Actually, Dr Bonn, who built this place, was an artist and he opened it up for people to come stay and create. That’s why the medical facility is this far away from the village. It’s an idyllic situation for an artist, not the town doctor.”
“And I’m not an artist.” She sighed wistfully. “So do you think the sheer isolation of it drove the subsequent doctors away?”
“I’m sure that had something to do with it. I think it has a certain appeal for someone who’s newly graduated from medical school and looking for a start. But if you haven’t lived an isolated kind of life before, it’s probably pretty tough.”
“So Dr Bonn, the artist…what happened to him?”
Sam looked up at a seagull flying overhead. It was heading to the water to find its next meal. Such a tough existence, always on the hunt to survive. That, he feared, was about to become Della’s lot. “Someone in the village said he went to Paris to study art. The place ran down after that and nobody stayed long enough to fix it up.” There had probably not been enough time under the health laws, and not enough interest considering the rough condition. Most of all, there was probably not enough potential for wealth. After all, weren’t doctors supposed to be wealthy? According to his ex-wife, they were.
“And all that’s left of the original art colony are those sculptures left behind? The ones on the road?”
“I don’t know. I was out here earlier this morning to have a look, and this is all I’ve seen. The mayor told me there are some other buildings along the shore, old cabins where the artists stayed, but I didn’t go out to have a look.”
“It is amazing how a life can change. He came here to be a doctor and left here an artist. It’s good he found what he really wanted.” She looked over the knoll at the house. “Of course, what we want in life can change as much as life itself does.”
“We all make mistakes, Della, but they don’t have to ruin us.” Empty words, he knew, but he felt like he should say something uplifting even though he wasn’t the one who had got her into this mess. “If you do leave, I can’t imagine that starting over should too difficult.”
“This is my starting over. And you’re wrong. It’s very difficult. I’ve done it a lot lately and I don’t want to do it again. This was supposed to be my last time.”
Was she a lady with a past? If so, it couldn’t have been much of a past since she was still allowed to practice medicine. He’d checked those credentials before she’d arrived and she was good in her licensing. “You know, I’m not sure what’s going on here, and you don’t have to tell me. I’m not the nosey sort who pries, but you’re in a spot I don’t think you can fix and I don’t feel good about leaving you out here alone. So how about we go back to Mrs Hawkins’s bed and breakfast? I’ll pay for a couple of nights until you figure out what you’re going to do next, and that way we can both get a good night’s sleep. If you stay out here, you won’t be getting one, and neither will I for leaving you alone without so much as a pillow.”
“But you were prepared to leave me here when you thought I knew how this place was, weren’t you?”
“That was different. If it was your choice to move in when it’s in this condition, that’s your business. Some people like it rugged. But you didn’t know, and somehow I’m guessing it wouldn’t have been your choice if you had known.”
Instead of answering, Della opened the car door and climbed out. “It is what it is, and it was my choice,” she said, quite dispiritedly. “I appreciate your concern, but there’s no need for it. I’ll just…fix it up. Since I’ll be here all alone, I should have plenty of time for that. You wouldn’t happen to know if I have electricity, or running water or indoor plumbing, would you?”
He doubted it, and he was also beginning to doubt she had common sense since she was refusing to budge from here. “Don’t know. But I suppose that now you’ve convinced yourself to stay, we should have a good look around to make sure it’s fit for living.” Although judging from the condition of the exterior, he doubted that having a look would matter too much. This place was not suitable for patient care and unless Della was some kind of a miracle worker with a hammer and nails, he didn’t see how it ever would be in the short amount of time before his report was due.
Unfortunately, in his mind, the report to shut her down here was already half written. He could do it tonight, then move on to another assignment if that’s what he wanted to do.
But in his heart he couldn’t do it. Not until he absolutely had to.
* * *
Taking a long, discouraging look at the bare bones of her new life, Della shuddered as she walked toward her house. It would have been pretty once. She could almost picture it a hundred years ago, all bright and new, with white wicker furniture on the porch, and ferns and begonias hanging from the ceiling. She could see herself sleeping there with Meghan on hot summer nights, or sitting on a porch swing, sipping lemonade with her in the late afternoon. So many wonderful things that could be if only the porch floor hadn’t rotted a decade ago. But now the ravages of time and salty sea air had taken their toll. The house leaned a little, and the rusty tin roof that sloped down to cover the front porch sagged. All in all, it looked worn out, which was the way she’d felt so often lately.
Suddenly she felt sad for her little cottage on the beach. It had so much more potential than meeting this fate.
Della walked around the structure, spotting the chimney on the side of the house. Running her fingers over the brown stones it was made of, she noticed many of them were chopped away now. Even so, the prospect of a warm, toasty fireplace inside where she and Meghan could spend a long, chilly fall evening together, reading stories and toasting marshmallows, was so appealing that the thought of it nearly melted away all her anxieties. Nearly…because she’d have to have the windows put back in first. They were there, and the tiny, colonial panes made her think they were originals. But they had been removed from the house and were stacked in a pile near the chimney. The openings where they should have been were covered with dirty cracked plastic, as if someone had started a restoration, then stopped all too quickly. The last doctor? she wondered. Had he come here with optimism and ambition only to realize there was so much more to overcome than poor-fitting windows?
The yard was amazing, though. Della turned from the house to have a good look, and even with all the odd, deteriorating art on the way in, it was perfect. A place of hopes and dreams once. There were wispy trees along one stretch of her drive, a grassy knoll extending beyond her house and down the side opposite the tree lines, and out front a beautiful, unspoiled beach. Della sighed wistfully. She’d always wanted to live on a beach in Miami. Begged Anthony for it. Just a little cottage for the three of them where she could look out at the water. Instead, Anthony had bought a large, rambling deco home on a canal that was lined with other large deco homes, and docks jammed in together, board to board, for all the recreational boats that accompanied the houses. Then he’d bought the boat—one practically as large as this cottage—and lined up in that ostentatious weekend queue to take it out and show it off. The whole lifestyle there was so close and stifling, with all that togetherness, she would have happily traded it for breathing room with a view.
This was her breathing room with the view. Only problem was, it wasn’t in the condition she needed. “Since you know my secret, that I bought it sight unseen, would you happen to know where the clinic is?” She was hoping it wasn’t the barn she saw sitting back near the trees.
“It might be the barn. Or one of the guest cottages out there somewhere. But I haven’t seen it.”
“Well,
