“What do you write?”
“Romances. Well, they aren’t the usual romances,” the girl assured her. “They’re very carefully researched.”
“Historical?”
She nodded. “Premedieval. The origins of the age of courtly love.”
What would this girl do if she knew she had a Dark Ages Viking not twenty feet away collecting water from her water fountain in a cup that said . . . Lucy peered over at him . . . Explore today at the Exploratorium? She’d probably wet her pants.
The girl sighed. “That was a time to live in.” Longing drenched her voice.
And Lucy knew.
Just as Frankie Suchet must have known that day nearly five years ago now, Lucy knew.
Sureness. Rightness. The feelings coursed through her. Galen came up, a worried frown creasing his brow.
She smiled, first at him and then at the girl. “I have a gift for you. You’re just the person to appreciate it.” Lucy hauled Leonardo’s book from her bag and handed it to the girl.
The girl glanced from the book to Lucy and back again. “This is old. . . . I . . . I couldn’t take this.”
“Of course you can. I want to give it to you, just as it was given to me.” She glanced to Galen and stilled his protest with a look.
The girl opened the leather binding gingerly. “It’s . . . it’s written backward.”
“Yes.” Points to her for seeing that. To most people it just looked like gibberish.
“What language is it in?”
“Archaic Italian, some Latin.”
The girl looked dubious.
“Take a class. It will be worth your time. Or have it translated. There’s a guy over at Berkeley, Dr. Dent. He could do the job.”
Galen swept up Pony in one arm. Lucy rose, feeling better than she had all week. She couldn’t keep from smiling. “I’m feeling okay now. We can go.” Galen looked disturbed. He glanced significantly at the Danger door. “I’ve done what I came to do,” she assured him. Turning to the girl, Lucy said, “What’s your name? I’d like to pick up some of your books.”
The little mouse blushed charmingly. “Diana Dearborn.”
“That’s a great name for a romance writer.”
“I didn’t change it. That’s what my mother named me,” she said defensively.
“Lucky you.” Lucy pressed Diana’s hands. “Have a wonderful time. I did. It will change your life. Maybe it will transform you. And when you’re ready . . .” She leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Look behind the door.”
Diana Dearborn looked shocked, puzzled. Yeah. She would. But not forever. She’d figure it out.
Galen downed the rest of the water and gave the cup to Pony. He took Lucy’s arm and guided her protectively out into the night. “What about the machine?” he whispered into her ear.
“It’s there. I felt it. It’s fine. And we’re done with it. The book needed to go to someone else. I think it needed to go to Diana Dearborn.”
“You look as though a weight has been lifted.”
“An obsession, more likely. One of them. I still have obsessions.” She rubbed his arm, feeling the hard muscle through his sweater.
He looked down at her, a smolder rising in his ice blue eyes. “Pony really likes that nice lady who babysat the other night, don’t you, sweet one?”
“Yesss,” Pony said carefully. She was newly aware that she had a sibilant s. “S-she is very nice. She likes Vandal.”
“Vandal likes her,” Galen said, talking to Pony but still looking at Lucy. “Even though he’s very protective of you.”
“And they’re doing Wagner at the opera . . . ,” Lucy added. Galen was wild for Wagner. All that Germanic Sturm und Drang must be pretty close to his own experience.
He gave her a warning look. “You know that Wagner always puts me in the mood for . . .”
She sighed, trying not to grin. “Something to do with pillaging? I guess I can handle it.”
“Ja,” he said, his accent coming up a little, just as it always seemed to do in the bedroom. “You handle it, Lucy.” He bent to kiss her ear. “And I will handle you. Equal.”
“I warn you, you’re likely to feel equally pillaged.”
“Ahhh, I’ll try to bear up,” he said sadly. “My proud Viking spirit has been broken.”
“Sometimes I wish,” Lucy laughed. But she didn’t. She liked him difficult and protective and even demanding. He was a match for her in so many ways.
Galen opened the door for Lucy and bundled Pony into the car seat of the black Escape Hybrid. Vandal lavished her with kisses. Lucy slid into the passenger seat. The car smelled like new leather and wet dog. It had been raining earlier.
“Vandal,” Pony cried, laughing as the big black dog washed her ear. “What an yful hund.” What would Pony’s kindergarten teacher think of her mixture of Old and modern English?
Galen came around to the driver’s seat. He loved to drive. In fact, he loved to drive fast, but he didn’t with Pony in the car.
“Why do you like opera so much?” Lucy asked when he had settled behind the wheel.
“Because it seems magic, of course. The singing, the music of so many instruments joining together into another thing altogether, the way they make you think the stage is so many different places . . .” He pulled out of the parking lot under the arch of the Golden Gate.
Galen had brought a simple joy and wonder to so many aspects of the world she’d always taken for granted. What had life been like before Galen? Maybe she’d gotten the magic to transform her life in more ways than one. Not easy, any of it. But worth it, every day.
“Then Wagner it is. Let’s go and find a little magic tonight.”