She could walk in that.
After she’d added the log, she remembered she still wore her pajamas. Since she considered pajamas outside a bridge too far, she switched to a sweater and winter-weight leggings. Downstairs she pulled on her old reliable UGGs and the rest of her outdoor gear.
Rather than take the house key, she unlocked the front door. And stepped out into the wonderland.
Snow fell, soft as cotton, to cling to branches. It lay thin, for now, on the walkways, drifted over the seawall. The wind only murmured as she kept to those walkways and circled the house.
She smelled smoke from the chimneys, and the chilly freshness of snow, the sharp sting of pines.
The woods looked like a painting, green and white and deep. She imagined the deer she’d spotted before, but saw no sign of it.
If she got a dog, they’d walk there, just wander together in the quiet. She climbed the steps to the deck on the flat roof of the apartment, and just looked.
She recognized a long swatch of hydrangeas, their old wood like bones gathering flakes. What she thought were azaleas, tall and wide enough to rise above the floor of snow.
She’d need to learn more about plants, since most of what she did know applied to Xena. Or she’d need to give in and go with a grounds crew.
She walked down, continued on to make a circle, and told herself she’d make new habits.
Trips to the village, strolls outside—longer ones, she hoped, once spring broke through. She loved her work, and work was necessary, but she’d take time for this. Take time to go through other parts of the house.
She’d put that off, she could admit that. Because it felt so big, so overwhelming, and keeping to a handful of rooms just less so.
The house deserved better. Hell, so did she.
For another moment she stood, looking out to sea, listening to the waves.
Maybe time for some hot chocolate, she thought. Hopefully the Doyles had stocked some instant. Hot chocolate by the fire on a snowy afternoon sounded glorious.
She turned, pressed the tongue on the iron handle of the front door.
It didn’t budge.
She tried again, again, and felt the first tickles of panic in her throat.
She’d unlocked the door. Unlocked it, then checked to make sure. Now she yanked at the handle, nearly pounded on the door.
The wind came up, sudden, frigid, blowing what felt like needles of ice in her face. And with it images blew into her mind—walking barefoot through a blizzard in a nightgown. Walking toward a woman standing at the seawall.
She looked over her shoulder, half terrified she’d see a figure standing there. A woman in black.
But she saw only the snow and the sea behind it.
Shaking now, she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She’d call Trey. Embarrassing, yes, but—
Even as she started to punch in his contact, she heard a thunk. Like a lock turning.
And when she tried the door again, it opened smoothly.
She rushed in, slammed and locked the door behind her. As she leaned back against it, heart pounding, she knew her eyes were wide and wild.
Deliberately, she closed them.
“It was probably stuck. Just stuck. I unlocked it, and it was unlocked, so it jammed for a minute. That’s all. And the rest, stupid panic.”
She pulled off her boots, carried them to the closet, carefully hung up her coat, unwound her scarf. Though she’d lost her yen for hot chocolate, she followed the agenda.
No handy packets of Swiss Miss in the cupboards, or in the butler’s pantry. She did find a fancy canister with instructions, so she got out a pan and followed them.
No handy canister of Reddi-wip either, but a small carton of whipping cream.
She was not going that far, so she’d take her hot chocolate naked.
Feeling better, she went up to the library. For whatever reason, that room felt like hers. She sat by the fire, sipped hot chocolate.
Then pulled out her phone when it signaled a text. From Anna.
Somehow I’ve got to not work when you’re doing a big reveal. I’m flabbergasted! And I don’t flabbergast easy. The shopping pages are a kind of miracle. I know you haven’t finished, but everything looks wonderful, and it works so smoothly. The About page makes me impressed with myself. I love the way you used the photos my mother took yesterday.
Great. Now get me a video, with audio. I’m going to do a widget.
And, Sonya thought, use it to launch you on TikTok at some point—but no need to scare you off.
I don’t know what a widget is, but I’m for it. I’ll work on it. When this is all done, I’m taking you to lunch. I swear, if I wasn’t married and pregnant, I’d marry you and have your baby.
While that’s tempting, we’ll stick with lunch. I’ll get your social media up sometime within the next ten days, so watch for that heading your way.
I will. TY. Anna
A good day, Sonya thought. In spite of a stuck door, a good day.
As she put her foot on the coffee table, her tablet played Michael Bublé’s “Home.”
“Fine. Whatever.”
* * *
In the evening, she decided to spend some time with the Poole family tree, a glass of wine. Then maybe she’d start one of the new books she’d bought or switch over to another movie.
As Deuce had told her, she found the book in Collin’s office. A coffee-table style, bound in brown leather.
A caring friend, she thought as she carried it and the wine back to the library.
She read the forward where Deuce explained his interest in genealogy, and his hopes that the book would provide a connection to those who came after with those who’d come before.
It opened with the family tree, meticulously documented on a two-page spread. It started in the early 1600s.
“Holy shit, they had eleven children! Two died in infancy, another before he reached five, and another at sixteen. How do you get through that?”
She followed it down, but would look at details later. And there was her father and his twin brother. Her mother’s name and the date they’d married. The date her father died.
The woman Collin had married—that date and the date of her death the same.
And there, her name, connected to her parents.
So many on those branches, she realized. She’d never thought about it. The only child of an only child—so she’d believed—on her father’s side. One aunt and three cousins on her mother’s.
Now there were so many more.
“Dad would have loved this,” she murmured.
Engrossed, she didn’t notice when her tablet played “We Are Family.”
So many births, she mused, with twins running through them. So many deaths.
She turned the page.
Deuce had gone deep into his research, she realized after spending more than an hour reading through the ancestors in the seventeenth century. There had been lords and ladies, soldiers and farmers in her ancestry, and their share of triumphs and tragedies.