Free Newport Dreams: A Breakwater Bay Novella by Shelley Noble Page A

the paint layers on the old front steps of Gilbert House.
    They didn’t speak to her like they did to Meri and Doug and Bruce, even Carlyn, with her background in finance.
    So what ignited her passion? Not the hot, hunky guy kind of passion but the soul-deep kind, the kind that would make her spend her life struggling to make ends meet just so she could keep doing what she was doing. Working long, uncomfortable hours only to come back and do it again.
    Meri had said it would take months to clean and strip the ceiling. Working through the years of paint layers in increments of inches, not just painting on some solvent and wiping the whole clean. Cataloguing each layer for color and composition, until she came to the first layer of paint. She didn’t want to lose one bit of the underneath layers. Because there might be something fabulous there.
    Meri couldn’t wait to get started.
    Geordie wanted to feel that, too. But she’d wrecked any chance she had of finding it at Gilbert House with Doug’s crew.
    She sat on a bench by the drive, her camera forgotten on her lap. Frowning into space. In limbo.
    A butterfly flitted by and landed on a shrub. Geordie didn’t care much for photos of butterflies, but she couldn’t just sit on a bench all day. So she took a shot. When it swooped to another bush, she stood and took another.
    And another, catching it in flight, on a branch. She walked down the path to the lawn until it finally led her to the Chinese tea pagoda, where tourists stopped for refreshments.
    It landed on the stone wall where two young girls had taken their sandwiches. Tweenies, Geordie guessed, staying as far away as possible from their parents and little brother, who were sitting at a table across the patio.
    When the butterfly landed on the lid of a soda bottle, Geordie was ready, capturing the look of delight in those faces that were trying so hard to be mature. Geordie smiled. She didn’t even have to look at the shot to know she nailed it. Had caught them at their most secret, vulnerable moment. Two girls and a butterfly.
    The butterfly flew away. The two girls, heads nearly touching, giggled over some shared secret. Four older women who had been having tea at one of the tables got up in a flurry of laughter and conversation. They moved down the path toward the sea, and Geordie moved with them.
    They walked slowly, since one of them used a cane and another was supported by the arm of her friend. Geordie could tell they had known one another for a long time.
    The four ladies came to the edge of the lawn and stopped to gaze out to the ocean. The cliff walk followed the water below them, tunneling beneath the teahouse before reappearing on the other side. Beyond the walk, the ocean spread out to the sky. Geordie moved closer, keeping the ladies between her and the drop to the cliff walk, and took a few shots of blue.
    The expanse of ocean was beautiful, commanding, inspiring, but she’d missed seeing it the day before because she hadn’t been able to climb the breakers. The fear was all in her head. She knew that. For all the good it did. It had the power to paralyze her.
    She moved closer. The women must have heard her coming up behind them because one of them turned around and smiled.
    “Dear, would you mind taking a picture of us?” She held up her camera.
    “I’d love to.” Geordie moved close enough to take the camera from the woman.
    The four of them crowded together.
    “On the count of three.” Geordie knew that was the surest way to kill spontaneity, but she also knew they would like it.
    They did, and when she handed the camera back they thanked her profusely.
    As they walked back to the mansion, Geordie called out, “Oh, ladies.”
    The four of them turned around and Geordie took a series of shots as they laughed, became flustered, and finally settled into that rigid smile that people use to take photos.
    “If you’ll give me an e-mail address, I’ll send you photos. Or I can print some