The Lakeside Inn, Leeanna Morgan [rosie project TXT] 📗

May we have plenty of guests, wonderful reviews, and water pipes that don’t burst.”

Penny laughed. “I’ll second that.”

Chapter 15

Wyatt cleaned the last of his paintbrushes. Finally, after one gigantic push, he’d finished the paintings for the exhibition in Berlin. His agent would be thrilled and the gallery owner relieved.

After the paintings arrived in Germany, it would be a busy time for the gallery owner. They already had a draft plan of where each painting would go. If the lighting design was as good as it appeared, the paintings would look incredible and sell for a lot more than his last canvases.

Standing with his hands on his hips, he studied the paintings. Wide brush strokes, understated colors, and layers of texture pulled his work from the ordinary and into something special. Usually, he was incredibly happy after he finished a painting. But not today. These canvases had been his escape, a way to balance the crazy, mixed-up emotions he’d experienced as he painted the portrait of Penny’s grandma and great-grandmother.

His gaze landed on their portrait and the photo beside it. While he’d studied the way Margaret stood, the tilt of her head, the dimple that hinted at a sense of humor, he was busy imagining her life more than one hundred years ago. When he was painting, layering personality and purpose into the portrait, he’d discovered the most important part of being human.

Through this portrait, he’d met Penny. And, because of her, he’d learned to love and be loved again.

For three years, he’d allowed his world to settle under a suffocating blanket of grief. He’d hidden behind his paintings, slowly losing sight of who he was and what was important to him.

And now that he’d found it, he wasn’t letting go.

With one last look at the canvases, he headed toward the kitchen.

While he was having something to drink, he’d check his emails and then go for a walk around the lake.

At the top of his inbox was a message from his agent. He probably wanted to know how the landscapes were going and if he was ready to commit to another exhibition later in the year.

Over the last few days, Wyatt had imagined taking time off from his busy schedule to paint whatever he liked. But his agent worked hard on his behalf. Together, they’d created a career that was exceptional by anyone’s standards. He didn’t want to let him down or the people who collected his work.

He opened his agent’s email and frowned. Instead of the message he expected to see, it was an invitation. The Academy of Arts in Berlin was offering him a twelve-month residency at their award-winning arts school. As well as providing five-star accommodation and a generous allowance, they would display his work in their impressive landscape gallery.

If he accepted their invitation, his paintings would hang beside some of the most influential artists the world had ever known. The prestige and the publicity that came with the appointment would lift his career to even greater heights.

His agent, unsurprisingly, wanted him to say yes straightaway.

If he’d received this email when he first arrived in Sapphire Bay, there was no doubt he would have gone. But now, after meeting Penny and becoming involved in her life, he wasn’t so sure. He’d already asked her to travel to Germany with him, and she’d refused. He didn’t blame her. Family was important and, with her sisters moving here, there was no way she’d leave.

That left him with a really hard decision to make. A year wasn’t a long time, but it could mean the end of his relationship with Penny. Whatever decision he made, it would upset someone.

Later that afternoon, Penny sat in her bedroom with the contents of her great-grandmother’s treasures spread around her. When the electricians started removing the damaged wires from the attic, she’d moved the chest to her room to keep it safe.

She’d already gone through it once but, with no power in the house, this was the next best thing she could find to keep herself busy. She was amazed the chest and its contents had survived nearly a century of wear and tear. It contained linens so delicate that a brisk breeze would have damaged the fine cotton, and hand-stitched gowns as beautiful as the day they were made.

She touched the gloves her mom had suggested she wear to read her great-grandmother’s journal and the baby clothes that made her feel sad.

“What are you doing?” Diana asked from the doorway.

“There isn’t much I can do in the house, so I’m having another look in Margaret’s storage chest. Can you imagine packing all your belongings into one box?”

“I suppose it made it easier to transport everything.” Diana carefully stepped around a blue cotton gown and knelt in front of a small stack of envelopes. “What are these?”

“They’re the letters I told you about.”

“The ones Margaret wrote to her parents after she moved to Polson?”

Penny nodded. “I’m amazed her parents kept them.”

“It must have been difficult when she left home. Her family wouldn’t have known whether they would ever see her again.”

“It’s the same for a lot of parents, regardless of the century you live in. Some of my friends from college went overseas to work and still haven’t come home.”

“But your friends’ parents can get on a plane and be on the other side of the world the following day. Can you pass me a pair of gloves?”

Penny reached behind her and pulled two Latex gloves out of a box. “When I read Margaret’s journals, I felt sorry for her. At some point, she must have regretted being so far away from her family.”

“Or she could have enjoyed it,” Diana said with a mischievous smile. “Even after the shock of losing her husband, she could have reinvented her entire life and no one would have known who she really was.” She opened one of the letters and read it. “Margaret sent this letter to her parents a few weeks after she arrived