CHAPTER ONE

       Santa Barbara, California

       January

      WANTED: Woman to enter celibate marriage and be stepmother to four-year-old girl. Send child-rearing philosophies to Mr. Ohana, Box J, Haena, Kauai, HI.

      “THAT’S THE WRONG page.” Impatiently Adele reached over the butter plate with a long-nailed hand that seemed dwarfed by rings, onyx and jade in hand-crafted gold settings. She gestured for Erika to turn the magazine pages. “It’s in the middle.”

      “Wait, wait. Look at this.” Strangely excited—in the same way she became excited when a painting was going well—Erika Blade handed Adele the copy of Island Voice, open to the ad for a celibate marriage. In the last few months she had begun to pay attention to personal ads, to flyers for computer dating services, to bulletins for singles’-club activities. She never acted on any of them. Only desperate people did things like that, and she wasn’t really even looking for a mate. Not exactly. She was simply…curious.

      Celibate marriage. Send child-rearing philosophies…

      If she was ever to answer a personal ad, this would be the one.

      Erika and Adele sat at an ocean-view table in the Surf Room, the grand glass-enclosed breakfast room of the famed Montecito Palms Resort Hotel. The glass-topped table was graced with potted violets, fine bone china, heavy English silver, the remains of breakfast, and transparencies of several of Erika’s latest watercolors of women by the sea. Momoy Publishing, owned by Adele and her husband Kurt, had published many of Erika’s paintings as limited-edition prints. In fact, Adele had brought the copy of Island Voice because she’d purchased an ad in it for Erika’s recent serigraphs. Her work sold well in Hawaiian galleries.

      But Erika was less interested in the prints Adele had already published than in her verdict on the work shown in the transparencies. Nervous, she’d flipped past her publisher’s advertisement, lost her place and stumbled upon the personal from Mr. Ohana.

      As Adele squinted at the ad, Erika took stock of the changes in her publisher’s appearance. Though Adele was only five foot three and tipped the scales at 140, she’d never let that turn her from the world of haute couture—an attitude Erika admired. She loved color, and Adele was an ever-changing palette. Her hair was cut in a severe bob that slanted from ear level on the left to chin level on the right. Its present hue was eggplant—Cobalt Violet, Payne’s Gray and just a touch of Cadmium Orange, if Erika had wanted to mix it from paint—and her dangling purple-and-sapphire earrings matched. During their eight-year professional relationship, Erika had come to anticipate meetings with Adele as a time to vicariously enjoy nail polish, chic hairstyles and makeup.

      And at fifty-one, fifteen years older than Erika, Adele was one of the very few people in the world with whom Erika felt comfortable exposing something of who she really was. Adele was her judge, support and promoter of the thing most intimate to her—her art.

      “Tell me you’re kidding,” Adele said. “Not the personals, Erika.”

      Erika suddenly realized that she’d been injudiciously enthusiastic about the ad. Even Adele would think she was crazy.

      “God, is it the biological clock?” exclaimed her publisher. “If it is, I’ve got a fifteen-year-old son you can have.”

      Erika laughed, glancing nervously out the window at the sun-soaked Santa Barbara Channel and the islands beyond. Because it was Adele, she said, “Oh, I don’t know. Having a kid underfoot doesn’t sound half-bad.” After this too-truthful admission, she rushed on, “I’m trying to picture this Mr. Ohana.”

      “Well, I doubt it’s his real name. Ohana is the Hawaiian word for family. Actually it implies extended family,” explained Adele, whose second passion, after art, was Hawaiiana. “A feeling of helping one another, of loyalty.”

      Erika leaned over the table to stare at the upside-down personal ad. “Mr. Family?” The pseudonym seemed tinged with self-mockery.

      “Yeah. He’s got a real sense of humor. ‘Send child-rearing philosophies’?” Adele rolled her eyes, then gave Erika a dubious look plain as words. Celibate? Surely it’s not that bad. Rather than dwelling on her artist’s unnatural whims, she flipped through the magazine until she came to the advertisement for Erika’s prints.

      Erika took the magazine again and smiled at the ad for Sand Castles. “Can I take this?” Erika held Adele’s copy of Island Voice questioningly above the straw carryall slung over the back of her chair.

      “Sure. I brought it for you.”

      Erika slipped the magazine into her bag and met Adele’s black-rimmed eyes.

      Her publisher sighed. She gathered the transparencies, glanced at one of them under the light and put them in their envelope to return to Erika.

      Erika’s heart fell. But somehow she’d already known Adele wouldn’t take a chance on them.

      “Erika, these paintings just don’t have your usual vigor—or depth. And they’re very similar to things you’ve done before.”

      It was true. “Is it because I used Jean for a model in several of them? She’s so gorgeous…” Her sister-in-law had posed for some of Erika’s best work, including Sand Castles. “I’m having trouble making people look real.”

      “Well, in Sand Castles you certainly managed it.”

      Sand Castles was a watercolor of Jean with Erika’s eight-year-old nephew, Christian. Erika knew her feelings for Chris had translated in paint. She had perceived and understood Jean’s nurturing of her stepson. Because, of course, she’d played that role herself. It was Erika’s best piece ever. But in her publisher’s candid response, she saw the truth—that it was rare for her to capture so much feeling in her art.

      She counted on that honesty from Adele, who went on, “No, I don’t think Jean’s the problem. I think you’re afraid to take risks, and you’re trying to stay on familiar ground.”

      The words tolled inside Erika like the bell of truth. Afraid to take risks…Erika had her reaction, which was emotional. Visceral. It was hard to get up after a fall. Adele had watched; she should know.

      “Look,” said Adele. “I don’t want you to feel bad about this. I know what you’ve been going through this past year. A lot of change. I think Sand Castles is going to sell very well, and if it does maybe we’ll do a second series. In the meantime, you can work on some new projects.” Scraping back her chair from the table, Adele drew an enameled cigarette case and matching lighter from her handbag.

      Erika frowned. With soaring cholesterol and bloodpressure, her friend was a walking time bomb. “You know, I want to have you around for a few years, Adele.”

      “Trust me. I’m prolonging my life—using techniques from the Adele Henry school of stress reduction.”

      Cigarettes, cognac and French cuisine…

      Adele changed the subject. “Speaking of Jean, did you say you’re without her as a model for a while?”

      Erika took the hint; she couldn’t force Adele to take care of herself. “They’re in Greenland. Studying walruses.” Erika’s father, Christopher Blade, had been a renowned undersea explorer, and her brother, David, had followed in his footsteps after his death. Now, David and his second wife, Jean, and his son were in the Arctic for a year. The expedition had followed closely on the heels of an overfishing study in Japan. In fact, they’d spent little time in Santa Barbara since David had married Jean a year before. The