Chapter I

Julia Ford and her husband Blythe Ford, arrived in their new home in White Sands late in the afternoon of the 6th August 1945. They had a two hours long drive which they spent on talking non-stop about their new home, new neighbours and the White Sands itself.

They were talking about how many windows their new house had, what was the colour of the walls, the size of the garden, and all the smaller and bigger details that can make the "just married" couple extremely happy to talk about.

Julia and Blythe were both more than joyful in that moment, they were so in love with each other, that they didn't even have to say it outloud, they both knew it and felt it. Blythe was glancing at Julia once in a while while they were driving, just to check if she really was sitting next to him. Julia, however, talked all the time, and couldn't sit still, for she was looking at Blythe for a few seconds with gleaming eyes, and then again at the road in front of them, awaiting to see her new, and her very own, house of her dreams.

They passed the fields of sunflowers about which Blythe talked about ever since he came back from his first visit into the house. Julia gasped and squeaked in joy, feeling that she loved the "dear White Sands" already and couldn't wait for the next day to go and have a long walk. Blythe felt that all of his worries about Julia not liking White Sands, disappeared from his mind for good.

And all of a sudden, they arrived at the very doorstep of their new home. It was really big and its walls were all white and looked really clean. The windows, just as Blythe told his wife earlier, were huge and shaped in an arch. At the front of the house was a small pond and lots of lavender flowers surrounding it with their scent filling up the air. The grass was cut very neatly and the whole house looked like from a fairytale.

Julia and Blythe got out of their car and hand-in-hand they walked slowly next to the pond and admired the lavender's smell around them. Finally they got to the front door, which was to Julia's delight, red, and Blythe took Julia in his strong arms. "Welcome home, my darling." he whispered and the two of them entered their own "house of dreams".

Dearest Parents and Cee,

Our Sunflower House, like Blythe and I called it, is the most darling place. I imagined it so many times and I was changing some little things from time to time, but it turns out that after all, the reality is so much more wonderful.

Downstairs, we have a wide hall which leads straight to the big living room with a great, ancient fireplace. Next to the living room there is a really nice, spacious kitchen (which I hopefully will be able to use properly!) which is joined with our own dining room. There are windows everywhere, and all the walls are white which make the whole house look so much brighter inside and so very clean.

Upstairs we have four bedrooms, one is ours, the one next to it is a bit smaller and is Blythe's and mine office where Blythe keeps the sources for his lessons, and I keep all my nursing and midwifery books. Then there are two other slightly bigger bedrooms which, for now, are left by themselves, but we hope to make them nursery rooms, one day.

And eventually, we have our own verandah (where I'm sitting right now and it seems it will be my favourite spot in our Sunflower House) and the garden, which is still quite empty, unfortunately, except for two cherry-trees and only one apple-tree at the back of it. But, like you see, my new home is lovely and I already feel like a Queen in it and Blythe thinks that I look so natural inside, especially near the fireplace, which is his favourite spot in the house.

We are about to make our way to the new neighbours and later we will go for a walk to the fields of sunflowers we saw yesterday while driving to the Sunflower House. I simply can't wait for this walk!

All in all, both Blythe and I are well and very very happy, I don't think that I could get any happier than I am now (especially because Blythe made me a breakfast today and I must say it was lovely)!

Alright then, I am heading off and I will probably 'phone you up long before this letter will reach you.

Take care,

Your loving daughter and sister,

Julia Una Ford

Julia put the letter on the desk in the living room, and both she and her husband left their house and went to meet their new neighbours, just few homes away on their street. "Oh, it looks like a real Italian villa." Blythe said when they reached the door of the massive, yellow, one-floor house with big round windows.

Julia humphed "Maybe our neighbours are Italians?" she said.

"I hope so." Blythe replied "The only kindred spirit I met during the war was an Italian, so maybe our neighbours will be just as much interesting." and with a smile of hope, he knocked on the door.

A small, plumpy old lady with silver long hair, opened the door to her house and smiled at the new visitors with shining green eyes "Why, you must be my new neighbours!" she gasped and almost immediately Julia and Blythe considered her as a new kindred spirit.

"Yes, we are." Blythe said "My name is Blythe Ford, and this is my wife, Julia." he said proudly and shook the lady's hand.

"I am so pleased to meet you! My name is Jenny Veratti. " she said and opened the door a bit wider "Come in, come in, my husband just made his cornettos, and you must try them!" she said excitedly.

Julia and Blythe exchanged smiles and came inside. The whole house was overfilled with the wonderful smell of newly made pastry which made both Julia and Blythe feel at home. Inside, the whole house was in the same style as on the outside, very "Italian-like" with wooden furniture and very warm colours everywhere, with lots of small sculptures and paintings everywhere.

"Oh, hello new friends!" said the man who came out of the kitchen with a plate full of fresh croissants, or rather "cornettos" as Mrs Veratti said. The man looked quite in the same age as his wife, and had just as lively eyes as she had. His head was silver too, although Julia knew almost for sure, that it was black once. His skin was perfectly brown and he himself was quite thin, compared with his plumpy wife.

"Lorenzo, this is Blythe and Julia Ford, our new neighbours." Mrs Veratti said warmly to her husband as she sat down on her leather, red coach.

Mr Veratti smiled at his "new friends" and put down his plate on the small coffee-table in front of the couch "Piacere! I'm Lorenzo Veratti." he said and shook hands with Blythe and kissed Julia's hand tenderly, making her chuckle quietly.

"Sit down, dear children, sit down." said Mrs Veratti and Blythe and Julia obeyed her.

"You have a lovely house." Julia admitted while looking around at the room.

"Thank you, dear." Mrs Veratti said sweetly and put one cornetto into her mouth "Lorenzo built it himself."

"Really? I don't know if I would be able to build a house brick by brick." Blythe said honestly and Mr Veratti smiled at him.

"It took me a while, but it was definitely worth it!" he said and took a cornetto himself "Please, try them!" he encouraged them, and Julia was the first one to take the cornetto into her mouth and almost immediately ending up in sighing joyfully.

Everyone else chuckled "It's delicious, Mr Veratti." she said eventually.

"Oh, please do call me Lorenzo." he said quickly.

"And call me Jenny, like all my friends do." Jenny said with a smile "Now, tell us, when was your wedding?"

Blythe looked at Julia with a tender smile "Just yesterday." he replied "And it was just wonderful."

"I can believe so." Jenny said with excitement "And how did you find your new home?" she asked.

"Oh, it's a dear thing." Julia answered immediately "It's so big and bright, and there really is so many things to admire." she smiled at her husband.

"I always liked that house." Lorenzo said "Although the people who lived in there before you two, weren't half as nice as you are." he shook his head.

"I don't think I can imagine people living in our Sunflower House as not being nice, or polite." Julia said with disappointment in her voice "Its atmosphere is so wonderfully magical!"

"I agree with you entirely." replied Lorenzo "And you named this house a "Sunflower House"?" he asked with a grin on his lips.

"We did, don't you like it?" Blythe asked them, finishing eating his cornetto.

"There could never be a better name for this house!" Jenny said happily "I really do think that we are going to get along just well, Mr and Mrs Ford."

And the four of them spent the next two hours together, eating the rest of the cornettos, drinking tea and talking about each other's lives. Julia and Blythe told Lorenzo and Jenny about their family and how they fell in love and of course about what they did during the war. Both Mr and Mrs Veratti were very interested and agreed that "Mr and Mrs Ford" as Jenny was calling them, were their "dear old friends".

Lorenzo and Jenny told them about their lives too and Blythe and Julia discovered, with no surprise, that their life was a very interesting one. Lorenzo was born in Milan, in the 1880s and lived there with his family until he was eighteen. He decided to move somewhere else because his parents didn't really care about him at all. He met a Canadian boy called Richard Fox, who was visiting Milan at the time, and they became friends and so when Richard was coming back to Canada and offered Lorenzo to come with him, he agreed gladly.

And so Lorenzo came to White Sands, got a job as a chef in the restaurant during the week, and at the weekends he was a playing a piano in bars. That's how he met and fell in love with Jenny, as she was coming to the bars just to hear him play on the piano. They married, of course, and later had a son called Patrick, who was now nineteen years old and living in New York studying at the university with a dream of becoming a sculptor and a painter.

Blythe and Julia left their house sadly, as they really grew to love Lorenzo and Jenny. But they did leave as they wanted to explore the surroundings, like they wanted to ever since they arrived in White Sands the night before. Next to the Sunflower House was a huge forest, which Julia thought must had been inhabited by some forest-dwarves or possibly their ghosts, and she was almost afraid to go inside, but Blythe encouraged her to do so and the two of them ended running and laughing together through the "haunted wood", making it more alive than ever.

Then they got to the fields of sunflowers and like Blythe said the day before, it did look more wonderful in the daylight. It was a real golden sea which had real waves whenever the wind was blowing. The sunflowers were really high and it was almost like another forest however this time not haunted but enchanted. Blythe took his wife in his arms and waltzed with her between the high, dark-green trunks, undearneath the golden crowns.

"Do you wish that we went on a real honeymoon, Sheba?" Blythe asked Julia when they were going back to their Sunflower House, through the trees of the haunted wood.

"Is it any different from the real honeymoon?" Julia questioned him with a smile "We explore and run through the forests, we laugh and dance in the fields full of sunflowers, isn't it the most wonderful honeymoon you can ever imagine?"

Blythe squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek tenderly "I knew you would say that." he whispered and Julia giggled.

"I think we will be very happy here." she whispered back.

"We will," Blythe replied affectionately "-and I will do everything to make you very very happy here." he smiled at his wife and it was just one more assurence for Julia that what he said was most entirely true.

First chapter of the sequel to "Julia of the Island" is up and I couldn't be happier! I hope that you will enjoy this story just as much as you enjoyed the first one, or maybe even more? ;)

I would love you, my readers to read and review this story, as I really want to know your opinion about it! Thank you for reading and… enjoy! :D