our blessings.”
He nodded at the young couple, who were staring into each other’s eyes with matching looks of love and wonderment.
The groom-to-be spoke first in halting tones, pausing often for a wheezing breath. Beside him, a machine gave off blips that matched his erratic heartbeats.
“Sidney, the first time I saw you, with that red hair flowing down your back and those eyes as green as shamrocks, I was determined to get to know you. I figured I didn’t stand a chance, since you were the most popular student on campus. But after one meeting, I knew that I wanted more than friendship. I sensed that you were fated to be my wife.”
Sidney smiled. “I can top that. I fell in love with you before I even saw you. I remember seeing a bronze sculpture of three little ducklings. One had just fallen off a curb, and the other two were poised, as though to follow. I was so enchanted by the work, I stood there for an hour or more, marveling at the fact that I could almost feel their downy feathers and hear their little quacks of distress. And then a week later I met the artist, and I knew I’d met my soul mate.”
He lifted her hand to his lips. “This isn’t exactly the way I’d planned our wedding. And certainly not what I’d hoped for our future. But I’m grateful for the time we’ve had.” He closed his eyes, as though even that small effort cost too much. “You’ve given my life meaning, Sidney. Just knowing you, loving you and knowing you love me, is enough for a lifetime.”
His hand released its grip on hers and fell limply at his side. Sidney leaned over to brush a kiss on his lips and felt the lack of response. At the same instant a machine beside the bed began emitting one long continuous beep. It was, to Sidney’s ears, the most chilling sound she’d ever heard.
Dr. Christopher Brennan shoved his way toward the bed, touching a hand to his patient’s chest. When he looked up, his eyes met his wife’s.
She put her arms around their daughter, gathering her close as Christopher gave a shake of his head. “I’m sorry. We thought there might be enough time. But it’s…too late.”
Curt’s mother was weeping while his father stood beside her, looking lost and helpless.
A nurse began hustling the others from the room.
Before the family could make their exit, Sidney caught her grandfather’s arm. “Wait, Poppie. Say the words. I need…I need to hear the words that would have made us husband and wife.”
The old man arched an eyebrow and glanced at his wife. At her little nod he cleared his throat. The book in his hand was forgotten. Now he would simply improvise, and hope he could find something to say that might ease the pain of the moment for all of them, but especially for this sweet, beloved granddaughter who had always seemed more delicate, more fragile than her sisters. The depth of her pain and grief tore at his heart.
“We have all witnessed the two of you pledge your love to one another. It matters not whether you had the opportunity to be joined as husband and wife, but rather that your intentions were true. It matters not that one heart stopped, for the other heart is strong enough for two. And so I declare, by the power vested in me, that the pledge made this day will be remembered by all assembled here, as it will be recorded, I’m sure, in both your hearts for all time.”
Sidney opened her eyes. The Tuscany landscape was now steeped in shadow. The air had grown cooler, forcing her to draw a shawl around her shoulders.
She’d come here because it had been Curt’s dream. It was all he’d talked about. Her graduation, their marriage and the year they would spend in this lush, lovely place, living in an ancient villa that belonged to a friend of the family, while studying the masters.
Poppie was fond of saying that plans were what people made while real life was happening around them.
The realization came slowly, like the light fading behind the craggy mountain peaks in the distance. She couldn’t go on living Curt’s dreams. She had to live her own. In the real world.
She needed to go home to her family. Back to Devil’s Cove. To paint the things she’d always loved. Nature. Wildlife. Especially waterfowl. Wasn’t that what had first attracted her to Curt? The fact that they shared a love of art, a love of waterfowl, and their delightful antics had been a special bond between them.
For the first time in a year she felt a stirring of hope. Of life. Curt was gone, and the pain of that loss would never leave her. But the dream lived on. Only now, it must be her dream. Her choice. Her future.
She must face it alone.
Chapter 1
Devil’s Cove—Present Day
“I know, Picasso. You’re always in a hurry.” Sidney looked over at the scrawny mutt with gray, wiry hair that made him look like a cross between a steel-wool scrubbing pad and a wire brush. She’d found him cowering in the woods the previous winter, and was delighted when her ad in the local newspaper had produced no one interested in claiming him, for the truth was that this poor, bedraggled little dog had stolen her heart. “Why can’t you be serene like Toulouse?”
The object of her praise, a black-and-white tabby that had wandered in several months ago and had made himself at home, was busy weaving figure eights between the dog’s legs. Odd, Sidney thought, that these two different animals had formed an instant bond. As though each recognized in the other a kindred spirit. The lost and lonely, seeking love and the comfort of home, someone to tend to their needs.
But while she was tending them, she realized they were filling a need in her, as well. They might be just two little animals, but they were someone to talk to in the silence of the day. Warm bodies in the darkness of the night. Boon companions to whom she could confide her most intimate secrets, without fear of ever having them revealed to others. Their companionship eased the enforced loneliness that had become a necessary part of her life.
“All right. I know it’s time to go.” With a sigh, Sidney drained the last of her coffee and set the cup in the dishwasher before picking up her easel and canvas, a wooden case that held her paints and brushes and a small folding stool. All of these were placed in an old wooden wagon.
The minute she opened the door, the dog and cat ran ahead, ready for another day of adventure.
“Oh, sure. Once we’re outside, you never wait for me.” With a laugh she closed the door to the little cabin that she now called home.
When she’d first returned to Devil’s Cove, she’d lived at the Willows, the lovely old mansion over-looking Lake Michigan that had been her family’s home for more than fifty years. That was where her grandparents lived, and where her mother had first come as a bride, with her father. It was where they had raised their four daughters, and where each of Sidney’s sisters had lived until finding a home of their own.
For the first few months Sidney had welcomed the tender ministrations of her family. The serene walks along the shore with Bert. The long, late-night talks with Poppie in his study. And the determination of Trudy, their lifelong housekeeper, to, as she had said in that wonderful old rusty-gate voice, “ply her with food and put some weight on her bones.” But before long Sidney had recognized the worried looks, the questioning glances that passed between her family members. Their constant hovering had begun to make her feel helpless and more than a little smothered. Despite the fact that she was still grieving, and feeling confused about how to get on with her life, she recognized that it would be far too easy to become dependent upon her family for the strengths she needed to find within herself.
“Not yet, dear,” Bert had said gently when Sidney first mentioned finding a place of her own. “It’s too soon. Your emotions are still too raw. Let us indulge you a while longer.”
“Besides,” Poppie had said a bit more vehemently. “Who would stay up late with me and argue the latest murder cases being aired on the news?”
“If you go,” Trudy said in that raspy voice roughened by years of smoking, “your grandfather will be forced to eat