For the Longest Time (3 page)

Andi laughed, but there was a sadness to it that Sam recognized. She knew how miserable it had been for her younger daughter. And she'd never known how to fix it, being a professional misfit herself. The difference was, Andi seemed to relish being different, whereas Sam had just wanted to disappear. Her mother had done the best she could on her own—better than most mothers in much easier circumstances, Sam thought. But there were
so many times when she missed her sweet, sensible father, and the balance he had provided, terribly. She'd been ten years old when he got sick, and the cancer hadn't appeared to give a damn that Bill Henry was still very much needed.

Her mother's warm voice pulled her out of memories that would always be bittersweet.

“You'll get your feet under you, honey. You've got everything in the world going for you.”

Sam arched an eyebrow. “I'm twenty-seven years old. I have no job, no prospects, and I'm moving back in with my mom. Which part of that bodes well for the future? Because I'm missing it.”

Andi gave her a withering look. “Well, your positive attitude should help.”

Sam blew out a breath and slouched, looking at her feet. “Sorry,” she said. “It's been a long day. I'm at that point in the cycle of self-loathing where I feel sorry for myself, and then feel pathetic for feeling sorry for myself, which makes me feel even sorrier for myself.” She looked up through her lashes at her mother, and was surprised to find herself near tears. The emotional exhaustion of the past few weeks, coupled with the warm familiarity of the scene in front of her, threatened to wring out what little feeling she had left. Dismayed, Sam held it together. Barely.

She'd shed enough tears in this kitchen, and she'd come a long way since then. That was her biggest fear—that all the hard-won ground she'd gained would be swept away by coming back here.

“You're looking at this the wrong way,” her mother said in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “This is
home
, Sam, not the end of your life. Things get hard. For
everybody. So you regroup, start fresh. Wherever you are, that's where you're supposed to be. And I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks—I'm glad my daughter's home.”

“Oh. Well,” Sam said, and a single traitorous tear managed to escape and roll down her cheek. She snuffled and wiped it away with the back of her hand. Andi sighed, rose from the stool, and came to wrap her arms around her daughter. She didn't say anything. She didn't have to.

That was when Sam finally let the dam break, letting out the rest of the misery that had been following her for months as her carefully built life in New York had fallen apart, piece by piece. But then, things hadn't been right for a while. For all that New York had given her, it hadn't provided Sam with any better sense of where she belonged. It hadn't been her place. She'd known it. She'd fought it.

And she really hadn't wanted to be abruptly kicked out of it before she'd gamed out her other options.

Sam sobbed against her mother's shoulder until the tears slowed, then stopped, leaving her sniffling pitifully but feeling immeasurably better. A little hollowed out, maybe, but better. And in the empty space that was left at the center of her, she could admit that she'd missed this—her mother, the house, the combination of the two things—terribly. It was the rest of this place she wasn't sure about. But centering herself here was a start.

She raised her head, and Andi moved back just a little, tucking a stray lock of pale hair behind Sam's ear and then giving the tip of her nose a playful stroke.

“You're going to be fine. Look, you haven't even been here a day and you've got a cat and an admirer already.”

That
dried up the lingering tears quickly. Sam wrinkled her nose.

“Mom. Jake isn't an admirer. He's making sure my new cat doesn't die.”

“
Hmph
,” was Andi's noncommittal reply, and Sam caught a flash of her mother's own version of the evil smirk before she turned around and went back to her stool. It left Sam feeling vaguely unsettled, even when Andi changed the subject.

“You just missed your sister. Emma's at a conference all this week.”

“That's too bad.” She hoped she sounded sincere. She was, a little. But though she loved Emma, there were some fundamental differences between them that tended to make things tense. There was also the fact that her older sister, for all her better qualities, was a bossy pain in the ass.

“I can tell your heart is breaking. What are you going to say to her when she offers you a job?” Andi asked.

Sam groaned and shoved her hands into her hair. “I don't want to talk about it.”

“That's not going to make it go away. Your sister loves you. She worries.”

Sam tilted her head and gave her mother a beleaguered look, taking another sip of her coffee before she responded. “I know. I also know that if she and I work together, we will kill one another. It's a bad idea, Mom.”

“You'll hurt her feelings.”

She tried to hold back the snort of laughter and was only moderately successful. “Uh, no. No, I won't. Trust me.” She was almost positive that Emma would be relieved more than anything that Hurricane Sam wouldn't be hitting her event planning business anytime soon.
And Sam was just as glad that she wouldn't need to be involved with planning things like elaborate children's parties for Harvest Cove's hypercompetitive young professional set. “I'll find something else. This is just temporary, Mom.”

“So you keep telling me.”

Realizing that her words had stung, though inadvertently, Sam rolled her shoulders and tried to explain instead of just making frustrated declarations.

“It's what I keep telling myself. I have to. This isn't what I wanted. I don't mean you, Mom. I just mean . . . this.”

Andi smiled at that. “Don't make me quote The Stones at you, honey.”

Sam pursed her lips, ruefully amused. Thanks to her mother's musical taste, she was more familiar than most people her age with classic rock.

“Yeah, yeah. I can't always get what I want, but I might just get what I need. Right?”

“You got it.” Andi stood with her coffee mug, stretched a little, and then started back toward the family room. “Well, I've laid enough of my vast wisdom on you for tonight. My book is calling.” When she reached the doorway, she turned back with a look Sam knew all too well.

“By the way, Zoe Watson, down at the gallery, wants to meet you. Tomorrow, if you can. She seemed very excited about someone with your experience being in a little place like this.” Andi paused. “She's a bit of a newcomer here. You might like her. Gallery opens at ten . . . if you're interested, of course.”

Sam could only stare for a moment, too surprised to speak.

“We have a gallery?”

“For the last year or so, we do. Does pretty well, too,
from what I hear. Nothing in there as nice as what you do, but—”

“Mom.”

“Well, there isn't,” Andi insisted. “But it is nice. Zoe has a good eye. And so do you. You should have a look.”

Relief flooded her. And fast on the heels of that was guilt.

“I should have done it myself,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone else. When she'd finally decided to come home, it had been the way big decisions usually went with her—sudden, full of emotion, and minus any long-term planning. A job, beyond the fact that she didn't want to work with Emma unless absolutely necessary, was something she needed and had only just begun to contemplate. A gallery job, surrounded by inspiration so that she could maybe, possibly get her own work back on track, would be a godsend.

And it was being handed to her, which hardly seemed right.

Andi didn't appear to agree. She simply watched her youngest child with a mixture of exasperation and affection.

“Samantha Jane Henry. I have no doubt you could have and would have found Zoe yourself. You've spent years trying to do everything on your own, whether or not it was a good idea. But this was something I could smooth the way on, so I did. The job's not yours yet; trust me. Zoe's sweet, but she's a hard-ass where it counts, and that business is her baby.” Her voice softened. “You don't have anything to prove here, Sammy. Everyone knows you can make it on your own. But one of these days, I'd love it if you'd figure out that you don't always
have
to.”

“I know,” Sam said, her shoulders slumping a little. “Thanks, Mom. Really. I mean that.”

Andi smiled. “I know you do, Sammy.”

She left, and Sam watched her go, feeling all of sixteen again, and just as helpless. The bright spark of interest she'd felt at the mention of the gallery faded, subsumed again by the weariness that had been dogging her all afternoon. She was ready to try to start fresh, like her mother had said. She wasn't afraid of a challenge, and besides, unless she wanted to be some sort of basement-dwelling woman-child with a paper route for the rest of her life, a fresh start was pretty much the only choice. It was just more daunting than most projects she'd undertaken, because Andi had been wrong about one key thing.

Sam had everything to prove. And it was going to take all the energy and luck she could muster to do it right.

B
y the time Sam sat across from Zoe Watson at ten thirty the next morning, she was certain of two things: that her mother had seriously understated what a hard-ass the proprietress was, and more importantly, that she really, really wanted this job.

Getting it, however, was very much a work in progress.

“So,” Zoe said, her rich, warm voice utterly at odds with the shrewd assessment Sam saw in her storm gray eyes. “What do you think you could bring to Two Roads Gallery?”

Sam fought the urge to fidget. She'd met far more frightening characters in the New York art scene, she reminded herself, and she'd held her own then. And this sleek, intimidating woman, with the South in her voice and steel in her eyes, was hardly the dragon that her former employer had been. She needed to remember that. Sam took a deep breath, collected her thoughts, and answered as clearly as she could.

“I've spent the last three years buying and selling pieces for a small, successful gallery in New York City. I've got an eye for talent, and I'm good with people.” She paused, trying to gauge Zoe's reaction, but the woman's
expression seemed carved from stone. “I love art. Being around it, being around the people who make it. I think that shows.”

“
Hmm
” was Zoe's noncommittal response. She shifted a little in her chair, and Sam was struck all over again by how different she was from anything she might have been expecting. The unfamiliar name had led Sam to figure that Zoe would be some city-weary yuppie who'd decided to bring culture and taste to small-town America, enlightening the rubes and becoming beloved by all, the star of her own women's fiction novel . . . and who would probably, like most of her ilk, either get disgusted and leave or simply go bankrupt. Instead, Sam had discovered a woman who'd come to Harvest Cove with a very specific, very detailed idea of what she wanted to accomplish—and who was making it happen.

Why she was so determined to make it happen
here
was something Sam couldn't begin to fathom. But what Sam remembered as a little run-down two-story house on Hawthorne, a fixture since the 1700s, looked amazing in its rebirth as a gallery. She'd barely had a chance to browse before Zoe had swept her into the little back room that served as her office, but Sam had been impressed by the pieces Zoe had assembled. There were paintings and glasswork, sculpture and jewelry scattered about the main room of the shop in such a way that one discovery led quickly to another. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that she hadn't been the only artist in the area. Far from it. But then, Sam realized, it had been stupid to think so in the first place. She'd been so young and self-centered that all she'd seen was the surface of things.

What she was seeing
here
gave her a lot of food for
thought. Later, though, when she wasn't in danger of sweating bullets through her simple black jersey dress.

“Your mother tells me you're an artist yourself,” Zoe said smoothly. “I was hoping you'd bring your portfolio, if you did decide to come by. I'm very proud that we showcase local artists almost exclusively, and I'm always on the lookout for new clients.”

Sam had to fight to keep her voice neutral, though panic welled immediately in her throat. “I'm not interested in getting a showing, Ms. Watson. Just a job.”

Zoe's ebony eyebrows shot up. “Call me Zoe, please. And that's a shame. I looked up some of your work, and you're very talented. You've been selling online, right? I checked out the site. Great layout.”

Her face felt like it was on fire. Of course Zoe would have looked her up, if only out of sheer curiosity. And she hadn't had the heart to completely shut down her Web site, or her little shop on Etsy, simply leaving up a few images of sold pieces with the notice that she was on hiatus for the time being. It wasn't like she could post the truth—that every ounce of her creativity and passion seemed to have been sucked into a black hole, that she hadn't picked up a brush in months except to throw it across a room . . . or hold it and cry because whatever had once powered it, a light that had once seemed as though it was always fighting for a way to get out, had gone dark.

She could say none of those things. So she went for the simplest explanation possible.

“I was. But I'm not really painting right now. Thanks, though.”

“I see,” Zoe said, and Sam knew at once that she wasn't going to press her on it . . . though Zoe obviously wanted
to. She just had more tact than that. The relief helped calm Sam's now rapidly beating heart. A panic attack in the middle of a job interview would have been a very bad thing in a string of bad things, and she really wanted to break the chain before the only kind of art-related field left available to her was carnival face painting.

“Well, when you decide to get back at it, let me know,” Zoe said. Then, to Sam's surprise, Zoe leaned back in her chair, took off the cool, collected facade, and became . . . well, human. A slightly tired, slightly harried, and surprisingly friendly human.

“I'll be straight with you, Samantha, I was ready to hire you the second you set foot in here. It'd be a godsend to have someone I didn't have to teach. And you've got that local connection, which would be . . . helpful.”

There was a wealth of meaning behind her words. Sam winced, sympathetic. “It's Sam. Kind of hard to break in, huh?”

Zoe's look said it all. “I've been here a little over a year. People still think my full name is Zoe, That Nice Black Girl from Atlanta. I didn't expect to be a local at this point, but I'd like to stop being a novelty item.”

Sam burst out laughing, unable to help herself. Zoe grinned, the smile slowly spreading over her face, and then shook her head.

“I'm sorry,” Sam said. “For the Cove, you're pretty exotic.” She was beautiful, actually, Sam thought. Zoe's warm mocha skin was a startling contrast to those big gray eyes, and she wore her hair in a way Sam had always envied—hundreds of long, tiny braids, now loosely swept into a bun at the nape of Zoe's neck. She looked like she belonged here about as much as Sam herself did.

Zoe screwed up her mouth and arched an eyebrow.
“I'm not exotic. I'm from Atlanta, not Mars.” She sighed. “But yeah. It's been interesting. People are friendly. Business is pretty good. It's just . . .”

“You're still an outsider,” Sam finished for her. “It's a small town. Takes a while. Even for locals, sometimes.”

“You're telling me. You know Penny Harding? The one who only talks about shoes, how her daddy's the mayor, or that big Christmas party her family throws every year that everyone knows about but only the special people get invited to?”

Sam stared at Zoe in awe. “That's the most accurate description of her I've ever heard. You should win something for creating that.”

Zoe gave a rueful smirk. “Well, I sure didn't win an invite to that party. Despite the fact that plenty of the other small business owners did, and that she came in here talking about it at least once a week for two months at the end of last year, and that I helped put on one hell of a classy event for her daddy and his buddies when I'd barely gotten this place opened. No. No ‘thank you for bringing your money and class and fine self to the area' invitation.” She sighed, rolled her eyes, and shook her head. “Sorry. Thought I'd worked the bitter out on that one.”

“Don't worry about it,” Sam said. “The Harding party crowd has kind of a small circle of trust. Most of us just get to be rabble. You'll get used to it—I promise.”

Zoe smiled, and this time there was plenty of understanding in it. That and determination. “They can have their circle of trust. I just want a night to wear a red dress and eat the Hardings' caviar. I'll get there, though. I love this place.”

Sam could only shake her head and laugh, bewildered.
“Why? Seriously, how did you get from Atlanta to Harvest Cove?”

“I drove.”

“Ha,” Sam replied. “Really, though. We're pretty tucked away. We get tourists, but it's not like, say, Salem.”

“That's what I like about it,” Zoe replied. “This place is exactly what I pictured, exactly what I wanted. Ever since I was little, believe it or not.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Anything set in a little New England town, movies or TV, I was glued to it. I had this crazy thing for Murder, She Wrote reruns when I was a kid, too. My mom would sit and watch it with me, a lot of times. Love me some Angela Lansbury. I wanted my own Cabot Cove, except with more art and less dead bodies. So I scouted around when I knew I could swing it, and here I am.”

Sam burst out laughing. When Zoe looked down, her cheeks flushing, she quickly sought to reassure her before the tentative connection they'd made was broken.

“That's awesome. I mean that. It's the best reason I've ever heard for coming here. I love it.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

They regarded each other for a moment. Zoe smiled that slow grin of hers again, and Sam knew immediately that she'd found not only a job, but a friend.

“All right, girl. Be here tomorrow at nine. I'll show you the ropes before we open at ten. I like you, but you're still going to have to prove yourself.”

“That's something I'm happy to do,” Sam said, nearly dizzy with relief. She hadn't realized just how low her hopes had gotten until right this second. “If you want references . . .”

Zoe waved her hand. “As a matter of fact, I dealt with your former employer once a couple of years back. Mona Richard, right? Andi told me it didn't end well for you there, and trust me, I believe it. What you do here is all the reference you need. If it works, great. If it doesn't, I'll tell you. And besides,” she continued with a knowing look, “when you start painting again—not if,
when
—I want your work here. Those dreamscapes you do would make for an amazing show.”

Sam nodded, and for once she didn't have the heart to deny that there would be a
when
. Maybe Zoe was right. It was nice to hear that kind of faith, regardless. And nice to hear someone admiring her vision.
Dreamscapes.
Maybe that's why she couldn't paint anymore. Her dreams were buried somewhere beneath the smoking rubble that was her life.

“Okay,” was all she said out loud, and when Zoe extended one elegant, long-fingered hand across the desk, Sam took it and shook.

“Two Roads Gallery. The Frost poem,” Sam said suddenly. “That's what you named this place after. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—”

“I took the one less traveled by,” Zoe finished for her. “You got it. It made all the difference for me. Hopefully it will for you, too.”

“Maybe it will,” Sam replied. And was surprised to find that there was a part of her that actually believed it.

* * *

By the time she'd stopped by Brewbaker's to grab the biggest vanilla latte they offered and then hopped in her car to make the short drive to Jake's office, Sam felt better than she had in months. Some of it was probably the caffeine, and some of it was doubtless being able to take
off those stupid heels to drive in her bare feet, but a lot of it was plain, old-fashioned happiness. She had a job. A gallery job. And she'd be working for someone who, at least right now, didn't seem to be the kind of person who would earn nicknames from her employees like, say, The Evil One. Bitcharella. Or one her personal favorites, Cthulu.

Her good humor over Zoe not being anything like a tentacled demon from another dimension notwithstanding, Sam felt herself beginning to tense up the second she pulled into the small parking lot in front of a building she had no memory of. Harvest Cove Animal Hospital looked like a pretty Cape Cod–style home, pale blue with a low, wide front porch that had ramps on either side of the steps. Big windows gave Sam a good view of a spacious, bright waiting room where a couple of people sat, one with some sort of terrier in her lap.

No Jake. That was probably a good thing, because she needed a minute.

Sam parked, took a couple of deep breaths, and then took a quick look in the rearview mirror to make sure the French twist she'd pulled her hair into wasn't falling out too badly yet. Hating herself a little for caring, she freshened up her lip gloss, then tossed it back into the pit of despair that was her cavernous purse. She would rather have shown up in jeans, or something ripped, just so Jake didn't think she'd made any kind of effort on his account. There just hadn't been time to change, and punctuality was one thing she couldn't quite break herself of.

With a slight wince, she shoved her feet back into the hated heels and slid out of the car, then locked it up and slung her bag over one shoulder, still carrying her giant
latte. At least the place didn't seem very busy, she thought. The faces she'd seen in town so far had been friendly, but that luck was bound not to hold. It seemed important that this, her first full day back, was a good day.

Sam tried to look relaxed, to not carry herself so stiffly as she pushed one of the doors open and stepped into the waiting room. Her heels clicked conspicuously against the laminate floor as she headed for the long front desk. Two women sat behind it, both looking up at her approach. Sam didn't recognize the younger of the two, but the other was a face she knew. Cass Tompkins was a good three years older than she was, and so had never bothered with Sam apart from the occasional disinterested “Hello.” Still, it was better than it could have been. She knew damn well that most of her tormentors still lived here. And why not? They'd be little fish in a big pond anywhere else.

She preferred the anonymity of the big pond, herself.

“Sam,” Cass said, her curiosity evident. “Jake said you'd be by. You'll be taking one of the kittens?”

“Yes,” Sam replied with a quick nod, anxious to get past the gatekeepers and get this over with. It was a shame Loki wasn't ready to go home just yet. She could just stuff him down the front of her dress and bolt. He had a good grip. It could work.