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Then it dropped with a rattling thud, and the air went still.
Gathering the dog even closer, Sonya rocked to soothe them both. “That pissed her off, and I’m fine with it.”
Maybe she couldn’t quite catch her breath, maybe the chill over her skin seemed to dig straight into her bones, but she would be fine with it.
Stroking the dog, she sat back, closed her eyes.
“Am I crazy? Am I just freaking crazy to stick through all this? Wouldn’t a sane person just tuck tail and go back to Boston?”
Clover answered that with Helen Reddy’s anthem “I Am Woman.”
Her laugh came out a little shaky, but it was a laugh.
“Okay. Let’s straighten up this mess and get back to work.”
The ordeal distracted her so the photo shoot slipped out of her mind. When the first file came through, it was a surprise. Especially when she opened it.
Cleo sat on a navy yoga mat, body twisted into a pretzel and a goofy, cross-eyed grin on her face.
“Funny. Ha ha. You won’t think it’s so funny if I use this one.”
But it told her Corrine and Cleo had joined forces smoothly.
In another hour she started the first round of tests on the florist job. Yoda wiggled out from under her desk and ran downstairs.
“Now? Give me ten minutes. We’ll go out in ten.”
Then she heard the sound of the ball bouncing down the hall.
Even better, she decided. She had a built-in dog sitter.
She took fifty instead of ten, then remembering how the boy had run from her, announced herself.
“I’m going to take Yoda out for a walk now.”
She found Yoda sitting as if waiting for her. Then he rose up on his hind legs and took several steps forward.
“Look at you, puppy! You guys are an awesome team. Thanks, Jack.”
No, not crazy, she thought as she walked outside with her dog. She’d accept stubborn, preferred determined. And now that she could actually feel spring shoving winter aside, only more determined. She had daffodils waiting to bloom, and the witchy-looking weeper on the side of the house held its buds tight. But they’d burst free before long.
What snow still lay slept in shadows.
She heard a window open behind her and turned, expecting something ugly from the Gold Room.
Instead, she saw Cleo’s window opened, and the ones in her own bedroom as well.
Airing them out, she realized. Letting the first breaths of spring in.
No, not crazy, she thought again, and felt her heart lift as she watched a whale sound. She’d had to adjust her entire perception of how the world worked, but that didn’t make her crazy.
She heard the car coming. Yoda ran to the walkway, then spun in two circles when Cleo’s car made the turn.
She’d buttoned her shirt, but had her jacket over her arm.
“What a gorgeous day! It’s even warmer down in the village. I saw daffs blooming, and some hyacinths.”
“How did it go?”
