The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy #2)

She started the review, began to tweak. And…

Looked up, blinking, when Cleo tapped her fist on the doorjamb.

“Sorry. I thought maybe you should come up for air. But if you want to dive back, I fed Yoda.”

“Fed…” She checked the time. “How the hell did it get to be seven?”

“It comes after six, which is about when I passed by earlier, and Yoda followed me down.” Angling her head, Cleo studied Sonya. “I’m not going to tell you to stop if it’s rolling, but you look like you could use a break.”

“I’m past that point, and I’m going to screw something up if I don’t stop. I’m going to shut down.”

“We’re having open-faced roast beef sandwiches and the rest of the leftovers. How about I go pour you a glass of wine?”

“How about you do? I’m right behind you.”

Sonya saved and closed down the work she hoped wouldn’t turn out to be a hot mess when she opened it again. She’d slid into the zone for a while, true, but then she’d slipped into autopilot.

Now she left it behind, left it to simmer like one of Cleo’s pots, and taking the portrait, went downstairs.

She propped the painting in the music room, under the other portraits they’d found in the studio closet.

A kind of triptych, she thought, invisibly connected.

“We’ll put you in place after dinner.”

For a moment when she stepped back, just a fleeting moment, she thought she caught a scent. Her father’s aftershave. It came to her like a brush of lips on her cheek, like a hand sliding to smooth down her hair.

“But you’re not here.” She sighed it out. “I wish you could be.”

She walked down to the kitchen, where Cleo had wine waiting and Yoda sprawled under the table in anticipation.

“You are my queen,” Sonya said as she took the wineglass.

“I worked a little late myself, since all I had to do was warm things up.”

“How’s it going?”

“The contract work? I don’t think I’ve ever had a job I’ve enjoyed more. And the painting I’m trading for my boat? I’m trying not to regret giving it up.”

Cleo’s brows drew together as she picked up her own wine.

“Owen better build me a fabulous boat, and he’d better give her a place of honor.”

“Ready to eat?”

“Absolutely.”

When they sat at the table, Sonya smiled over at Cleo. “The way Owen wanted your mermaid painting the minute he saw it—and way before you finished? He’s going to put her in a place of honor.”

“I’ll harangue him if he doesn’t.” Cleo cut into the beef and breadand gravy. “People don’t know how to harangue properly, if you ask me. But I do.”

“I can attest,” Sonya said, and made Cleo laugh.

“That studio, Son? It’s something I needed and wanted without ever knowing it was what I needed and wanted. I honestly think my work’s better because of it.”

“I feel the same way about the library. And Xena?” she added, thinking of her African violet. “She just blooms and blooms.”

“I’d say all of us were meant to be planted here, at this time, in this place. What were you working on when I pulled you out?”