“You have plenty of experience cooking,” Yvette said. “Now if it was me having to decide if this was a body product or a pizza seasoning, then we’d be in trouble.”
“Wait till I really confuse you and we make a basil body cream,” Ginny said with a smile.
“Do I want to smell like a pizza?” Yvette asked.
“Are you kidding? How many people love pizza?” Kelli glanced over her shoulder and gave a knowing wink. “I’m pretty sure it’s a good way to get someone to start nibbling on you.”
Tansy and Yvette snickered while Ginny looked around the room with satisfaction. She still had a long way to go, and yet every step of the way had become part of the adventure.
Doing the next thing was working.
It wasn’t just about the herbal concoctions, either; it was about community. About spending time with these friends and others, and making a small difference, one day at a time.
Ginny carefully poured the batch into tester containers, one for each of them. The girls sniffed appreciatively.
“Smells delicious.”
“Peppermint foot cream. I’m looking forward to my next foot rub from Luke. Hey, that reminds me.” Kelli grabbed something off the side counter and held it out to Ginny. “He said you wanted to see the cross-stitch he got in that mystery gift package.”
“Ohhh, more puzzle solving.” Tansy rubbed her hands together then wrinkled her nose. “I have herbal hands.”
Laughter drifted over the room as Ginny accepted the home-crafted picture, examining it closely.
“It’s definitely my mom’s work.” A single filly, brown with a black mane. Simple, nothing fancy. She flipped it over and discovered a date written on the back in Sharpie, bracketed top and bottom by a seagull shape. “February twenty-eighth. That’s right. Luke was lucky he’s not a leap year baby.”
“He’s a Pisces, though. Through and through,” Kelli insisted.
“Likes water sports, does he?” Tansy asked as deadpan as possible. Her stoic expression failed an instant later as shrieks of laughter rang through the room.
Kelli shook a finger at her. “You’re terrible.”
“Yup,” Tansy agreed, hand held forward for the cross-stitch. She examined it as she spoke, flipping it over. “Pisces—oh my God, Ginny, where’s your gibberish page?”
Hope rushed in as Ginny shoved a copy forward. “You see something?”
Tansy nodded, scanning the page then stabbing one image firmly. “It’s half of a Pisces symbol and constellation, the latter drawn with a ton of artistic license.”
“What? Wait—the zodiac?”
“I think so.”
It suddenly made a ton of sense. “That’s it—that’s the clue we needed.” Ginny spun in a circle before squeezing Tansy and pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek. Ginny shook the tattered page in the air. “If this is all about the zodiac then my father’s drawing skills might suck, but there’s a book in the house library that I think is what we need. If it’s still there.”
Kelli waved her arms as if she were herding geese. “What are we waiting for? Time to invade.”
Five minutes later, Tamara looked over the four women all but vibrating on her porch then stepped aside. “Of course, you can come in.”
Ginny didn’t wait to explain further. Just kicked off her boots and raced for the office where the floor-to-ceiling library wall still held a multitude of books from her parents’ days. She found the one she wanted far off to the side and in the top row, then darted back to the kitchen with it.
“The Complete Book of the Zodiac,” Ginny said, dropping it on the table. “Not so complete now that it’s nearly twenty years out of date, but please let this be the clue we needed.”
The other women gathered around the island, watching with fascination as Ginny flipped pages and then shook the book by the cover. No papers fell out, though.
“The numbers Emma found.” Tamara reminded her. “Can you use those?”
“Right.” Ginny snapped a finger. “Emma also said this picture was a goat. Which Zodiac is goat-like?”
“December-ish. Capricorn,” Yvette offered. “I think it’s actually called a sea-goat, which maybe excuses your dad’s drawing.”
“Nothing excuses his drawings,” Ginny said dryly. A moment later she had the book open to the Capricorn title page. “Numbers?”
“Five—twelve—thirty.” Yvette looked up. “Page, paragraph, line?”
“Page first,” Kelli suggested. “So you can see if there’s a clue there.”
Ginny carefully counted pages, and when there were less than twelve paragraphs on that page, she counted lines for the second number instead.
She wrote down the thirtieth letter on that line on a piece of paper Tamara found for her. “That’s one. Eleven to go.”
When the first four letters actually spelled a word—WORK—Ginny felt a little light-headed. By the time they’d looked up half the symbols, the room had grown even more crowded. Caleb and Luke had shown up, as well as Tucker.
Ginny stopped what she was doing to accept his kiss, barely aware of her brothers exchanging glances in her peripheral vision. “Didn’t mean to interrupt you guys.”
“Are you kidding?” Tucker settled beside her. “This is important. Success is imminent.”
When they wrote down the final six letters, the message was clear, but absolutely useless.
W-O-R-K
T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R
Kelli frowned. “Work together? What works together? You and your brothers? An ornament, a cross stitch, and a kid’s toy?”
Tamara wrinkled her nose. “I don’t understand.”
Ginny couldn’t bear to see the people she cared for so disappointed.
“I am so happy right now,” she declared, realizing she wasn’t lying or trying to make things better. She lifted the paper in the air and met Tucker’s gaze. “We solved part of the unsolvable riddle. I’m so proud of us. And maybe someday we’ll find another clue that will let us figure out the next part. What could be better?”
Tucker wrapped a hand around the back of her neck and leaned in slowly. “You, Ginny Stone, are one in a million.”
“I am,” she declared, winking at Kelli, who was tucked under Luke’s arm. She looked around the room at her friends and family. “How about everyone comes over to my place for a celebration time around the firepit. I baked this morning, and I have marshmallows. You haven’t lived until you’ve made Brownie S’mores.”
A cheer went up and there were nods of agreement. The party moved to outside her small cottage.
Somewhere between the sugary treats and the company, the biggest truth of all became clear.
Maybe the puzzle wasn’t solved yet, but as far as Ginny was concerned, she had already found a treasure.
21
The final days of February approached, and mischief was afoot. Luke’s birthday, and Tucker’s, were just around the corner, so ideas were being bandied about behind closed doors and out of ear shot of two curious men.
No. Not two.
Honestly, Luke was being a royal pain in the butt, popping out of the woodwork every time Ginny and Kelli attempted to make plans.