Page 9 of The Seven Rings
“I know drama’s my natural default, but I think today calls for dreamy.”
“We had our share of drama for the day already.”
“And there’s that. See you later.”
Sonya got the door for her. “Enjoy.”
“Oh, every minute.”
Sipping her Coke, Sonya watched her friend walk toward the pergola while Yoda pranced and Pye slunk over to greet her.
It looked, Sonya thought, like a perfectly peaceful spot on a perfectly peaceful day. You’d never know that vindictive viciousness existed here.
“But I know,” she murmured.
She walked through the quiet of the house, into the library, where the music played.
She sat, and opened the next file.
By midafternoon her brain started to fuzz.
“Okay, maybe I need an hour, and some fresh air.”
Since the sun shined bright, she grabbed her sunglasses and a ball cap. Not as romantically sexy as Cleo’s painting hat, she thought as she pulled her ponytail through the back, but it would do.
She went out the front and to the seawall. The wind whipped just enough to blow at her tail of hair, and to whisk the clouds from her mind. The sea rippled with that wind so the boats on it rolled, and the waves crashed like thunder on the rocks.
Far out she caught a flash, then the leap and dive of a school of dolphins.
Her life had changed, she knew, completely and inevitably, that frigid winter day in Boston when Oliver Doyle II had knocked on her door to tell her an uncle she’d never known existed had left her all this.
And more.
She wanted it more than she’d ever imagined, this great, grand old house and everything in it. Ghosts included.
She turned now to look at it, how strong it stood, how fanciful. And saw a number of windows open.
Molly, she thought with a smile, letting the fresh air in. She wasn’t alone in her deep need to tend and protect Lost Bride Manor.
She believed, strongly, one way to do that was simply to live, to do what came next.
She walked, rounding the house to where the gardens they’d planted late in spring thrived in summer. Here the wind softened to a breeze, warm and fragrant with the flowers she’d helped plant.
The cat sprawled on the roof of the Victorian doghouse—complete with turret—Owen had built for Yoda. As she walked, Yoda eased out his brindled hot-dog body, stretched. Both animals joined her as she walked back to where Cleo painted.
On canvas, twisty vines wound up and over the pergola, and dripped, a blooming fountain. Behind it, the green, green woods stood like a misty secret. Below it, spent petals scattered.
It all stood under a sky so blue and pure it all but broke the heart.
On a sigh, Sonya said, “Cleo.”
“Dreamy works.”
“It’s so lovely. It catches in my throat.”
“When the hydrangeas really get going, I’m going to do a study of them. Same method. First, one of the bed where we put the goddess. And I think some small studies of individual flowers. Anyway, nearly done. I think.”
“Breakfast was a seriously long time ago. I’m going to put a snack together.”
