Then again, blowing up at the owner’s wife was not the path to job security. Particularly when the words myopic, plebeian bimbo were employed.

Lightning split the sky over the rise ahead, and Malory winced as much in memory of her temper as from the flash. A very bad move on her part, which only showed what happened when you gave in to temper and impulse.

To top it off, she’d spilled latte on Pamela’s Escada suit. But that had been an accident.

Almost.

However fond James was of her, Malory knew her livelihood was hanging by a very slim thread. And when the thread broke, she would be sunk. Art galleries weren’t a dime a dozen in a pretty, picturesque town like Pleasant Valley. She would either have to find another area of work as a stopgap or relocate.

Neither option put a smile on her face.

She loved Pleasant Valley, loved being surrounded by the mountains of western Pennsylvania. She loved the small-town feel, the mix of quaint and sophisticated that drew the tourists, and the getaway crowds that spilled out of neighboring Pittsburgh for impulsive weekends.

Even when she was a child growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pleasant Valley was exactly the sort of place she’d imagined living in. She craved the hills, with their shadows and textures, and the tidy streets of a valley town, the simplicity of the pace, the friendliness of neighbors.

The decision to someday fold herself into the fabric of Pleasant Valley had been made when she was fourteen and spent a long holiday weekend there with her parents.

Just as she’d decided, when she wandered through The Gallery that long-ago autumn, that she would one day be part of that space.

Of course, at the time she had thought her paintings would hang there, but that was one item on her checklist that she’d been forced to delete rather than tick off when it was accomplished.

She would never be an artist. But she had to be, needed to be, involved with and surrounded by art.

Still, she didn’t want to move back to the city. She wanted to keep her gorgeous, roomy apartment two blocks from The Gallery, with its views of the Appalachians, its creaky old floors, and its walls that she’d covered with carefully selected artwork.

But the hope of that was looking as dim as the stormy sky.

So she hadn’t been smart with her money, Malory admitted with a windy sigh. She didn’t see the point of letting it lie in some bank when it could be turned into something lovely to look at or to wear. Until it was used, money was just paper. Malory tended to use a great deal of paper.

She was overdrawn at the bank. Again. She’d maxed out her credit cards. Ditto. But, she reminded herself, she had a great wardrobe. And the start of a very impressive art collection. Which she would have to sell, piece by piece and most likely at a loss, to keep a roof over her head if Pamela brought the axe down.