“Of course we did. We couldn’t get close enough to see anything without binoculars. But the frog? He didn’t need them, and he’s seen entirely too much.”

“He’ll keep quiet about it if he wants to keep his legs.”

She managed to turn her head, meet Del’s eyes. “Now we’re naked and wet.”

“But happy.”

She smiled. “I can’t argue with that. But how are we going to get into the house?”

“I’m a Brown. I have a plan.”

In the end, she wore his shirt, he wore the pants, and they balled up the rest. Still damp, and trying not to laugh, they snuck in the side door to make the dash to her room.

“I think we pulled it off,” she said and dumped her load the minute the door was closed. “Now I’m freezing. I need a hot shower.”

“Yeah, you probably do. You look like somebody who just had sex in the pond.”

He put his arm around her to warm her as they walked toward the shower.

“Del? Remind me to do some extra training the next time I make you dinner.”

SHE SLEPT LIKE A WOMAN IN A COMA, AND SURFACED JUST AS groggy and disoriented when her alarm sounded.

“No, it’s a mistake. It can’t be morning.” She opened one eye, read the time display on her clock—and with a resigned slap, turned off the alarm.

Beside her Del murmured something, and tried to draw her back.

“I have to get up. You should just go back to sleep, stay in bed.”

“Good idea.” He rolled over.

She scowled at him, then got up to dress in the dark.

Down in her kitchen she brewed coffee, and drank the first cup hot and black while she scanned her day’s schedule. It might as well have been written in Greek.

To clear the cobwebs, she poured a second cup, added a generous spoonful of sugar, then got a muffin out of her tin. She took the coffee and the muffin outside, into the air, into what was arguably her favorite time of day.

Just before dawn, just before the light beat back the dark. Before anyone or anything stirred and the world—her favorite place in the world—was all hers.

Maybe she was tired, maybe another couple hours’ sleep would’ve been blissful, but it was hard to beat the view, the feel of that hushed early morning.

She nibbled on the muffin, sipped the coffee, felt her brain start to clear as the sky turned pink and pale in the east.

Her eyes scanned the horizon, and back over the roll of green, skipped over the gardens, the terraces, the pergola Emma and her crew would be busy dressing before long.

And she saw the light shimmer over the water of the pond, the vague shadow of the willow swimming on it.