The Magnolia Sisters (Magnolia Sisters #1) - Michelle Major Page 0,17
Avery lifted a brow in question.
“It’s just storage,” her sister explained quickly. “There’s nothing but junk, and the floor isn’t stable in a few areas. Part of the roof was destroyed by a storm a few years back. There’s water damage that hasn’t been fixed.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” Avery glanced between Carrie and the closed door but didn’t take her hand off the knob. “Is that where you keep the art you don’t want to talk about?”
“I told you it’s storage space,” Carrie said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. “Seriously, it’s hotter than Hades. I need to have a contractor come out and look at the floor before anyone can go up there.”
Avery studied Carrie. She wasn’t sure why Gray’s comment about Carrie being a talented artist stuck with her. As far as she was concerned, Niall Reed had been the artistic version of a snake oil salesman. He’d been better at marketing his vision than creating it. But her gut told her that his effervescently sentimental paintings masked a man with some deep insecurities and possibly an inferiority complex.
Avery’s mom might not have been the chocolate-chip-cookie-baking type, but she’d wanted her daughter to be successful.
“I’m going up,” she announced, quickly opening the door and bounding up the steep steps before Carrie could stop her.
“No,” Carrie shouted but Avery was already at the top. She flipped on the light switch, expecting to see another space crowded with more junk.
Instead, the long, narrow room was practically empty, covered in a layer of fine dust but otherwise untouched by the passing of years.
But what caught and held her attention were the canvases leaning against the far wall. So many of them, the largest at least four feet in length and five feet tall. It looked like they were stacked eight deep in some of the rows she counted.
They weren’t Niall’s commercialized works. These paintings were done in a style that was a fascinating combination of modern and impressionism. Ordinary objects painted with an attention to light and shadow that made Avery’s breath catch in her throat despite years of dust obscuring them.
“Are they yours?” she whispered, glancing over her shoulder to where Carrie had stopped at the top of the steps, arms folded tightly across her stomach.
“He wouldn’t let me take them when I moved out,” she answered tightly. “That was what we argued about. It doesn’t matter now. They’re going to the dump.”
“What are you talking about?” Avery took a step forward. It felt like she was discovering something magical in this moment, like she’d stumbled upon an artistic version of Narnia in this dusty attic. “These are amazing.” She turned to face her sister. “Were they all done while you were in high school?”
Carrie gave a barely perceptible nod. “Mostly. I was putting together a portfolio for my college application. I had my heart set on New York City. It was a long shot at best.”
“You’re undeniably talented,” Avery countered. “Any art school would have wanted you.”
“I doubt that,” Carrie said. “Although, I guess I’ll never know. Mom left at the end of my junior year, and after that it was clear Dad needed me.”
“We could sell these at the gallery.”
“No way. Come on, Avery. This is private and I wasn’t joking about the water damage in the floor. No one has been up here in years. It’s not safe.”
“Seems fine to me.” Avery turned back toward the paintings. She wanted to clean off the canvases and see them in natural light, not just under the glow of the dim fixture hanging from the center of the attic’s ceiling. She moved toward the dormers near the front of the house, their windows covered with heavy drapes. If she could just convince Carrie—
A loud keening sound split the air, much like a glacier calving. Avery screamed as the floor beneath her suddenly gave way. Life in Magnolia was full of surprises, and most of them were turning out to be unwanted.
CHAPTER FIVE
TEN MINUTES LATER, Gray threw his truck into Park, grabbed his tool bag from the passenger seat and ran up the front lawn toward