I'll pick you up. We can go to Hideaway and get a pizza, then go to your ..."
"No, really, Nina," Julia said, feeling a little guilty, but not so guilty that she was willing to let Nina derail the plan she'd already gotten her heart set on. "I'm looking forward to driving. I've been chauffeured and flown around for weeks now. I want to drive."
"Then you can drive my car."
"I need a little time alone."
"Julia, you've been alone for a solid month and for thirty-four years before that. Don't you think you've had enough alone time?"
Julia thought about it, then said, "I need a little more."
In the rental car, heading home, her headlights sliced through the black, and it occurred to Julia that she didn't need them. She could feel her way, taste it, hear it. All she had to do was follow the flow of the land and the sound of water. It had been a long time since Julia had been homesick, not since she was living in New York, she guessed. Not since before the first book got published and she became famous for being the woman who wasn't waiting for someone to join her at the table. It took another trip to New York and a stranger sitting down beside her at Stella's to convince Julia James that, sometimes, the strength lies in the waiting.
Veronica White was going to come out of retirement. During the past three weeks, Julia had realized something: she killed the Veronica in herself, then only the Ro-Ro would survive. Once she'd figured that out, the rest became easy. In the flight from Dallas, she'd pulled out a notebook and felt Veronica's words fly from her fingers.
In her suitcase, she had a dozen home decor magazines and a list of ideas she'd picked up in Paris. She'd given Nina a blood oath that she was serious about the renovation. She couldn't wait to say good-bye to the leaky faucets and cracking walls that had framed the last three years of her life. It was time to start making permanent changes to the house, to everything.
She drove down the gravel road in the darkness, ready to begin her grown-up life.
The headlights swept over the house, and she thought, Home sweet home, as she parked the car and popped the trunk. She lugged her suitcases onto the porch and struggled with the key.
When, at last, the door was open, she started inside but stopped short. Someone had fixed the door leading into the study. There was a fresh coat of paint on the wall. Have Nina and the contractors started? she wondered. But then she saw that new lights had been installed in the ceiling above the fireplace, and they were shining down, accenting her grandmother's painting, which hung, perfectly centered, above the mantle. She crept closer, wondering who had arranged that surprise. She studied the painting through t he lights' glow. Its brushstrokes, the way the oil caught the light. She stepped closer and heard the familiar creak of the floorboards, but another noise as well, something she knew but couldn't pinpoint, something . . .
Behind her, cards shuffled.
Julia turned to see Lance sitting at the dining-room table. He cut the cards, then looked at her. With a sly smirk, he said, "I think it's time you learn how to play gin."