Safe Harbour - Danielle Steel

On a wind-swept summer day in San Francisco, a solitary figure walks down the beach, a dog at her side. At eleven, Pip Mackenzie's young life has already been touched by tragedy; nine months before, a terrible accident plunged her mother Ophelie into inconsolable grief. But on this chilly July afternoon, Pip meets artist Matt Bowles, who offers to teach the girl to draw--and can't help but notice her beautiful, lonely mother.