Chapter 20
“Programs?” Emily heard her own voice crack.
Winnie stood on Starfish Cottage’s front porch and held out a glossy booklet. “For the Springtide Festival. Grant makes beautiful booklets with artist biographies, photos of featured works, and a map of exhibition spaces. They’re collectors’ items. People keep them for years.”
Collectors’ items. Searchable, shareable, permanent records connecting Emily Shaw to Starlight Shores, Florida. Anyone looking for her would only need to search her name plus “art exhibition” to find her exact location.
Her heart did a double beat. Of course! She should have thought of this when she said yes to showing her work.
Julian could find her.
She’d been so focused on creating again, on healing, and on this small community that had welcomed her, that she’d somehow convinced herself she could stay invisible.
That painting in Starlight Shores was different from painting in Chicago.
That a small-town festival wouldn’t register on Julian’s radar.
But of course it would. He had money, resources, and unlimited spite. He probably had search alerts set up on her name. The moment those festival programs went online—and they would, because every event posted their materials digitally now—he’d know exactly where to find her.
“Emily? Are you all right?” Winnie stepped inside. “You’ve gone white.”
“I... How public are these programs?”
“Very. Grant posts them on the gallery website, the festival website, and social media. The tourism board shares them. Why?”
Because Julian would see them. Because he’d come here, to this place she’d started to think of as safe.
He’d stand in front of her paintings and call her a fraud again, this time in front of everyone she’d begun to care about.
He’d confront her in front of Grant, Winnie, Sally, Melissa, and the entire community that had slowly, carefully welcomed her.
She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t drag them into her scandal.
“I need to withdraw from the festival.” The words tumbled out. “I’m sorry, Winnie, but I can’t—I can’t do this.”
“Because of Julian Holloway.” It wasn’t a question. Winnie’s voice held the calm certainty of someone who’d lived long enough to recognize fear when she saw it.
“Then you know why I can’t put my name in a public festival program. He’ll find me. He’ll come here and destroy everything, and I won’t—I can’t—put Grant’s gallery at risk. Or your lighthouse. Or—”
“Or face him again. That’s what you’re really afraid of.” Winnie’s tone was gentle but unflinching.
“Of course I’m afraid!” Her voice rose. “You didn’t see what he did in Chicago.
The reporters, the accusations, the way everyone I trusted just..
. disappeared. My husband left me. My gallery dropped me.
My teaching position ended. Even after being cleared, I couldn’t get any of it back because Julian had poisoned everything. ”
“So your plan is to let him keep poisoning your life from a distance?”
She opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.
“You came here to hide. Fine. Everyone needs that sometimes. But you’ve been catching your breath for a while now. At some point, you have to actually breathe out, rebuild your strength, and then stand up again.”
“I’m not strong enough.”
“Those paintings say otherwise. Those paintings say you’re exactly strong enough. You created something true despite everything Julian Holloway tried to take from you. Your voice is right there on that canvas. Everything he tried to take is still yours.”
The cottage suddenly felt too small, and the walls pressed in. “What if I show my work and he comes here, and it happens again? What if he convinces everyone that I’m a fraud? What if—”
“What if you spend the rest of your life running?” Winnie moved to the doorway of the studio.
“This is extraordinary work, Emily. It deserves to be seen. You deserve to be seen. And yes, Julian might find out. He might come here. But you know what? He’ll find a community that actually knows you this time.
People who’ve watched you heal, seen you create, and witnessed your character firsthand. ”
“Winnie, please—”
“Grant. This is about Grant too, isn’t it? You’re not just afraid of Julian destroying your reputation again. You’re afraid of what Julian might do to someone you’re starting to care about.”
Her face heated. Was she that obvious?
“That young man has his own scars. That ex-girlfriend of his did her own damage when she betrayed him. He opened that gallery knowing it might fail. Supports artists who might never sell. That man chooses risk every single day.” She tapped her phone screen. “Now it’s your turn to choose.”
“I need time to think—”
“You’ve had months to think. Thinking time is over.” Winnie’s voice held steel beneath the kindness. “Sometimes we need to be pushed off the cliff to remember we can fly.”
“Or to confirm we’ll crash.” She heard the bitterness in her voice.
“Then you crash. And you get back up. That’s what living looks like, Emily. Not hiding in a lighthouse cottage pretending you can make yourself small enough to disappear.”
She walked into the studio and sank onto the stool beside her easel.
Her hands found the familiar grooves worn into the wood from hours of sitting in this exact spot.
Creating again had felt like coming home.
But showing that creation to the world? That was different.
That was a vulnerability she wasn’t sure she could survive.
Her phone chimed. She pulled it from her pocket with trembling hands.
An email notification.
From an address she didn’t recognize, but the subject line made her blood run cold: Found you.
She opened the email with fingers that had gone numb.
Emily,
Saw the festival listing. Already emailed the organizers about your history.
See you soon.
Julian
The phone slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor. Winnie was beside her immediately, retrieving the phone, reading the message.
“That…” Winnie’s language turned surprisingly colorful for a lighthouse keeper. She grabbed her own phone. “I’m texting Grant. This changes things.” Winnie sent the text without asking permission.
“It doesn’t change anything. He’s found me. He’s already contacted the festival. It’s over.”
“Over? Emily Shaw, you listen to me.” Winnie gripped Emily’s shoulders, forcing eye contact.
“That boy is a bully. And bullies only win when good people run away scared. Is that who you want to be? Someone who creates beautiful, honest work and then lets a damaged, grieving man destroy it because he can’t face his own pain? ”
“He’ll ruin everything—”
“He’ll try. But he won’t succeed. Not this time.” Winnie’s certainty was unshakeable. “This time, you have a community. And most importantly, this time you’re not going to run.”
She wanted to argue. Wanted to say that Winnie didn’t understand, that it was different, that Julian had resources and ruthlessness and nothing to lose. But a knock at the door interrupted her spiral.
Grant’s voice carried through the door. “Winnie? Emily? It’s me.”
Winnie moved to let him in before Emily could protest. He came into the cottage and stepped into the studio, his expression concerned, and his eyes immediately found Emily’s face. Whatever he saw there made him cross the room in three long strides.
“I was already on my way over when I got your text. What happened?”
“Show him the email,” Winnie instructed.
Emily didn’t want to. Didn’t want to see Grant’s expression change from concern to pity, or worse, from support to self-preservation. She picked up her phone and handed it to him without looking at his face.
The silence stretched. Finally, Grant spoke, his voice carefully controlled. “When did this come?”
“Minutes ago. Don’t you see? I have to pull out of the festival now. He’s already contacted the festival organizers, Grant. He’ll poison everything before it even begins. I won’t let him destroy your gallery’s reputation—”
“My gallery’s reputation?” His laugh held no humor. He moved to look at her painting on the easel, studying it with the intensity she’d come to recognize. “Emily, look at this. Really look at it.”
“I know what it is—”
“Do you?” He turned back to her. “Because I see an artist who’s found her voice again. I see work that’s technically brilliant and emotionally honest. I see something that would be an honor to display in my gallery, scandal or no scandal.”
“Julian will threaten lawsuits—”
“Let him threaten. We’ll be ready if Julian shows up.”
“You can’t want this fight.
“I’ve been running from fights for seven years.
” Something hard entered Grant’s expression.
“Seven years of telling myself that supporting other artists was enough. That I didn’t need to create or take risks or put myself out there again because Miranda taught me how painful that could be.
But you know what I figured out watching you paint? ”
She shook her head, not trusting her voice.
“Running doesn’t make you safer.” He stepped closer.
“Julian is going to come after you whether you’re in the festival or not.
That email proves it. He found you anyway.
So the only real question is if you face him as an artist showing honest work with a community behind you, or do you face him as someone who’s still running, still letting him control your choices? ”
She hated that Grant was right. Julian had found her. The hiding was over. She could keep running—pack up tonight, find another small town, start over again—or she could stand her ground for the first time since this nightmare began.
“Don’t let fear make this choice. Let your art make it.”
He set her phone gently on the work table and moved toward the door. Winnie followed, pausing long enough to squeeze Emily’s hand. “You’re scared. It’s okay to be scared. Paint scared. Show up anyway.”
Then they were gone, and she was alone with her paintings and Julian’s threatening email.
She looked at her painting. At the morning light streaming through the windows, the lived-in warmth, the truth she’d captured about home and healing. This wasn’t derivative. This wasn’t fraud. This was hers.
And Julian Holloway had already taken enough from her.
Emily picked up her phone. Her hands shook as she started to text. The message was short: Include my paintings. I’m done running.
She hit send before she could change her mind.
Then she sat in her studio, watching the afternoon light shift across her canvas and waited for her hands to stop shaking. They didn’t. But she picked up a brush anyway.