month at Race Point to test their relationship. She wasn’t helping matters by throwing herself in his arms every time she saw him.
She had the feeling that once again, he would be frustrated at himself for failing to keep the boundaries he’d established. He would beat himself up and perhaps even pull away from her. Surely she could be more careful and help him preserve his sense of integrity.
“Zelma?” she called once she’d entered and shaken the sand from her skirt.
“I’m still in here, dear.” The sweet voice came from the art room.
“Can I get you anything?” Victoria asked as she made her way to the little room at the rear of the house.
“I’m perfectly fine,” Zelma said. “James lit a lantern before he left.”
Victoria stepped into the cozy room, the walls of which were covered in paintings from floor to ceiling. Zelma still sat in her chair in front of her easel with the lantern buzzing on the pedestal beside her. She had a blanket draped over her lap and a fresh cup of tea and biscuit.
“James is so sweet,” Victoria said, thinking of all the ways he doted on Zelma.
“He’s a very good man.” Zelma concentrated on the canvas in front of her. “And Tom takes after him.”
Yes, Tom was a good man. Victoria smiled thinking about his desire to show her the humpback whales and the fun that they’d had.
“I take it you had a lovely time?” Zelma dragged her attention away from the canvas to glance at Victoria with the kind of look that made Victoria pluck at the edge of her sleeve with renewed embarrassment. Zelma knew exactly what they’d been doing in the tower.
“Tom wanted to show me a couple of whales he’d spotted off the coast.”
Zelma dipped her brush into first one color and then another, mixing them. “He’s always loved sea life.”
Victoria stepped behind Tom’s mother and took in the nearly finished landscape, a beach at sunset with a young couple wading hand in hand in the low tide. It was beautiful. And strangely familiar.
“Yes, it’s you and Tom,” Zelma said with a smile. “Your young love is inspiring. I had to capture it.”
Their love? She’d known she was falling in love. But she hadn’t been sure about Tom. She thought she’d caught a glimpse of it in his eyes up in the tower. But what if she’d only imagined it?
“You’re a talented artist,” Victoria said, glancing at all of the other pictures around the room. “You must have a hundred pictures scattered throughout the house.”
Zelma swirled a pinkish orange color in the sky. “I wish I could take credit for all of them. But many of them are Tom’s.”
“My Tom?”
Zelma laughed. “Yes. Your Tom. Is that so hard to believe?”
“Actually, it’s impossible to believe.” Victoria couldn’t imagine Tom painting anything. He’d never even shown the remotest interest in art work, hadn’t even glanced at the paintings on the walls of the keeper’s house.
“He loved to paint as a child and a young man, before he left home.” The paintbrush in Zelma’s hand stilled, and sadness transformed her features. The wrinkles around her eyes seemed deeper and the grooves around her mouth more pronounced.
“He’s never once mentioned it.” Victoria studied the pictures, as if seeing them for the first time.
“The one of the Cape Henry on Chesapeake Bay there in the middle is his.” Zelma pointed to a painting of an octagonal-shaped brick tower. “You can tell which are his by the tiny initials he put in the left corners.”
Victoria crossed the room to inspect the painting more carefully. The detail was perfect, even down to the seagull circling in a blue sky dotted with realistic-looking clouds. Sure enough, a TC was painted in the corner.
“I’m shocked.” Victoria traced the crude wooden frame that surrounded the painting. “I wonder why he’s never told me?”
Zelma laid down her paintbrush and folded her hands in her lap. “I don’t suppose he told you how I lost my feet either?”
A gust rattled the window, followed by a burst of heavy rain splattering against the glass. Outside the day had turned almost as dark as night, causing shadows to spread over the room.
Victoria tried to squelch a rising sense of unease at the realization that perhaps she didn’t know Tom as well as she’d believed. “Tom hasn’t spoken much of his past,” she admitted.
Zelma sighed. “I figured as much.”
“I didn’t want to ask you about your feet,” Victoria added quickly, “because I know how it makes