Page 147 of The Dravenhearst Brides
Spring…when she might plant flowers…
Her eyesfilled with tears.
She was the last remaining member of her family. There was immense, soul-crushing sorrow in that. In realizing she was all alone in the world. The people she’d started with had all, one by one, gone.
Merrick squeezed her shoulder. His timing, as ever, was impeccable. She leaned into him, against his full chest. His arms wrapped around her.
Not alone,she realized, closing her eyes again. Tears fell, dripping down her cheeks and onto the ground. Salting the earth where she stood.
The last Greenbrier, yes, but not alone.
“I want to come back in the spring,” she whispered. “I want to plant flowers.” To see blooms here.
“All right,” he answered, steady. “Maybe hydrangeas?”
“I was thinking, actually…” She turned to face him, slipping her arms around his neck. “A magnolia tree.”
“A magnolia?”
“Yes. To start.”
His smile was a little bit shy and a whole lot hopeful. Margot watched her entire future open up in that smile, ribboning out before her like the tail of a kite in the breeze. Like a wedding veil streaming behind a bride in the wind.
Like magnolia petals falling to the earth in the spring.
Blooming.
Blooming, blooming, blooming.
Epilogue
Summer, 1935
“Margot, are we flying?”
—Elijah Greenbrier
“I’vegotallbreedsand colors here, Mrs. Dravenhearst. Chestnuts and sorrels. Arabians and Friesians. Fine stallions all, would make excellent riding companions. Or perhaps you’re after a broodmare, for that exceptional racehorse of yours?” The breeder opened the gate to the paddock.
Margot smiled lightly. A broodmare for Omaha? She flicked her eyes to Merrick in amusement. “No, I don’t think so. Not a broodmare.”
“But you do plan to breed him, don’t you? With that bloodline?” The man whistled. “TwoTriple Crowns? One by his father and one by him? Priceless stock, you’ve got.”
“There are things far more important than bloodlines,” Margot murmured, holding her palm out to a curious inky-black colt.
“Show us your best and brightest,” Merrick said, gesturing ahead. “She’s an excellent rider, needs a horse who can keep pace with her.”
“Merrick.” She shushed him, his sly undertones not lost on her. It was something incorrigible Julian might say. They’d been spending far too much time together since Julian moved into the manor a year ago.
Brothers,Margot mused. Smiling, because she remembered all too well what it was like to have one.
They wandered through the paddock for nearly thirty minutes, meeting different horses. Margot grew attached to a friendly sorrel the breeder called Scotch.
“Short for Butterscotch, you know,” he said, rubbing down the horse’s side. “Because of his color.”
“Hmm, yes.” She looked into the horse’s soft brown eyes before turning away.
“What’s wrong, love?” Merrick asked.
