Page 223

“I was going to prep the flowers, and I felt it. That pull. I didn’t want it. I had the meeting, and I wanted to prep for that, too. I wanted to text you, but I couldn’t. I just had to go.”

She drew in the gardens, into her mind, into her lungs. The scents, the colors, the life.

“The third floor,” she continued. “I was afraid it would be the Gold Room. I told myself I wouldn’t go in, no matter what. But that was a lie. If it had pulled me there, I wouldn’t have a choice. But it didn’t. It was in Cleo’s studio. And I went through, into Collin’s studio.

“Maybe we could sit, sit on the deck.”

He walked with her there.

“Do you want some water? Some wine?”

“Later. I’m going to get through this. There was a storm, and he painted it. Collin. He was young, and God, he looked so much like my father. Younger than my clearest pictures of Dad, but I’ve seen photos. And he stood like him, he held the brush like him. Sleeves of his shirt rolled up just like—”

She broke off, pressed a hand to her face.

Trey rose from his chair, plucked her up from hers, and cradled her in his lap.

“Yes, that’s better. Johanna came in, brought him coffee. She lookedso happy, content, and more, I could tell, I could see excitement. And when he spoke to her, Trey, I heard my father’s voice. And the tone of it? Just the way Dad would talk to Mom sometimes. That love. I could see in them what I’d seen in my parents. That unity. That rightness.

“They talked about the wedding, just a few days away. Then she told him. She was pregnant, Trey.”

“Johanna was pregnant? I’ve never heard that. My parents were really tight with Collin and Johanna, but—”

“That’s the thing,” Sonya interrupted. “They were so thrilled, both of them, just over-the-top happy. And she asked him not to say anything until after the wedding. To keep it just theirs until after the wedding. He said he wouldn’t say a word until she told him it was okay. But she never got the chance to, Trey. She never did, so he never told anyone. At least I think that.”

“I never knew him to break his word. So he carried that alone.”

“It makes you sad,” she murmured, and laid a hand on his cheek. “You loved him.”

“Yeah, I did. He carried that loss, the woman he loved, the child they’d started together and wanted. And he carried it alone. It’s goddamn tragic. But… they had that, Sonya. For a few days, they had that absolute happiness. Not everyone gets that, even for a few days.”

“Trey, if she’d lived, if they’d had the baby, we’d be the same age. My parents would have been expecting me at the same time.”

“And that hits hard.”

She closed her eyes, rested her forehead to his. “They met in the mirror. I know that. From the time they were boys. And I think, I really believe, somehow, my father came through. He painted the manor, he had dreams about it. What he thought were dreams. It makes me wonder what would have happened if. And it broke my heart to know there’s no if at all.”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “Then I came back to Cleo’s studio. And found Marianne Poole. Her portrait.”

“Cutie, you’ve had a hell of a day.”

He surprised a laugh out of her. “Oh God, yes. I brought it down.Yoda and Pye were back in, the door closed, and I had a note from Jack.”

“You’re not messing with me now?”

“I am not. He left me a note saying he’d let them back in, closed the door, gave them treats, and Molly—had to be—had put the flowers in a vase. Kind, just so kind, and it helped a little.

“But I had to take the meeting, then I did what work I could get my head around. I came down, hung the portrait. I thought it would make me feel better. It just didn’t. It was all right here.”

She put a hand to her throat.

“And she started on the doorbell, and worse, I heard her. I heard her laughing. So I went outside, for the air, for the water. It didn’t help either.

“Then you came, and I fell apart. Because I knew I could. I could fall apart because you were here. And that, finally, helped. I wish I hadn’t given her those tears, that grief, but it helped.”

“You gave her nothing. You mourned her victims, and gave her nothing.”

Clover went with Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter.”