Behind him, the marked man leaned down and held out the flower to the girl. As she reached up and took it, the love returned to her eyes.
In the next second, the horse took off and the girl jumped back to keep from being hit by the hooves.
The girl stood in the dust that rose up and watched until they were out of sight. She tucked the flower into her blouse, against her breast, and, smiling, started walking.
Sara woke up.
She looked at the clock—2:00 a.m. Good! She’d slept long enough. There was no time better for writing than when the surrounding world was asleep, their loud thoughts not echoing in an introverted empath’s mind.
Ever since she had written her first novel, Sara kept a notebook and pens on her bedside table. She turned on the light and began to write down what she’d seen. Physical descriptions, gestures, plus all that Sara had felt, she put into her notes. Her dream was enough for her to start plotting a new book. She’d been retired from writing for years, but obviously, she’d been thinking of plots and that had made all this come out. Maybe this dream was an omen, letting her know that she should start writing again.
It was 6:00 a.m. when she put her notebook down. She’d written pages. It was just beginning to be daylight and she thought she’d walk about the estate. Maybe more ideas would come to her. She needed character names and more of the plot. Did the marked man get together with the girl? Or did he marry someone else and the girl killed them both?
No!she thought. For the last years, she’d been involved in too many murders. She needed to go back to thinking about romance.
But how did she make a heroine out of a girl who looked like the one in her dream?
A challenge!Sara thought. This book would be a challenge to write. She just needed to figure out how to do it.
She got dressed, put on light makeup, picked up her notebook, three pens, and left the Palm Room. She was glad to see that all the bedroom doors were closed. An introvert’s happy place. She tiptoed down the stairs and went outside.
She began walking toward the cottage.Cal’s house, is how she thought of it. They were just kids but they’d loved each other without reservation. But then they’d shared a lifetime of abuse: his father; her mother. Cal’s mother, a beautiful woman, had endured all her husband dished out so she could protect her son. But she died young.
Sara shook her head to clear it. Now wasn’t the time to think of the bad of her life. Or of a skeleton found in a closet. She needed to remember the story the dream had hinted at and expand on it. Who were the people? She had to pin down a setting. Since there were palm trees, maybe it was meant to be in Florida. She should reread Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’sCross Creekand watch the movie again to put the Florida of that time in her mind.
She needed to—
Her thoughts came to an abrupt halt when she saw Jack and Kate walking through the wet grass. He had on jeans and a T-shirt, while Kate had on a silk blouse, carrying her briefcase. It looked like she had a house to show and was going to work. They weren’t far away but they were so absorbed in each other, they saw nothing or no one else.
Sara watched them, eyes wide.
Finally, she thought. She closed her eyes and tipped her head back in silent prayer. Thank all that was holy, Jack and Kate haddone it! At last they’d given in to what every other person who saw them knew: Jack and Kate were deeply in love. On his part, it had been from the first, but Kate had taken longer. She had enough pride that she wouldn’t give herself to a man who was notorious for being a playboy with a bad temper. Kate didn’t want a bad boy. She wanted a goodman. When Jack returned from his isolation in the wilds of Colorado, they could see that he’d changed.
Jack kissed Kate goodbye and she headed to the front of the house. Jack followed the path toward the cottage and was soon out of sight.
On impulse, Sara looked toward the window of the room where her brother was staying. He’d want to know this about his daughter. But the window was dark. A movement caught her eye. The next window had a light on and standing there was her brother. He gave a salute to his sister, letting her know that he’d seen Jack and Kate and he was very pleased.
When Randal closed the curtain, Sara realized that he was in Lea’s room.
“Well, well, well,” she said as she began walking again. What an extraordinary night it had been. Jack and Kate together at last, and it looked like Randal was with Lea. Plus, Sara had had one of her Magic Dreams. The other times they’d happened, those books had been top sellers. She remembered them well. There’d been the ghostly encounter at the monument. It was so powerful that she’d fallen to her knees. Later, the plot came to her in one big lump. She’d spent days in isolation as she wrote a hundred pages of dialogue.
Then there’d been the single sentence she read in a guidebook. A man wrongly executed in Elizabethan times. That night, she’d dreamed about him.
Sara stopped walking. Ghosts. All the dreams had spirits in common. Did last night’s dream have ghosts? Or was it sent by them?
She looked up to see a young man, his back to her, mowing the tall grass along the back fence. His mower was quite old, with no electricity or liquid fuel. It was silent. It’s what would have been used when the house was built.
I bet Randal arranged that, she thought.Or maybe Billy.But where did they find someone who knew how to use such an old-fashioned machine?
The man stopped mowing and ran a big blue bandanna over his sweaty face. Pushing the mower was hard work. When he glanced at the house, he halted, cloth over half his face.
Sara could only see his eyes, but they widened in shock. She looked toward the house. In the window was Barbara Adair, fully made up and wearing a pretty flowered top. He was probably shocked to see the famous actress.
Barbara leaned forward and squinted, as though trying to see something. She reached down, picked up a pair of glasses, and looked again.
Sara turned in the direction of Barbara’s gaze. It was where the young man had been, but now he was gone. She frowned. Barbara wasn’t one of those women who pursued young men, was she? How embarrassing! But then Sara saw the old-fashioned lawn mower, something that you’d see in a museum, and thought maybe Barbara was staring at that. She truly hoped that’s what interested Barbara.
Sara wanted to sit down with her notebooks and get busy. It had come to her that the name of the girl in her dream should be Alice. She felt that the first young man’s name started with a G. First letters of names were oh so important. Hero names had to start strong: R, M, S, T were best. Women had more variety. G was in the second tier of hero names but she could work with it. As for the guy on the horse, he needed a rich man’s name: Nigel or Clive would do. Personality and background were told in one word.
