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glow when he had complimented her on what she had accomplished so far. She envisioned her mornings starting out with coffee, and pastry brought by the hunky handyman. Not a bad start to any day.
    She ate her lunch while going over the plans and estimates again, trying to find ways to lower the cost of the materials for her living space upstairs.
    She wasn’t going to touch anything Jeff had proposed for the gallery. She loved the idea of the movable walls that would let her change the displays to suit whatever she wanted to highlight. It was a great idea that offered maximum flexibility for the large open space.
    She would be willing to live in a cardboard box if that’s what it took to get the gallery up and running, but she had to admit that Jeff had pared down the cost of materials for her space to the bare minimum. She could see no way to lower the estimates he’d given her.
    Finished with painting by two-thirty, Zoe cleaned up her tools and her hands and cleared away the stack of blueprints on her desk. She left the cost estimates out and unlocked the desk drawer where she kept all the receipts, her mortgage papers and the agreement with Fredrick Barker she’d signed last month. Every time she touched that piece of paper, her stomach threatened to empty itself.
    Promptly at three o’clock, the jingle of the bell over the front door announced Amanda Adams’ arrival.
    “Hi, Ms. Silvercreek.” The woman looked around and nodded appreciatively. “I see you’re making great strides with the place. Paint always makes such a difference, doesn’t it?”
    “It does. Please pardon my work clothes. I didn’t have time to go back to my room and change. And I’d rather you just called me Zoe. I’m not a very formal kind of person.”
    “Good, then we can both be relaxed. Call me Amanda.” Again she glanced around the room. “You’ve worked so hard today, are you sure you want to go over the financial end of your business now?”
    “Absolutely. I have decisions to make and time is my enemy. I’ve got to have this place finished for the soft opening I plan over the Thanksgiving holiday. Come on back to the office and let’s see if you can provide me with a miracle.”
    “I’m afraid miracles are out of my league, but I’ll do my best to leverage your assets and stretch your capital as far as I can.”
    Zoe seated Amanda at her desk, then angled a folding chair next to her. While the accountant went over her paperwork she tried not to fidget but the strain was too much. She got up and began to pace. Finally, after thirty minutes of study, Amanda straightened and turned toward Zoe.
    “Please, come sit down and I’ll tell you what I think so far.” She consulted a legal pad where she had jotted important points and turned it around so that Zoe could follow along.
    “The big picture looks doable, but with the financing you currently have, you’ll be running with a very tight margin for error. One unexpected expenditure will put you in a precarious position.”
    Zoe slumped in her chair and bit at the ragged edge of a fingernail. She had to make this work. It was her dream. A dream she had been working toward from the first moment she put a brush to canvas. Her mother had encouraged her to follow that dream, had worked two jobs to put her through art school. She had worked so hard, in fact, that she had died of a heart attack when Zoe was one semester shy of graduation.
    Zoe put her hand on Amanda’s arm. “There has to be a way I can make this work. There has to be. Whatever it takes . . . I’ll do. I won’t give up, Amanda, no matter what.” She felt tears sting the backs of her eyes and struggled to regain her composure. This woman would think she was an emotional basket case and too unstable to be successful. Before she could continue, Amanda covered her hand with her own.
    “I can see how important this is to you, Zoe, and I’m not saying you can’t make it work. It’s my responsibility to give you