“You think Reede might stay in Edilean permanently?”
“I hope so!” Kim said emphatically. “We’re always worried that he’ll get killed in his next rescue attempt. Remember the time . . .”
“He went down a cable hanging out of a helicopter to get to that kid? Oh yeah.”
Kim smiled, and for a moment tears came to her eyes. “I can’t tell you how good it is to have you here. In the last couple of years it seems like all my friends have married. And once you’re married, your interests change. Now when I ask if anyone wants to go out for a drink they look at me like I’m crazy. They want to talk about which diapers are less likely to leak.”
Smiling, Jecca hugged her friend, then stepped bay,en stepack. “I’m here now and all I want to talk about is art. I assume that necklace you’re wearing is something you made.”
Kim grinned. “Olive branches. You like it?”
“Love it!”
“I think we should get your bags out of the car and put them in your room. Jecca?”
“Yes?” She paused and waited because she could see that Kim had something serious to say.
“A couple of weeks ago, I came up with an idea. I don’t know if you’ll want to do it or not. I know you like to make up your own creations, so feel free to say no to this.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I thought maybe you could do some watercolors of flowers, say Tris’s orchids, and I’d have my jewelry photographed with them. I’m planning to start doing some national advertising, and I’d put ‘paintings by Jecca Layton. For information contact . . .’ then give an eight hundred number. What do you think? Any interest at all?”
Jecca was staring at her friend in wonder. “Yes,” she said. “I’d be honored. How many pictures? When?”
Kim smiled. “I was hoping you’d like the idea. I need one dozen pictures. I thought to be fair you could match six paintings to my designs, then I could make jewelry to match the other six that are fully your own ideas. You like that?”
Jecca gave a smile that came all the way from her heart. Inspiration, she thought, was the basis for everything that had ever been created. A need, a purpose, they were all the foundation of what inspired an artist, a writer, a chef, a builder. All art came from what they saw, felt, heard. Kim’s jewelry would give Jecca ideas, and her paintings would push Kim to create. It was Jecca’s turn to have tears in her eyes. “I like your plan very much,” she managed to say.
“Come on, let’s get you unpacked, then we’ll have margaritas in the garden.”
“And what has the illustrious Dr. Tristan done out there?”
“Made an arbor.”
“He does woodwork too?”
Kim laughed. “No. I have another cousin who does that. But Tris did design and plant it.”
Jecca lifted the hatchback of her car. It was packed tightly with boxes of supplies, several thin wooden cases full of brushes, and her precious tubes of watercolors. There was her big camera bag and the slide projector. Peeping out from the bottom was the surface board of t
he drafting table that she had designed and her father had helped her make. The top had been made to fit into the back of her car, with the legs folded flat.
“Did you bring any clothes at all?” Kim asked.
“They’re in the front under the paints.”
“Where all unimportant things should go,” Kim said and picked up three art cases, while Jecca grabbed a cardboard box. She followed Kim back into the house, down the side of the huge living room, to the stairs. Upstai, aairs. Urs was a big open area with dark hardwood floors partially covered by a pretty rug. Several tables with lamps were along the walls. It was serene-looking and very elegant.
“Nice,” Jecca said, then heard a sound to her left. “What’s that noise?”
“Sewing machine,” Kim said, nodding to the closed door at the other end of the hall. She opened a door across from it and went inside, Jecca behind her.
There was a square bedroom with a pretty, queen-size bed with big pillows, and a large sitting room with a magnificent bow window.
Jecca went to the window and looked out to see the garden below. It stretched over what must be about four acres of lawn and trees, with several little seating areas interspersed among the shrubs. The arbor that Kim had mentioned led the way to what looked to be a bona fide rose garden. “Is this place real?”
“It’s been preserved as it was when it was built by a very rich man in 1926. His only child married Mrs. Wingate.”