They weren't experts, she'd stated, but an organized itemization might help with Hester's hope for a museum. So they separated, studied, cataloged and replaced with Eli culling out the household ledgers, account books and journals.

He paged through them, making his own notes, outlining his own theory.

She had to work, and so did he, but he adjusted his own schedule to include what he thought of as mining-the-past time. He added to his stack of household ledgers with meticulous recordings of purchases of fowl, beef, eggs, b.u.t.ter and various vegetables from a local farmer named Henry Tribbet.

Eli decided Farmer Tribbet was an ancestor of his drinking pal Stoney. He amused himself imagining Stoney wearing a farmer's straw hat and overalls when Barbie let out a warning woof, then dashed out, barking.

He rose from the temporary work s.p.a.ce of card table and folding chair, started out. A moment after the barking stopped, Abra called up.

"It's just me. Don't come down if you're busy."

"I'm on three," he called back.

"Oh. I've got a few things to put away, then I'll be up."

It sounded good, he admitted. To hear her voice break through the silence of the house, to know she'd come upstairs to join him, work with him, bring up bits and pieces of her day and the people in it.

Whenever he tried to imagine his days without her in them he remembered the dark cloud of time, his self-imposed house arrest where everything had been dull, colorless, heavy.

He'd never go back there, he'd pushed too far into the light to ever go back. But he often thought the brightest light was now Abra.

A short time later, he heard her coming up at a jog. He watched for her.

She wore knee-length jeans and a red T-shirt that claimed: Yoga Girls Are Twisted.

"Hi, I had a ma.s.sage cancel, so-" She stopped on her way to the table where he sat, antic.i.p.ating her h.e.l.lo kiss. "Oh my G.o.d!"

"What?" He sprang up, ready to defend against anything from a spider to a homicidal phantom.

"That dress!" She all but leaped on the dress he'd left draped over the trunk he was cataloging.

She s.n.a.t.c.hed it up as his heart gratefully descended from his throat, and rushed to the mirror she'd already undraped. As he'd seen her do with ball gowns, c.o.c.ktail dresses, suits and whatever else caught her fancy, she held up the boldly coral twenties-style dress with its low waist and knee-length fringed skirt.

She turned right and left so the fringes lifted and twirled.

"Long, long pearls, ma.s.ses of them, a matching cloche hat and a mile-long silver cigarette holder." Still holding it, she spun around. "Imagine where this dress has been! Dancing the Charleston at some fabulous party or some wild speakeasy. Riding in a Model T, drinking bathtub gin and bootleg whiskey."

She spun again. "The woman who wore this, she was daring, even a little reckless, and absolutely sure of herself."

"It suits you."

"Thanks, because it's fabulous. You know with what we've found and cataloged already, you could have a fashion museum right up here."

"I'll take the option of a poke in the eye with a sharp stick."

Men would be men, she supposed, and she had no desire to change that status.

"Okay, not here, but you definitely have enough for a fantastic display in Hester's museum. One day."

Unlike Eli, she carefully folded the dress with tissue. "I checked the telescope before I came up. He's still a no-show."

"He'll be back."

"I know it, but I hate waiting." Belatedly, she walked over to kiss him. "Why aren't you writing? It's early for you to stop for the day."

"I finished the first draft, so I'm taking a break, letting it cook a little."

"You finished it." She threw her arms around his neck, shook her hips. "That's fantastic! Why aren't we celebrating?"

"A first draft isn't a book."

"Of course it is, it's just a book waiting for refinement. How do you feel about it?"

"Like it needs refinement, but pretty good. The end went quicker than I'd expected. Once I really saw it, it moved."

"We're absolutely celebrating. I'm going to make something amazing for dinner, and put a bottle of champagne from the butler's pantry on ice."

Thrilled for him, she dropped onto his lap. "I'm so proud of you."

"You haven't read it yet. Just one scene."

"It doesn't matter. You finished it. How many pages?"

"Right now? Five hundred and forty-three."

"You wrote five hundred and forty-three pages, and you did that through a personal nightmare, you did that during a major transition in your life, through continuing conflict and stress and upheaval. If you're not proud of yourself you're either annoyingly modest or stupid. Which is it?"

She lifted him, he realized. She just lifted him.

"I guess I'd better say I'm proud of myself."

"Much better." She kissed him noisily, then wrapped her arms around his neck again. "By this time next year, your book will be published or on its way to publication. Your name's going to be cleared, and you'll have all the answers to all the questions hanging over you and Bluff House."

"I like your optimism."

"Not optimism alone. I did a tarot reading."

"Oh, well then. Let's spend my staggering advance on a trip to Belize."

"I'll take it." She leaned back. "Optimism and a tarot reading equal a very powerful force, Mr. Mired in Reality, especially when you add effort and sweat. Why Belize?"

"No clue. It was the first thing to pop into my mind."

"Often the first things are the best things. Anything interesting today?"

"Nothing that pertains to the dowry."

"Well, we still have plenty to go through. I'll start on another trunk."