Intertwine Read Online Free PDF Page B

earlier when she’d seen it in person for the first time, with its golden stone and ivy growing up over the peaked front door and paned windows. To the right of the cottage an oak tree wrinkled and stooped with age drew it protectively under its branches. The words Duir Cottage were carved into a board to the left of the front door, duir meaning oak in ancient Celt. Indeed, honey-colored oak covered the house’s interior, most walls boasting wood paneling.
    The house epitomized the romanticized American notion of a quaint English cottage. It was beyond postcard perfect, like Emme could reach out and touch the paper it was printed on. From the first time she’d seen it on the internet, the place had seemed to be . . .
    . . . waiting for her.
    Lightning flashed again. Emme tried to ignore the clap of thunder that followed. But it was useless. The house was tense, air heavy and laden. She absorbed all the apprehension of the wind, the furor of the pounding rain. It hammered against her chest, jittery.
    Trying for a distraction, Emme walked to the large stainless steel fridge. The unknown owners had recently renovated the house with an open kitchen/dining/sitting room at the back. An enormous stone fireplace dominated the space, flanked by high back chairs, flat screen TV and comfy sofa. A rough hewn antique dining table finished off the look. The whole house looked like it had been staged for a Restoration Hardware catalog photoshoot. Pulling out leftover Indian takeaway, Emme watched the rain pelt against the kitchen window as her food rotated in the microwave.
    Sitting at the large table, she decided she needed company. Emme looped the oval locket off her neck and opened it gently, noting the familiar pop of the catch. She then propped the opened locket next to her plate of naan and tikka masala.
    And looked at him .
    As usual, she felt the familiar shock of recognition. That disorienting sense of deja vu. Over the years, it had never changed.
    He still stared out at her in his blue-green jacket and neckcloth. Blond hair stylishly disheveled as was a la mode for any gentleman around 1812. Sun-bleached and tousled. Begging to run her fingers through it.
    Emme stopped and then shook the thought out of her brain.
    Honestly.
    The tiny portrait carefully rendered minute fine details, showing strands of hair and subtle laughter lines around his mouth. His blue eyes looked kind with a dash of devil-may-care, like he laughed at himself as much as he laughed at the world.
    More than just eye-candy, he seemed larger than life, beckoning, his smile always just out of reach.
    Even now as she gazed at Finn propped on the table—rain pounding the roof overhead—the inscription jarred her.
    To E
    throughout all time
    heart of my soul
    your F
    As usual, the words rushed unbidden through her mind:
    You. He means you. Emry.
    Emme brutally repressed them. She was in Marfield to overcome this sense of connection, not wallow in it.
    It didn’t help that Jasmine relentlessly insisted the connection was real, not just imaginings in her head.
    “Look, Jaz,” Emme had said on one particularly exasperating occasion. “I know you think it’s something significant, but it’s impossible for my life to be connected with someone who died two hundred years ago.”
    “Well, you can believe that with all your heart,” Jasmine replied. “But as I keep telling you, belief alone can’t change the nature of reality. It is what it is and no amount of wishing reality were different will actually change it.”
    Emme shook her head. There was no arguing with Jasmine when she got like this.
    “What do you think his name is?” Jasmine speculated. “Obviously, E stands for Emry. Don’t look at me like that,” she insisted. “E is you. Definitely. But who is F?”
    Emme shrugged. “E is not me. And I’m sure that they had sensible names for the time period. Probably something simple like Elizabeth and Frank. Or Eleanor and Freddie.”
    Jasmine pursed