Jewels of the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page B

laundry.”
    “You’ll find no one’s too busy to take a moment, Jude Frances. Next time you’re roaming you stop in and pay your respects to Mollie O’Toole.”
    “I will. Oh, and Gran?” Amused, she smiled as she sipped her tea. “You didn’t tell me the cottage was haunted.”
    “Sure and I did, girl. Haven’t you listened to the tapes, or read the letters and such I gave you?”
    “No, not yet.”
    “And you’re thinking there goes Granny again, with hermake-believe. You just go through the things I sent along with you. The story’s there about Lady Gwen and her faerie lover.”
    “Faerie lover?”
    “So it was said. The cottage is built on a faerie hill with its raft, or palace, beneath, and she waits for him still, pining because she turned off happiness for sense, and he losing it for pride.”
    “That’s sad,” Jude murmured.
    “Well, it is. Still, it’s a good spot, the hill, for looking inside yourself to your heart’s desire. You look inside yours while you’re there.”
    “Right now I’m just looking for some quiet.”
    “Take as much of it as you need, there’s plenty to go around. But don’t stand back too long and watch the rest of the world. Life’s so much shorter than you think.”
    “Why don’t you come out, Gran, stay here with me?”
    “Oh, I’ll come back, but this is your time now. Pay attention to it. You’re a good girl, Jude, but you don’t have to be good all the time.”
    “So you’re always telling me. Maybe I’ll find some handsome Irish rogue and have a reckless love affair.”
    “It wouldn’t hurt you any. Put flowers on Cousin Maude’s grave for me, will you, darling? And tell her I’ll come see her when I’m able.”
    “I will. I love you, Gran.”
     
    Jude didn’t know where the time went. She’d meant to do something productive, had really intended to go out to play with the flowers for a few minutes. To pick just a handful to put in the tall blue bottle she’d found in the living room. Of course she’d picked too many and needed another bottle. There didn’t seem to be an actual vase in the house. Then it had been such fun sitting on the stoop arranging themand wishing she knew their names that she’d whiled away most of the afternoon.
    It had been a mistake to carry the smaller squat green bottle up to her office to put on the table with her computer. But she’d only meant to lie down for a minute or two. She’d slept for two solid hours on top of the little bed in her office, and woke up groggy and appalled.
    She’d lost her discipline. She was lazy. She’d done nothing but sleep or piddle for more than thirty hours now.
    And she was hungry again.
    At this rate, she decided as she foraged for something quick in the kitchen, she’d be fat, slow, and stupid in a week.
    She would go out, drive down to the village. She’d find a bookstore, the bank, the post office. She’d find out where the cemetery was so that she could visit Old Maude’s grave for her grandmother. Which is what she should have done that morning. But this way it would be done and she could spend the next day going through the tapes and letters her grandmother had given her to see if there was a paper in them.
    She changed first, choosing trim slacks, a turtleneck, and a blazer that made her feel much more alert and professional than the thick sweater and jeans she’d worn all day.
    She attacked her hair—“attack” was the only term she could use to describe what she had to do to tame it into a thick, bound tail when all it wanted to do was frizz up and spring out everywhere at once.
    She was cautious with makeup. She’d never been handy with it, but the results seemed sufficient for a casual tour of the village. A glance in the mirror told her she didn’t look like a day-old corpse or a hooker, both of which could and had happened on occasion.
    Taking a deep breath, she headed out to attempt anothersession with the leased car and the Irish roads. She was