Нора Робертс - The Becoming

“Lucky us, we won’t get wet. It’s about a mile’s hike to the cottage.”

“It looks pretty much the same.”

“It does, but it’s not. You didn’t get a chance to see last night because it was raining over there, and you were shaken up, but Talamh has two moons.”

“Two?”

“One waxes when the other wanes.”

“That is so way cool! I want to see that. But you know, Breen, I walked all over these woods when I was here getting my Irish on. I never saw that tree. How could anyone miss that tree? It’s huge, and it’s growing out of rock. Or there’s rock growing out of it.”

“You weren’t meant to. Look at your watch.”

He did, let out a half laugh. “How about that. Working fine.” He pulled his phone out of his borrowed pants. “Got a phone, too.”

“Sally first,” Breen told him. “The best thing to say is you decided to come back with me, and we flew out last night. You’re going to stay for a few days, and—”

“I don’t know how long I’ll stay, and that’s what I’ll say. Give that one up, Breen, you’re stuck with me. We’re going to be fine. We’re going to get each other right on through this. And I’m going to learn to ride a horse. Giddyup!”

“It’s not as easy as you think. My ass had bruises on bruises for days. And I hate myself for being glad you’re here.”

“You can stop that. Say, in all this you wrote down? Anything in there about sex with Chief Hotness?”

“I— Crap. Listen—”

“Too late. You said I could read all of it. And you two might not be in the mood for snuggling right now, but I saw how he looked at you.”

“Like I was one more pain in his ass?”

“No. Like I hope somebody looks at me one day.” Marco’s romantic heart gave a little sigh. “He didn’t even try to punch me back when I hit him, when I thought he’d hurt you. He could’ve mopped the floor with me, but he didn’t. Hell, he could’ve probably turned me into a kumquat or something. But he didn’t.”

“He respects loyalty and friendship.”

“Sally said he had class.”

“I suppose he does.”

“I remember this trail now. Son of a bitch! Walk that way, and you end up in the village. The bay’s over there. Hey, it was over there, over there. Wrong place. That’s— You know what? That’s freaking awesome.”

He sniffed the air. “Catch that? I can smell the bay, I think. And … smoke.”

“They lit the fires for us.” She gestured as the trees thinned. “See?”

The cottage stood, smoke trailing from the chimneys over its thatched roof. The gardens Seamus had taught her to tend spread as colorfully as ever. And the pots of flowers he’d shown her how to plant thrived still.

“It’s your place, Breen. Your grandmother said, and she made it for you. I get that more than ever now. I loved being here, too.”

“I know.” She looked down at the dog, who danced in place. “Go ahead.”

He all but leaped in the air before he raced out, across the green grass, down the slope to the shale beach, and bounded into the water.

“Sea dog,” Marco said with a laugh. “He’s something.”

“Let’s go in. I’m used to drinking tea over there—and God, you’ve got to try Finola’s lemonade. It’s magickal. But I sure hope they remembered to stock Cokes.”

It was like coming home, Breen thought as she grabbed that Coke out of the refrigerator. With the first sips, she scanned her pretty kitchen—the freshly baked bread wrapped in a white cloth on the slate-colored counter, the stoneware bowl of fresh fruit, the fresh flowers on the wide windowsill.

So much as she’d first seen it months before. So much as she’d left it.

“I’m going to make us a pasta dinner,” Marco announced as he poked around the kitchen. “Look at these tomatoes. They are prime!” He checked his watch, did the math. “I’ll wait about an hour to call Sally. If they’re sleeping in any, I’d rather they get some coffee in them before I tell them I flew the coop.”

“That works. I’ll set up in the bedroom down here for work.” She wandered that way and into the room that opened to the garden. “Scratch that. They’ve done it for me.” She brushed a hand over the laptop already on her little desk, noted her yoga mat—which she hadn’t thought to grab—neatly rolled and standing in the corner.

“Sedric’s already come and gone,” she told Marco.

“What? How?”

“You’ll sort of get used to it.” She walked back to open the door for Bollocks, who pranced his way to the living room fire, and after his habitual three turns, settled down with a contented canine sigh.

“Do you think my stuff’s up in the room I used before?”

“Let’s go find out. I want to unpack, then I’m going to get some writing in. I should probably do a blog, too, about coming back to the cottage. And you can set up wherever you want to read.”

They walked through the living room with its forest-green sofa, its candles, crystals, flowers, its views of the blue water.

The fire sizzled and snapped in the hearth.

Through the foyer, and up the stairs, where the dog scrambled up to follow them, Breen turned at the head toward Marco’s room.

His guitar stood on its stand, and the harp, out of its case, gleamed on a table along with his keyboard.

Because he was busy staring, Breen opened a drawer. “Sweaters, shirts.”

He opened the closet. “They put everything away.”

“It’s a kind of welcoming. I’ll bet your jackets and rain gear—and mine—are in the closet in the foyer.”

“You really think I’m going to get sort of used to it?”

“I hope you do.” Her heart squeezed a little. “This is who I am.”

“I’m always going to love who you are.” He moved over to the table, ran his finger over the harp strings. “I want to learn how to play this. It’s the best gift I ever got.”

“I remember a little, what my father taught me. I can show you, and I know you can more than take it from there.”

“Okay. Okay.” He walked around the room he remembered, looked out at the view he remembered. “Maybe we’ll have us a musical evening after dinner. Cooking and making music, that might help me with the ‘sort of.’ I’m going down, start that sauce so it can simmer its way to heaven, then I’ll call Sally.”

He reached out, ran a hand over her bright red curls. “You do what you do, Breen.”

She went down to do what she did, with Bollocks curled on the bed behind her. She’d do the blog first, she decided, just a brief one. And would wait to post it until Marco spoke with Sally.

How to begin? she wondered. She couldn’t write, not on the blog, about the taoiseach of Talamh, or Marco jumping through the portal with her.

She simply sat a moment, let it sink in that she was back, well and truly back. She’d enjoyed her solitude in the cottage over the summer, and finding herself by living on her own for the first time in her life.

But as she sat now, hearing Marco in the kitchen, singing as he did whatever he did to those prime tomatoes, she found his presence like a warm blanket on a chilly morning.

Simple comfort, like the dog napping behind her, or knowing outside the garden doors the flowers bloomed.

So she wrote about returning to Ireland. For the first time on the blog, she wrote about finding her grandmother, learning of the loss of her father. And how the grief of that balanced with the joy of finding family and friends.

How finding them helped her find herself.

Satisfied, she set that aside, and opened herself to the story.

She dived in, let it surround her.

When she finally surfaced, she found herself a little stunned. She’d worked well in the apartment in Philadelphia when she’d gone back at the end of the summer. But not like here, she admitted. Maybe it came from the initial burst of energy from being back where she’d really started this part of her journey, but she’d poured out ten pages.