She’d taken hours to design, create, and attach the sprue system, the channel system of wax rods and gates to feed the molten bronze into the mold.

More hours still coating the wax with slurry. First, the very, very fine grain—two coats—to pick up all the minute and delicate details. More layers—nine in all—of various grades and mixtures, letting each dry between coats to create that thick ceramic shell.

All the tedious, technical work had kept her mind occupied for days, and off the anxiety of that third damn card.

She didn’t know what hit her. Neither will you.

Don’t think about it now, she told herself. Don’t let a madwoman dictate your life.

She boxed the shell, carried it downstairs.

“Is that Reed?”

“All ready to go.” Simone set the box on the kitchen counter with a little huff from the effort. “I appreciate you giving up a pretty summer day to go with me.”

“I love a trip to the foundry. All those sweaty men—and women,” CiCi added. “I’ll get some sketches out of it.” She checked her hair in the mirror—long and loose with a trio of enormous hoops showing through at her ears. “And I really am looking forward to hearing Natalie’s wedding chatter. We’ll make it a fun day.” She shouldered on a straw bag the size of the Hindenburg. “Let’s get our pretty boy out to the car. You did tell him we’re going to the mainland this morning.”

“I’ll text him from the ferry.”

CiCi narrowed her eyes as they walked out of the house. “Simone.”

“It gives him less time to worry.”

“And no time to try to talk you out of going off-island.”

“Exactly.” Simone settled the box in the cargo area, tossed her satchel back with it, popped on sunglasses as CiCi slid on her rainbow-lensed ones. In the driver’s seat, she cranked up the radio, shot CiCi a grin.

“Girl trip!”

“Wee-hoo!”

Under usual circumstances, Simone might have booked a hotel room near the foundry, instead of pushing the work there to a single day. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the supervisors, or the workers who were, in their way, artists themselves. But she preferred being in on every step and stage.

These weren’t usual circumstances, and she didn’t want to be away from Reed and the island, so the push was on.

He looked after her, she thought, and she looked right back after him.

Still, she left CiCi to entertain herself on the pouring floor or to wander around the furnaces while she hovered over the worker who placed her piece into the autoclave.

She’d used the lost wax method, her preference, and the heat and pressure from the oven would force the wax out of its shell.

If she’d done good work, she thought, The Protector would be perfectly formed inside the empty, hardened shell.

CiCi joined her when the workers transferred the hot shell to the pouring floor.

“And here we go,” CiCi said.

Workers in helmets, face masks, protective suits, thick gloves, and boots always put her in mind of rugged astronauts.

They secured her work in sand while others heated solid blocks of bronze into liquid. She imagined muscles tensed and rippling inside those thick suits as they stirred that glorious molten bronze.

Here was art, too, she thought, in the enormous heat, the scent of chemicals and sweat, of liquified metal. And magic in the glowing light as workers lifted the crucible of molten metal out of its furnace.

And the pour—that moment of truth—always enthralled her. Those quick movements of workers moving in unison, the fluid flow of deep, glowing gold like melted sunlight.

Inside the shell, her work, her art, her vision filled with that melted sunlight. The negative became positive, and the symbol and study of the man she’d come to love would be born.

“Not as good as sex,” CiCi murmured beside her. “But it’s a damn fine rush all the same.”

“Oh boy.” On a long sigh, Simone released her breath.

Since the shell and the form within required several hours to cool, she drove with CiCi into Portland, had a long lunch—thank God not at the country club—with her mother and sister.

Wedding talk dominated, but Natalie radiated happy, and that glow reflected on their mother. If you can’t beat them, Simone thought, join them.

“You saw the pictures I sent of the attendants’ dresses.” Natalie sipped from her second glass of champagne.

“I did,” Simone told her. “They’re lovely—sleek and elegant, and I love the color.”

“Boysenberry.” Tulip indulged in more champagne herself. “I had my doubts, and I admit I tried to talk Natalie into something more traditional. But she was right. It’s a striking color, especially with her accent colors.”

“The blush and pale silver.” CiCi nodded. “You’ve got an artist’s eye when you want one, sweetie.”

“I was hoping you and Simone would wear the silver. If you’d look for a dress in that color. The boutique I’m using has some really beautiful choices. And there’s still time to customize.”

“I look good in silver,” CiCi mused.

“You’re not in the wedding party.” Natalie shifted her gaze to Simone. “But I’d like you to … I want you both to be part of it.”

“Why don’t we go to the boutique after lunch?” Simone suggested. “You can help me pick out a dress.”

Natalie blinked. “Really?”

“You’re the bride, Nat.” Simone tapped her glass to her sister’s, and caught the glint of tears in her mother’s eye. “Let’s all go shopping.”

Just a dress to her, she thought, but a symbol that mattered to both her sister and mother. And it would fill in another couple of hours while her bronze cooled.

By the time she and CiCi drove back toward the foundry—with dresses, shoes, bags, wraps for a fall wedding—she felt energized.

“I actually enjoyed that,” she marveled.

“It never hurts to get out of our own comfort zones. You made them happy.”

“We did.”

“Yes, we did.” She gave Simone an elbow. “Now they owe us.”

“Big-time.”

Since she wanted to do the rest of the work herself, and didn’t want to spend her days off-island, Simone had the foundry load the encased bronze back into her car.

“I’m texting Reed,” CiCi said as they drove onto the ferry. “I want him to know we’re on our way back.”

“I don’t want him coming back to the house until I’ve done the breaking out and have the bronze back in my studio for the metal chasing.”

“I’ll hold him off, and I’ll call on a couple of strong men to haul it out on the patio.” As she texted, she glanced at Simone. “I want to be there for the breaking out.”

“I wouldn’t have it otherwise.”

Two and a half hours later, Simone swiped sweat off her forehead. Bits and chunks of shell lay over the tarp along with a variety of hammers and power tools.

And the bronze stood in the early evening light.

“Gorgeous, Simone. Gorgeous.”

“He will be.” She’d grind off the sprues, finish the surface with pads from coarse to fine, retexture here and there, and perfect. “Few more steps.” She circled it. “The metal chasing, a good sandblasting, then the patina, but I can see it, CiCi. I can see it’s exactly what I hoped.”

“So’s he, whether you know it or not.”

“I didn’t hope for him, that’s the thing. For a while I didn’t hope for anything, and that was useless. Then I woke up and I hoped to be able to do something like this. That was enough, it honestly was because I had you, and this place, and could always come back. And then … he looked at me.”

She crouched down, traced a finger over the bronze face. “He loves me.”

“A lot of men, and a few women, have loved me. It’s not enough, baby.”

“No, it wouldn’t be. It wouldn’t be even though he’s beautiful and kind, he’s brave and smart and so many things. That wouldn’t be enough.”

She pulled off the bandanna she’d tied over her hair. “But he unlocked something inside me, CiCi. And unlocked, I see more, feel more, want more. He made me believe. I love him because of who he is, and who I am with him.”

“When are you going to tell him?”

“When this is finished, and I show it to him.” She straightened. “Is that silly?”

“I think it’s profound. I’m going to help you clean this up and get this beauty upstairs.”

*

While Simone chased metal, Reed rounded up a couple of kids who felt tossing lit firecrackers into trash cans in the public bathrooms was the height of vacation fun.

He might have let it go with simply confiscating the rest of the cherry bombs and ash cans and a lecture, but the father, who’d apparently enjoyed more than his fair share of booze on the beach, got in his face about it.

“What’s the big deal? They’re just having some fun. Didn’t hurt anybody. And I paid good money for those cherry bombs.”

“The big deal is they broke the law, endangered public safety and their own, and destroyed property.”

“Buncha trash is all.”

Still trying for some diplomacy, Reed nodded. “Which they’ll clean up.”

“My boys aren’t janitors.”

“They are today.”

“Hell with that. Come on, Scotty, Matt, let’s go.”

“They’re not going until they clean up the mess they made.”