London Tides: A Novel (The MacDonald Family Trilogy Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

pepper and ginger. The memory, fond as it was, made her insides clench. When she’d left Ian, she hadn’t just abandoned the man she loved; she’d abandoned her adopted London family as well. James, Ian’s sister Serena, all their mutual friends. Naturally, when it was clear Grace wasn’t coming back, everyone but Asha had rallied around him and shut her out. She’d been arrogant to think it didn’t matter, naive to think they’d come around.
    She sighed and tossed the pad onto the sofa next to her. Thinking about the past was pointless. Ian’s reaction had told her all she needed to know: her return was an unwelcome surprise. If she really wanted to make a life for herself in London, she would have to do it without him. It had been only nostalgia and grief that had made her believe she could change things.
    Grace’s mobile pulled her out of her introspection. She fished the phone from her jacket pocket and pressed it to her ear. “Grace Brennan.”
    “Grace! You’re here!”
    The clipped London accent of her friend and gallery owner Melvin Colville brought a smile back to her lips. “You got my message.”
    “I did. Are you free to come by the gallery today?”
    “Of course. What time?”
    “Four this afternoon? And bring your slides if you have them.”
    “I do. See you then.” Grace clicked off the phone, her spirits rising, then glanced at her watch. It was barely eleven, which gave her plenty of time to buy groceries and get the chicken marinating for dinner, then dig out the slide negatives that corresponded to the scans she had emailed Melvin before she left Paris.
    At least there were still some people in London happy to have her back.
     
    Grace climbed the stairs from the Underground platform and emerged to a street-level cloud of diesel fumes over musty river water. Her stomach immediately began to do backflips. It was one thing to have her photos printed in magazines, picked up on the AP wire. That was her job, her calling even. But this collection of portraiture, taken as a personal mission and the fulfillment of a promise—that was something entirely different. Her job as war photographer was to show other people’s tragedies, but this collection hit far too close to her own.
    She’d never been a coward, though, and if she could trust anyone with her work, it would be Melvin.
    Her steps slowed before a glass storefront beside a corner pub, an elegant black sign with gilt letters proclaiming Putney Bank Gallery. Kraft paper obscured the view through the windows, but a brick propped open the door to let in air and let out the sound of hammering.
    Grace stepped inside, pausing by the door so she could watch the activity unnoticed. Several men with tool belts were securing false walls faced with plasterboard to chains from the ceiling joists, and a ginger-haired woman rolled a layer of new white paint on the permanent walls.
    “Grace!”
    She turned from the preparations to the man striding across the polished concrete floor toward her. Midsixties and trim, with a shaved head and neatly trimmed beard, he seemed far more comfortable in his prestigious London gallery than he ever had in an editorial office. Even then, his taste had been impeccable and his influence wide.
    Grace accepted his hug and quick kiss on the cheek. “Melvin, this looks amazing! Who is it?”
    “Gordon Wright. Abstract oils. We’ll be cutting it close for Friday, but we’ll make it. We always do. How about you? How does it feel to be back in London?”
    “Like home, surprisingly. It’s changed a bit since I spent any real time here.”
    “It always does. Come, I’ve something to show you in my office.”
    Grace followed him around piles of tools and paint buckets into a small office at the back of the gallery, sparsely furnished with a desk and two inexpensive chairs, its walls covered with whiteboards and pin boards and light boxes. It was a nod to his former life as a photo editor at Londinium Monthly , one of