Free Sculpting Grace: A Light Romance Novel (Art of Grace Book 2) by Samantha Westlake

complaining about stupid things, insisting on ridiculous changes."
    She stepped away for a moment to grab a glass of wine, and then dropped into the booth across from me. "What about you?" she asked, as she lifted the glass up to her lips. "What's making you stressed?"
    In answer, I pulled out the sheet of folded yellow paper from de St. James and set it on the table in between us. Portia immediately snagged it and spun it around so that she could read it. She frowned, leaning forward and peering closer at the paper as her brow furrowed.
    "What is this?" she finally asked, pushing it away.
    I sighed. "This is my to-do list, apparently. Ever heard of a sculpture artist named Dean Benjamin de St. James?"
    "No, but that's a heck of a mouthful," she answered. "He's a big deal?"
    "Yeah, he was - but he's also totally bonkers. Uncle Preston wants me to try and get him to sign on with the gallery - and honestly, it would be great if I can pull it off. He attracts a lot of attention, and we're going through a pretty slow sales period. Having him as a featured artist would bring in more customers."
    "Which means more commission for you, too," Portia finished; she'd heard me complain about the lack of customers at the Halesford Gallery many times before. "Well, that sounds like a good thing!"
    "It started off that way," I nodded. "But I went over to talk to de St. James this morning, and he turned out to be this crazy guy, a recluse who hides away in his dirty, garbage-filled house. He doesn't trust anyone, and he told me that if I wanted to get him to agree to let me help him sell the art, I need to accomplish the stuff on his to-do list."
    "Ah, and this is the list itself?" Portia peered again at the list in front of her, but it clearly didn't seem any more legible than it had appeared before. "He really is crazy. I can't even read most of the stuff on here."
    "Well, that's actually because he crossed off a lot of it - not that it disproves his insanity," I amended. "He started writing pages and pages of the stuff, and I told him that I'd only do three items. So he crossed off everything except for three things and then gave the list to me."
    Portia tried turning the sheet of paper around, as if it would make more sense upside down. "And what are the three things?"
    I shrugged. "I honestly haven't figured it out yet," I admitted. "I figured that I'd need at least a glass of wine in front of me before I try to decipher de St. James' writing."
    "Maybe you need to drink a couple of glasses just to be able to read it," Portia added. She gave the sheet one last glance, and then passed it back to me. "Can you read any of these?"
    I took the sheet of paper and frowned at it. "Okay, how about this one? This looks like it isn't crossed off. Is that a 'T' or a 'J', do you think?"
    Portia looked at where my finger indicated on the sheet. "I think I need to finish this glass of wine before I make any sort of judgment," she answered, tilting back her wine glass.
    After another glance at the sheet, I followed her example. If I was going to get through de St. James' sheet of demands, I'd need a good bit of alcohol in my system to endure his horrible handwriting.

Chapter Ten
    *
    "Okay, I think I've got it figured out," I said, reaching out for my glass of wine to award myself a swig in celebration. "These seem to be the three requests that he didn't cross off, so they're what I need to do!"
    "Hooray!" cheered Portia from across the table from me, swaying slightly as if caught in a nonexistent breeze. We'd both consumed about the same amount of wine as we worked together on decoding the list that de St. James had given me, but Portia was a perennial lightweight, never able to hold more than a glass or two of wine or liquor without getting practically falling-down drunk.
    I frowned at the list again. "So let me read these off, and tell me if they make sense," I said. "Item one: set up all of these social medias."
    "Social media what?"
    "I'm not sure,