The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy #2)

“Set his alarm for before three, got up, went out. And no, I didn’t know he planned to, but I’m going to say it was a good idea.”

“Of course you are. You would—” She broke off, narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you went out there, too.”

“I went out on the balcony to call down to him. Are you really making eggs, because now I want them. I can do it if you’re too irritated.”

“Irritated.” She got out a frying pan. “Why should I be irritated because the two of you pull this after Owen ended up bleeding?”

“First, let me point out, I didn’t pull anything.”

“But you’re okay that he did?”

“I am. And you might not be as irritated if you hear the rest of it. Would you like to?”

Reasonable, always reasonable Oliver Doyle III could make her crazy.

She tossed a pat of butter in the heating skillet, then broke eggs in a bowl.

“I’ll take your silence as assent,” he decided, and told her the rest.

“You should’ve woken me up.”

“Why? She’d jumped before I went down to talk to Owen. And you’re letting your annoyance block off the point.”

“What point?” She poured the eggs into the pan.

“She didn’t see us.” Trey dropped two slices of bread in the toaster. “She didn’t see us, didn’t hear us.”

“Let me repeat. And?”

“I think you need more coffee.” Helpfully, he topped off her mug. “I’ll feed the dogs, and oh yeah, cat. She didn’t know we were there, Sonya. Because we weren’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“We weren’t there when she jumped because she jumped a couple hundred years ago.”

Knowns and unknowns, the logic, to his mind, was solid.

“I think what this is, is a kind of loop. A time warp, or slip. You saw her facing the house, and so did Owen. But by the time I looked out, both times, she was facing away.”

“And she blasted the doors open,” Sonya reminded him.

“Because she’s in the house.”

On a frustrated breath, Sonya pushed at the eggs with a spatula. “She was on the seawall. You just said so.”

“She was out on that wall in 1806. Owen’s got that scrap of her dress in his pocket,” he added as he opened the door.

Two dogs and a cat ran inside and immediately pounced on their food bowls.

“It hit me this morning, I don’t think her dress had a tear in it. And it wouldn’t have, because what happened in the Gold Room yesterday hadn’t happened in 1806.”

She yanked out plates. “I don’t see why…” Then set them down slowly.

“Coffee’s kicking in.” Taking the spatula from her, he divided the eggs himself.

“You’re saying Dobbs jumping off the wall is like, like a tape set on repeat, timed for the three o’clock hour. It’s not her as much as a kind of recording of her.”

“Close enough.” Since her temper appeared to have cooled, he leaned down, kissed her. “Let’s sit down and eat.”