Page 240 of The Seven Rings
“Still in the studio, I think. Or what I think of the last week or so as the demi-witch’s lair.”
“I’ll go get her.” He passed the pizza boxes he carried to Trey. As he came up the steps, he stopped beside her, gave her arm a light punch. “Never doubted it.”
“Now I don’t either.”
Trey waited until she’d walked down to him. “Neither do I. Cutie, you look ready for anything.”
“I’m ready for this.” They started back to the kitchen. “And not only because I have to be. I want to be. Just under six hours now.”
In the kitchen, he set down the pizza boxes, then laid his hands on her shoulders. “This isn’t how I figured this would go. No candlelight or romantic spot, but here in the kitchen, pizza waiting, and you ready for anything? It fits pretty well.”
He reached in his pocket, took out a small black box.
“Trey.”
“I was going to wait until after, then I realized, hell no.” He flipped open the box to a square-cut diamond on a band sparkling with brilliants.
Clover reached back and played Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time.”
“I believe in you, Sonya. I’m hoping you’ll take this, wear this, a symbol of that belief when you go through. You’ll come back at the end with seven more, but this one is yours if you’ll have it. And me.”
“And I’m crying again. Trey.” To steady herself, she took his face in her hands to kiss him. “Yes, I’ll wear it. Yes, yes, yes, I’ll take it and you.”
“I love you.” He slipped the ring on her finger. “Now and always.”
They heard the rumble from the third floor, a kind of stirring. Then a flash, but not of cold. Warmth spread like an embrace.
“She thinks this opens a door for her, but she’s wrong. It’s another closing. It’s beautiful.” In the warmth, she wrapped around him. “And it’s perfect. The perfect time, the perfect place.”
The kiss filled them both with love, with hope, with trust.
“You’ll be with me,” Sonya murmured. “When I need you most.”
She turned when she heard Cleo and Owen coming.
“I had to tell her to keep her up there long enough for you to do the thing. You’d better have done the thing,” Owen added.
“Let me see!” Cleo grabbed Sonya’s left hand. “All right, Trey! Good job. Damn good job.”
As Cleo embraced Sonya, then Trey, Clover went upbeat with Queen and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
“I’d say break out the champagne, but—”
“After,” Sonya finished.
“After. Now we do it with pizza and Cokes.”
Time ticked away. They spent the last of it outside, in the seats facing the sea. A three-quarter moon sailed the sky as they went over plans, steps, contingencies yet again.
“And still,” Sonya said, “we won’t know until we know. Each time, every time.”
“But we’re as ready as we can be,” Trey pointed out. “Cleo and I will deal with whatever she throws out on this side.”
“Counting on it. And Owen and I will do what we have to do on the other.”
Still she clung, one more minute, to the here and now. The four of them together, the brisk air, the sailing moon, the restless sea.
“We’ve got to start doing what we gotta.” Owen rose, reached for Cleo’s hand.
