Page 93 of The Seven Rings
“Lost count of how many times I had to sharpen blades. But.” Owen shrugged again. “They turned out. Let’s get the other one.”
“See that?” Cleo muttered. “He builds something like this, complains about it, then shrugs it off. He’s perfect for me. What am I supposed to do? I’ll get the beer.”
Sonya stood and danced on the second spot. “Here. Right here. I can’t believe you did two, and they’re magnificent.”
“They’ll go a little more russet with age, and they’ll last. Your great-grandkids will sit on them.”
“So much what I wanted.” Sonya ran a hand over the wide arch. “More than. The center table’s genius. Thank you!”
She threw her arms around Owen and squeezed. “And you.” Then Trey. “Slave labor. I have to sit! Try it out.”
When she had, she butt-wiggled in, then sighed. “Yes! You said they’d be comfortable. Roomy, too. And the view.”
“Be better with a beer.”
Sonya just beamed at Owen. “Cleo’s getting them.”
As she spoke, Cleo came out with a tray. Two beers, two glasses of wine.
“Exactly right,” she said as she set the tray on one of the tables. “An ideal spot for watching the sun rise. Not that I plan on doing that.”
“Sit! Everybody, sit!”
As Trey handed Sonya a glass, the Gold Room window opened, slammed shut, opened, slammed shut. On the third time, it stayed shut.
“She hates this. Hates we’re adding things to the manor, hates we’re happy, hates we’re here.” She lifted her glass. “So here’s to doing all of that.”
“I brought you my grandfather’s BB gun.”
She nearly choked on the wine. “You brought me a gun?”
“A BB gun,” Trey repeated. “It’s old, obviously, but he kept it ingood shape. It works. You could take it with you when you walk around. Something comes out of that window. You shoot.”
“You want me to shoot Dobbs’s evil bird? I’ve never shot a gun in my life.”
“BB gun,” he said again. “Not that they’re toys, and should never have been. I’ll show you how it works. The bird’s a big target.”
“We thought of getting you a slingshot for more of Cleo’s magic rocks, but this seemed better. Point,” Owen said, “pull the trigger. How about you, Lafayette? Can you handle a BB gun?”
“Pistol or rifle? My daddy had an old Red Ryder air rifle. We had to swear not to aim at anything but paper targets and tin cans.”
“This is a pistol,” Trey told her.
“I haven’t shot a gun of any kind in a long while, but I do believe I remember how.”
“I don’t like the idea of having any sort of gun in the house.”
“It’s a just-in-case thing,” Trey told her. “You could keep it in a closet, only take it with you when you walk around outside. Out here anyway.”
He put a hand over hers. “She’s practicing. Jones got a piece of her dress, you hit her with a rock, the cat hurt her flying monster. We can hurt her, and it. This is one way to do that from a distance. If she sends something after you, or them,” he added, with a gesture to the pets, “you can hurt it.”
“How about I keep it in the garden shed, in case. And I keep carrying one of the hag stones in my pocket when I walk?”
“She’s got a good arm,” Cleo put in. “Sad to say, better than mine. I’ll take the air pistol. We’ll keep it on the top shelf in the turret sitting room closet.”
“That’ll work.”
He said nothing more about it until they were alone in her room with their dogs already settled for the night.
