“Just tell me,” she added. “What’s the best time to call you if I want to just . . . you know, talk.”

“Any time is the best time. Now that I’ve been woken up again, I have days and hours stacked up all around me, just waiting to be used.”

“Then I’ll call you tonight.”

He tipped a finger against his brow.

“Until tonight,” he said, and then he took a step and simply disappeared.

“Oh.”

Surprise made the sound just pop out of her mouth.

One thing was for certain. With everything she’d experienced, she certainly wasn’t going to get used to this sort of thing anytime soon.

She took a last look behind her. The sun was up over the hill now and the water shone as though all the lights of fairyland were lit up under its surface.

Smiling, she started back up the stairs.

She hoped Con was still asleep, keeping the bed warm.

Jilly

I wake up snuggled against Geordie’s side like it’s the most natural thing in the world. And maybe it is. Maybe I’ve been out of step all these years, and I’m just now getting into the real balance of my life, coming at it all raggedy-ass backwards, the way I seem to do all too often, but so what? It doesn’t matter how I got here because I’m here now.

I realize that Geordie’s awake. Those soft brown eyes of his are open and looking right into mine. His face is so close to me I could just lean forward a couple of inches and kiss him.

So I do.

“Hey,” he says around a smile.

“Straw’s cheaper.”

He groans, but there’s laughter in his eyes. This time he kisses me.

I could stay here all day, just the two of us in the bed, in this room. Let the world go on without us. Surely it can do without us for one day. It can certainly do without me. It’s not like I’ve produced one piece of art in years that I’d actually allow to be hung in a gallery.

I make some jokey comment about it to Geordie.

He sits up and leans against the headboard.

“You shouldn’t say that,” he tells me.

“Oh, don’t go all serious on me, Geordie, me lad. I wasn’t trying for the oh-poor-me vote. I was trying for the let’s-be-cozy-here-all-day one.”

“I know. But your art’s such a huge part of who you are. It kills me to see you without it.”

“Oh, pooh,” I say. “I’ve gotten along fine without it. Look at me lying here, all bold and happy and with nary a paintbrush in sight.”