Last Chance Knit & Stitch by Hope Ramsay Page B

This humidity wasn’t comfortable, but it was bone-deep familiar.
    His cell phone rang. He checked the ID—no one on his contact list, but the area code wasn’t local.
    Maybe this wasn’t another nasty call from someone who owned a Ford and now had to travel eighty miles to get it serviced by a dealership. Molly Canaday had been right. There were hundreds of people with F-150 pickups who were ticked off about Wolfe Ford’s closure. Unfortunately, they mostly blamed Simon, even though the real villain was his uncle Ryan. It didn’t matter who was at fault; the town’s animosity had been justifiably earned. And Simon felt it every time he ran down to the BI-LO for groceries.
    He continued to stare at the caller ID for a moment, then decided to take the call. He wasn’t a villain. The least he could do was listen to people vent. It wouldn’t change a thing, but maybe folks would come to realize that he wasn’t afraid of hearing what they had to say.
    He pressed the talk button. “This is Simon Wolfe.” He braced himself for another round of verbal abuse.
    Instead a low and slightly husky female voice said, “Hello, Simon. You and I met at your father’s funeral.”
    “Who is this?”
    “It’s Lark Chaikin, Stone Rhodes’s wife.”
    He closed his sketch pad. “Oh, hello. I’m a fan of yours.”
    Silence for a beat. “A fan? Really?” There was a definite northern edge to Lark’s accent.
    “Yeah, I have a copy of
Rural Scenes
. I love your images of the swamps. I recognized some of the local scenes the moment I picked it up at the bookstore.”
    “I guess that means you spent a lot of time in the swamps.”
    He chuckled, thinking about Luke and Gabe Raintree. “Yeah, I did. So, what can I do for you?”
    “Well, I heard from Arlo that you leased the old Coca-Cola building.”
    He had forgotten how fast news travels in Last Chance.
    “Only short-term. I need a place to paint while I settle Daddy’s estate.”
    There was another slight hesitation before Lark spoke again. “Look, Simon, I’m calling because I’ve had my eye on that building as studio space for a while now. I was thinking it could be transformed into a number of studios.”
    “Are there that many artists in Allenberg County?”
    “Well, no,” she said, “but there’s you and me, and I looked you up. You’re up and coming, as they like to say.”
    He focused his gaze on the tall, showy spikes of foxglove. “Uh, my press clippings exaggerate. I can assure you that, while I’m not starving, I’m also not Thomas Kinkaid.”
    “But I spoke with Rory Harrison, and he says you’re brilliant. And if Rory Harrison likes your work, then you are probably more than merely up and coming.”
    Wow, she was well connected. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why exactly did you call?”
    “It’s complicated. I’m part of a group of investors interested in renovating the downtown district. And we’ve had several conversations about the Coca-Cola building. It’s turn-of-the-twentieth-century commercial architecture and ought to be registered as a historic site. And abandoned, like it is, it’s a terrible eyesore. So I thought we might use it to create an artists’ colony.”
    “An artists’ colony in Last Chance? Are you nuts?”
    She laughed. “Well, probably. But there’s precedent. Up in the Washington, DC, area, where I lived for a while, there was an old factory that the city of Alexandria renovated into studio space for working artists and artisans. I’m thinking our Coca-Cola building would be perfect for the same thing, on a smaller scale. Having a place where people can buy art and crafts on a year-round basis could be wonderful for the town’s economy.”
    “Uh, well, that’s a fabulous idea for an urban area like DC, but I don’t know about Allenberg County. And besides, I’m not staying. I’m just leasing the place for a short time.”
    “Oh.”
    “I have a life in California.”
    “Oh. Well. I just thought with your mother