The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy #2)

She went back to work on Gigi’s, and thinking of Owen’s “girlie” comment, worked on some potential ads and taglines about gifts—for the women in your life.

She worked on some choices specifically targeting Mother’s Day. Embrace the girlie, she decided.

As it neared two, she shot off an email with those drafts attached. Let the client get a feel for the direction, she thought, before she put too much time and effort into it.

Downstairs, she put a coffee service together, added a plate of cookies.

She carried the coffee service into the front parlor, stopped, and looked around.

The piano gleamed under the vase of white tulips. All the pillows were plumped, and the air smelled faintly, very faintly, of orange oil.

“Thank you, Molly,” she said just as the doorbell sounded. “Right on time.”

She thought of the first time she’d opened the door to Oliver Doyle II, on a cold winter day in Boston, and without any idea how that visit would change her life.

She wouldn’t have this house without Deuce, she considered as she went to let him in. And looked down at Yoda. “Plus, I wouldn’t have you.”

She opened the door to cool April air, and the man who’d helped change her life.

It was easy to see Trey in him, in those wonderful blue eyes—his behind silver-framed glasses. His full head of hair had gone silvery gray, but those distinctive eyebrows remained dramatically black.

Sonya reached out both hands to him. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“Sonya. It’s always a pleasure to see you, and to visit the manor.”

She heard the door to the Gold Room slam like cannon fire.

“Really?”

“Yes.” He stepped inside, then bent to pet Yoda. “Trey’s caught me up on events, and tells me you and your friend Cleo are handling it all very well.”

“I think we are. It helps that Cleo loves the manor as much as I do. Come in and sit down. I made coffee.”

“Much appreciated.” Then he looked over and up as Cleo started down the stairs. “And this must be Cleo. I’ve looked forward to meeting you.”

“I’ll say the same.” She held out her hand. “I really like your wife.”

“So do I.”

Cleo flashed him a smile. “Sonya said I could sit in on your talk, if that’s all right with you.”

“More than. I hope I can fill in some blanks, though some of that will be speculation, gossip, and opinion.”

“We’ll take all three.” Cleo hooked her arm through his as they walked into the parlor. “But gossip not only often rings true, it adds the fun.”

“I’m not ashamed to agree.” Sonya poured out the coffee. “And I think adding all three together helps us get a clearer picture of myfather’s biological family. And could help us evict a certain element from the manor.”

From the library, the iPad blasted the Allman Brothers Band and “Black Hearted Woman.”

“Clover agrees.”

He smiled at that, all the way into his eyes.

“It seems you’ve developed a relationship with her. And adjusted, in a matter of months, to—we’ll say—the eccentricities of the manor.”

“It’s funny. I stopped thinking about leaving almost from the moment I moved in. It casts a spell. A positive one,” Sonya added.

“Son always wanted a house like this,” Cleo told him. “The history, the character, the quirks. Maybe even, deep down, the ghosts.”