Chapter Seven
Mavis insisted they all go out the front, then around to the side for the Peabody–McNab tour. For the mag start, she claimed, to the ult finish.
“Here goes.” McNab opened the door, one flanked with stone-looking urns holding red and purple flowers.
Peabody had gone for softer colors, more dreamy ones than Mavis. Eve thought they highlighted the dark, original millwork Peabody had loved at first sight.
The fireplace with its old brick cleaned and repointed was topped by a new, chunkier mantel that looked old.
In a good way.
They’d started collecting street art, and it worked against the quiet color of the walls, with the deeper tones of the furniture that brought in a cozy, lived-in look.
The coffee table Peabody had built—because she could do that—lookedlike it had come from an antiques shop and still invited you to put your feet up.
Flowers, candles, and the throws made by Peabody’s clever hands all added personality.
“And this is all the two of you.”
“I love the lamp to the extreme,” McNab said. “But even the extreme doesn’t reach the Peabody level.”
“It’s true. It’s my favorite thing in this room, and…” As if seeing it for the first time, Peabody turned a circle. “I love everything in this room.”
They wound their way through, a pretty sitting room with a pair of chairs scored from a thrift shop, which McNab had refinished and Peabody had reupholstered in stripes of subtle blue and green. And into their shared office with its energetic paint-splattered walls.
“Fun!” Bella declared.
“It’s all that, isn’t it? But this.” Roarke ran a hand over the partner’s desk. “This is magnificent work. A statement piece.”
“I knew it’d be wonderful. My father makes the wonderful. But…” Like Roarke, Peabody ran her hand over the smooth, silky wood. “It’s way over wonderful. And look.” She opened the center drawer. On the bottom, in the right corner, he’d carvedDee 2061.
“Over here.” McNab opened his side to showIan 2061. “Frosty,” he said. “And means big giant bunches.”
They moved on to Peabody’s craft room. Against the quiet of the walls stood an enormous display holding what seemed to Eve to be every possible color and tone and texture of yarn, along with rolls of fabric, spools of thread, ribbons, lacy stuff, other materials that were all, Eve could only suppose, organized in some crafty Peabody fashion.
One worktable held a sewing machine that looked as if you’d need a license to drive it; another held tools Eve couldn’t identify, with a series of cubbies above holding more.
In the corner stood an actual spinning wheel, and the basket beside it held yet more yarn.
“This to the ult-squared is my happy place. Swear to God, in my wildest dreams, and they can get wild, I never expected to have a room like this.”
She grinned at Bella. “Mine!”
And Bella laughed like a maniac.
Through to the kitchen, where the living wall of plants and herbs thrived, and through the wide case opening stood the table Peabody’s father had built half a continent away in the year of her birth, and she’d found (Chance? Fate?) in a secondhand shop in New York.
Above it hung the blown-glass chandelier her mother had made.
Eve stared at it. “All right, wow. Just… That’s a major wow.”
Transparent glass in Peabody’s dreamy blues and greens formed fluid shapes and combined into a flower in full bloom.
“That’s a masterpiece,” Roarke said.
“A tough word to swallow today, but yeah, it is.”
“Wait. Chandelier on,” McNab ordered.
