Hot and bothered, all Niall can think of is following Libby, pulling the carved stick from her hair, and watching as it tumbles to her beautiful naked shoulders.
As she tucks through the Bigleaf Maples toward Dickens cottage, Fran thinks about the morning’s exercise, the hospitality, and the protected time for writing. She thinks about last evening’s conversation at The Ink Well. Cluttered and comfortable, it says home, family, and welcome. It dawns on her that Pines & Quill is like a balm to her soul.
She remembers on the drive from the airport, Cynthia, a complete stranger, taking her hand. After close examination of her palm, she whispered, “When you forget what you have, for what you’ve lost, grief is an indulgence.”
Instead of stinging, that observation buoyed her, just as Cynthia knew it would.
As Fran opens the door of Dickens cottage, the warm sepia tones of its interior envelop her. Delicate splashes of mahogany, ochre, and rust vie for attention. A safe harbor.
After putting the kettle on, Fran sits in an overstuffed chair and lets her thoughts drift. If I’m honest with myself, I’ve known for a while now that an internal storm has been biding its time, waiting to break loose.
Moving to the desk chair, she turns on her laptop and selects a soft backdrop of music to appease her heart, then clicks on the document titled Mother in Waiting: The Stigma of Childlessness and begins to type.
This book is dedicated to all mothers whose hearts are held hostage by their unborn children.
While reading and rereading that first line, she twists her wedding band, removes it, and replaces it again. She admits to herself that she’s become what Cynthia whispered on the drive to Pines & Quill, “A woman defined by her biology.”
That’s the moment the floodgates open and healing begins.
Except for sex, I can’t remember a more enjoyable form of exercise, Cynthia muses, eyeing the wrought-iron spiral stairs that lead to the loft bedroom. My muscles feel relaxed rather than tense, because as Libby explained, “In tai chi the joints aren’t fully extended or bent, and the connective tissues aren’t stretched.”
A tall, thin woman with a gamine crop of snow-white hair and eyes of far-seeing liquid brown, Cynthia thinks, No matter how good my body feels, a feeling of unease—dread—has settled in the pit of my stomach.
More than perceptive and insightful, she has an almost infallible gut instinct that most people refer to as premonition, intuition, or clairvoyance. Both a gift and a curse, Cynthia’s learned to walk softly in other people’s lives. But every time she thinks about, or is near Jason, she receives the impression of pure, unadulterated malice.
After taking a bowl from the kitchen cupboard, she fills it with water from the tap and sets it on her desk in front of the east-facing window. She smiles when she sits down, thinking of her mother, the woman who’d taught her to scrye. Her gaze, almost trance-like, rests on the water’s surface. Within moments, the smile is wiped from her face by what she sees.
After a few hours of productive writing, Emma showers and then changes into a mint-colored cowl-neck tee and white ankle pants. With her feet still bare, she maneuvers her wheelchair across the honey-toned wood floor, gathers her laptop, and rolls out onto the terra cotta patio.
The overflowing pots of vivid flowers perfume the air with citrus, spice, earth, and sweet floral notes.
Moving her hair to one side, the angle of the sun hits the back of her neck at just the right spot, dousing her in a slice of warmth.
Taking a deep breath, Emma tips back her still-wet head to appreciate the cloudless, robin’s-egg blue sky, a rare sighting in Fairhaven. She knows by the faint taste of salt that the ocean, framed by a wind-whipped bluff, is nearby. Closing her eyes, she remembers as a little girl when her family neared the beach, her mother would say, “If you lick the back of your hand, you can taste the ocean.”
As if on cue, a large wet tongue licks her hand. Startled, Emma’s eyes fly open. “Hemingway!” She laughs. “You’re the size of a pony. How did you manage to sneak up on me like that?”
With what she knows to be a toothy grin beneath wiry whiskers, he circles a spot next to her and settles in. Within minutes his tongue is lolling, and his feet are twitching as he enjoys a dream-laden nap in the sun.
A vagrant wind ruffles Emma’s now-dry hair. She’s typing away, lost in thought. A mere channel for her contemplation. But there, drifting at the edge of her absorption, is a picture of Mick. In her mind, she likens him to the tall tree standing sentinel on the west side of the cottage. Deep-rooted, with a sturdy, powerful trunk that’s able to bend in a storm and stand tall again after the battering winds have passed.
Mick circles his desk several times—like a big cat stalking its prey—keeping a wary eye on his laptop. It’s been a long time since he’s worked on his memoir, Collateral Damage. Not until his jaw hurts does he realize how tense the memories still make him. Pain flashes across his face as he remembers what the last attempt dredged up. Without conscious thought, he rubs his leg.
In his mind’s eye he sees his partner, Sam, slumped over the steering wheel of their squad car with a bullet hole between unseeing eyes. If the day’s coin flip had come up tails, I would have been the driver. Not Sam. I would have been killed. Not Sam. Guilt chokes him.
Unbidden, a picture of Emma comes to mind—intelligent, tenacious, witty, stubborn, passionate, unconventional, candid, and curious. I can do this, he thinks, pushing jet-black hair from his forehead. I can,
