  SoHo wasn’t the safest neighborhood in New York, but Nina had lived there alone for the past twenty years and, at night, Brenna always found a parking spot close by.

  Nina buzzed her up and she climbed the stairs to the third-floor loft. Nina waited for her in the open doorway and took her hand, leading her into the large expanse of the loft. Her whole place consisted of only one room with a large working space filled with easels and taboret carts and smaller areas delineated by throw rugs to separate the kitchen from a sitting room and her sleeping area.

  Nina’s paintings adorned the walls in virtually every area and were spectacular. Her plein-air paintings, flush with the natural lighting that denoted that style of modern art, enriched the space in beautiful earthy tones.

  “Let’s have a drink,” Nina said, and led her to a mid-century modern couch. The minimalist furniture presented a stark contrast to her art, but somehow, the mix worked.

  “Only a quick one. I’ve got to get back to the gallery soon.” Brenna stood while Nina poured something caramel brown into two glasses.

  “Oh, nonsense. I’m sure it took you longer to get here than one drink would take. Relax, your curator won
’t take advantage of you while you’re gone.”

  No, but you might, she thought. “One, Nina. You don’t want me transporting your art while I’m banjaxed.”

  “I can always lend you another one.”

  Brenna had the feeling that getting out of Nina’s place with only the painting would be more difficult than she thought. Carl was right. Again.

  Nina handed her a glass. “A little bourbon.”

  Brenna sat down on the low-slung, red couch that looked more like three marshmallows laid on their sides and held together by chrome piping. It was more comfortable than she anticipated.

  Again, she surveyed the room, taking in Nina’s paintings. Then, hung in front of one of the windows that faced the street below, another piece of art struck her more powerfully than the plein-air pieces.

  “Whose is that?”

  Nina sat down next to her. “I just bought it. Don’t you love it? I got it in Maine.”

  “Who’s the artist?”

  “Her name is Sinclair Grady.”

  “Where in Maine?”

  “A little gallery called Breakers in New Harbor. They told me she was local. I rarely stop at those galleries. I mean, if you’ve seen one amateur seascape, you’ve seen too many. But that piece was hanging in the front window, and I’ve never seen one like it before.”

  Neither had Brenna. The individual pieces of glass weren’t the normal sizes that most stained-glass windows were made of, but much smaller, and the pattern was like a wonderfully subdued but colorful mosaic of a radiating nautilus. Sure, she’d seen brilliant displays of beautiful stained glass, but this artist poured into her work the kind of passion that only the best oil painters could express.

  “Those are pieces of sea glass,” Nina said.

  “From the ocean?”

  “Authentic sea glass. Rare, too.”

  “Astounding.” She gazed at the way the sun illuminated the art. She’d never felt so much emotion from stained glass. An intense sense of forlornness and separation overcame her. The solitary composition of the nautilus somehow revealed an intimate heaviness and vulnerability.