Page 233 of The Seven Rings
“No risk,” Owen said. “No reward.”
“You just want to smack her.”
He shrugged at Cleo. “She’d be the first woman for that, but I don’t really think of her as a woman. So yeah, I’d like to smack her. I’ll settle for pushing her crazy buttons and taking her down some before we get the rest going.”
Now he looked around the table. “Sounds like we’ve got most of a plan.”
“Needs some fine-tuning, some gaps filled, but yeah.” Trey polished off his coffee. “We’ve got most of a plan.”
They sat another hour doing that fine-tuning, filling what gaps they could. During the hour, Owen let the pets out, came back with the forgotten popcorn.
“Why waste it?”
“I’m with you.” Cleo took a handful. “This is better than a scary movie anyway.”
Before they went up for the night, they stopped at the music room.
“I need to tell my mother we found her, and that Dad and his brother painted her. I wonder, did they talk, did they laugh, did they tell each other things brothers tell each other?
“I like to think so.”
“Will you tell her the rest?”
She shook her head at Trey. “No. She’d worry, and she’d insist on coming here. I don’t want that. I’ll tell her everything when it’s done.”
When they went up, she walked to the window.
“One night soon we’ll look out here and we won’t see her jump. She’ll be gone.”
Trey wrapped around her, looked out over her shoulder. “It’s human to be nervous, Sonya.”
“I am. Nervous I won’t be fast enough or smart enough. Nervous I’ll let them down.”
“That’s the last thing you should be nervous about. You will be fast enough, smart enough. You won’t let anyone down.”
Words mattered, she thought. And his of faith and support meant everything.
“I thought, when we had real answers, I’d just plow ahead. But it’s not that simple. I know I have to take the rings. I know it’s what they want, what they need. It still breaks my heart.”
“You’ll give them back.”
“Do you think so?” She turned to him, held on. “Do you think I’ll be able to, somehow?”
“I do. They’re not yours.” He pressed her hands to his lips. “I’m going to give you yours. What do you say to June, when summer’s just coming on? Here at the manor. Small and simple, big and flashy, whatever you want. Just marry me, Sonya. Build a family with me. Build a life with me.”
“Yes, so much yes.” Framing his face, she pressed her lips to his. “I want the ring you’ll give me, and I want to give you yours. I say yes to June.”
She kissed him again as he swept her up to carry her to the bed. “And I want just big enough and simply beautiful. I want the manor filled with flowers and people and music. Most of all, I want you.”
She rolled over him, rained kisses over his face.
“And I’m not listening to Mick. I’m going to get just what I want. Nothing’s going to stop me.”
Later, she dreamed of walking on a moonlit night in air scented with flowers. The sea rolled, split by the beam of the fat white moon.
She heard music, soft and dreamy, and in her long white dress swayed to it, turned a circle. Lifting a hand, she watched the band on her finger sparkle in the moonlight.
She was a bride. She was a wife.
