was as sweet as her spirit. But she carried too many burdens on her slim shoulders to indulge herself in romantic fancy. Her sister, Bea, wheelchair-bound for years, demanded a great deal of care and even more attention. And Elise treated the library itself almost as though it were a living thing. It had become her child. For this Renata, along with the rest of the town, would always be grateful. She’d spent more happy hours than she could count poring over art books that Elise had special-ordered for her back in the days when nobody else had thought she had a lick of talent.
Proof of Alyssa’s father’s faith in Renata was that one of her first paintings, a product of her cubist phase, now hung on a wall in the Ingalles’ living room. It was a crush of blues and greens, with no discernible subject matter, though Renata recalled believing at the time that it represented heaven’s relationship with earth. Now it represented the fact that crusty Judson Ingalls had been the first person in the world to pay actual money for a Renata Meyer painting. For that reason alone she would always cut Alyssa’s dad a lot of slack, no matter what Tyler’s rumor mill had to say about him.
“It’s good to see you all,” said Renata, suddenly enveloped by a sense of warmth for each of them. After the unsettling events of the morning, it was good to feel that she was really back home among people who were always kind and predictable.
“So what have you been doing lately, Renata?” asked Elise with a sparkling smile.
“I’m still trying to make a living from my paintings,” she replied, opting not to mention that most of her income came from drawing newspaper ads free-lance. “It’s a bit of a challenge out there.”
“Tell me about it,” said Liza, not with rancor but with genuine, shared frustration. “Oz isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Renata grinned. That was as close as Liza was likely to come to admitting that even for a rebel like herself, there really was no place like home.
For fifteen minutes everybody munched on Alyssa’s croissants and swapped tales about who had said what last week at the Hair Affair. Renata listened with one ear while her thoughts drifted back to Michael. He’d said he was going to take his father home first, then report to work as soon as he could. He’d mumbled something about his usual unpaid overtime equaling this morning off, but he’d never gotten around to telling her just what his job was. Brick Bauer surely knew and would tell her if she asked, but she couldn’t think of a good excuse to pose the question. Renata had no reason to think she’d ever see Michael Youngthunder again; he’d certainly given her no indication that he was interested in getting to know her. And yet, for reasons that weren’t entirely clear to Renata, the man seemed to have implanted himself in her subconscious. Despite the cheery laughter all around her, she couldn’t quite seem to join in. She wasn’t a woman who normally spent much time worrying about men, but she somehow couldn’t get this one off her mind.
“As most of you know, we’re in the middle of a fund-raising event to replace our library,” Alyssa declared when the meeting finally got under way. “As I understand it, the matching funds we expected to receive have been held up, maybe for years. Elise is going to contact the architect who drew up the plans to see if he can scale them down considerably and still meet our needs, but we’re going to need a massive infusion of cash anyway. It is our hope—” her eyes turned to Renata “—that this wonderful crafts fair will help meet that need.”
Renata didn’t comment, but she couldn’t help thinking that Alyssa was dreaming. No crafts fair could produce the kind of revenue the town was seeking, even if the artists paid a hefty commission or made a generous donations from their profits.
“Uh, excuse me,” she said apologetically, “but this is the first I’ve heard about replacing the library. I’m all for raising funds for books, but to be honest with you, I don’t think we can get all that much money from a crafts fair. Not on the scale of building a new library.” She turned to Elise. “Frankly, I don’t see the point. I love the old place.”
Elise shook her head. Her lips tightened in distress. “So do I, Renata, but Tyler has grown since you were a little girl! We simply don’t have enough room anymore. Not for books, not for people, not for meetings that could be held in the public gathering rooms.” Her voice grew low and impassioned. A hint of desperation darkened her normally cheerful eyes. “Besides, the building is so old it’s likely to be condemned as unsafe at any time, or we could have a disaster that would cost us thousands of dollars in books or even threaten the safety of our patrons. The library needs massive restoration—electrical work, plumbing, plaster, everything.” There was a tremor of despair in her voice now. “Originally we just hoped to renovate the building or add on, but it would almost cost more to do that, and we’d still be short on space.”
Briskly, Nora said, “Renata, we discussed all of this at the council meetings. If you’d gone through all the hassle we have, you’d understand that we really do have to build a new library. The only question is where we’re going to come up with the funds.”
“The crafts fair is only one idea,” Anna chimed in brightly. “We’ve got several others in the works.”
They weren’t exactly ganging up on her, but Renata got the message clearly enough. You weren’t here when all the planning was done. It’s too late to raise objections now.
Renata maintained a sober silence when Alyssa started to speak again.
“In order for this to come about, we have several ideas. The first is that crafts people will donate part of their proceeds—” her gaze flickered nervously to Renata “—and the second is that we hold an auction of some works by more famous artists, whomever we can impress with the urgency of our cause. Although we’ll be offering notable artwork, we’re hoping that our publicity of this event as a fund-raiser will inflate the prices considerably.”
Again her gaze drifted toward Renata, who was definitely getting edgy now. She didn’t have enough money to be generous with her donations to Tyler, even though she loved the old town. She couldn’t imagine how she was going to get equally impoverished artist friends to donate their paintings to the cause.
When Renata remained silent, Alyssa started to speak again.
“Of course, we need someone to handle the auction portion of the fair—recruiting the works themselves, I mean. Someone who really knows about art and can assess it fairly. That’s why we were so glad that Renata volunteered to serve on the committee.”
Volunteered, my foot, Renata thought. But she kept her expression neutral as Alyssa continued.
“Some of you may not remember that Renata started painting when she was a little girl. She sold her first picture to my father when she was thirteen. It’s probably worth a fortune now, but he would never part with it.” She faced the cubist mass of blues and sighed. “It has such sentimental value.”
Renata had to stifle a smile. The only thing Judson Ingalls could sell that painting for was kindling. Still, it was nice that he’d kept the homely thing, even though she suspected that Alyssa had dug it out of the basement to put on display just for this meeting. It didn’t fit in a home that had been decorated with such wealth and taste.
When all the other ladies beamed at Renata, she felt the noose tighten. Liza winked at her, clearly reading her apprehension.
“With all of her artist friends and contacts, we’re certain that Renata will be able to make the auction an outstanding success,” Alyssa continued. “We’ll help her store and organize the paintings and sculptures, but of course none of us is in a position to recruit and evaluate artwork as she can.” Alyssa smiled
