Love at First Sight

Duchess trembled with anticipation. If the place was anywhere near as beautiful as the listing photo, she knew this could be her new home. The energy had crackled off the brochure, making her fingers tingle.

Ron, the real estate agent from Orchard Bay, eased the car onto the gravel drive. The road curved through dense foliage, red cedars, ferns and tall maples, and graceful weeping willows.

A flock of blue jays swooped toward the car, whistling and darting in loose formations. Her eyes widened; beside her, the realtor started. The Forest was watching.

White daisies and yellow buttercups lined the shoulders, laced with spiky purple fireweed. A vast canopy of willow branches formed a breezy green drape over the road ahead.

Three squirrels skittered to the edge of the drive, rising on their haunches, hiding among the buttercups. She waved. They hesitated a beat, then scampered back through the trees.

As Ron slowed the car around the final curve, the house broke through the trees, perched on a slight rise of the east shore of the lake, its manicured lawns lined with scarlet rose bushes. It was big and bold and beautiful, old stone, three stories tall, with sloping roofs, dormers, and arched windows. A wraparound verandah and curved stone steps swept up to stunning arched double glass doors. Pots overflowing with red, white and pink petunias brightened the verandah. More scarlet roses posed along the curved stone path.

She gasped. She flung the door open before the car had fully stopped. She stared at the house, spun around and gave Ron such a sparkling grin he was almost knocked backwards.

"I'll take it!" She ran up the stone steps.

"I haven't even told you the price," he shouted after her.

"It doesn't matter," she answered gaily. "I think she's been waiting for me."

Her parents and late husband had left her a wealthy woman. But she hadn't found her forever home until now.