Chapter One

"Sunny you don't have any idea of what you're doing do you?" Sunny Hughes cocked her head to the side and looked at the house in the bright morning light behind the dark shades of her glasses. "No Peter, but I need to get out of New York." Sunny ran a hand through her rich brown hair. "Whatever you say Sunny, I just think that you've gone mad. Within two weeks you sold your apartment and quit your job at The New Yorker and moved to Bucksville Pennsylvania?" Sunny scoffed. "Bucks County, Pete. It's not that difficult. Besides what do you do in New York besides sit behind that big glossy desk of yours and play with your trinkets?

It was Peter's turn to scoff now. "Schlumberger is expensive enough but I'll thank you not to thumb your nose at Chippendale." Sunny shook her head although she knew her brother couldn't see her. "Well look Peter as wonderful as it is to talk to you, I have to start looking around this pretty little house I bought so I can start tearing it up tomorrow and redecorate it" "Alright, maybe when you're done I'll come see you sometime" "Right, you love Petie, ciao"

She hung up with her brother, placed her fisted hands on her narrow hips, and watched the house as if she expected it to do some elaborate trick. When it didn't, Sunny tucked her sunglasses into her clutch purse, took a deep breath before walking up the slightly gaunt porch, and opened the door to the pretty two-story house. Dust settled on everything and gave it the odd appearance of being under water. There was a phone on a quaint little coffee table but Sunny doubted that it would still work. She picked it up and jabbed at the receiver button but the line stayed annoyingly blank.

There were little things left over from the people who had lived in the house before them. A pretty silver picture frame was turned over on the mantle. The picture was gone and the glass was cracked down the center. The walls were painted a faded peach color and were too dull for Sunny's taste. She imagined that she could wrangle up from bright colors for the walls. She doubted that she could find any suitable furniture in Bucks County but she supposed that she could order something in from New York if she couldn't find anything.

The kitchen was cute enough, Sunny supposed. A single kitchen sink was embedded in the marble-topped counters and was positioned to look out over the back yard that stretched out and ended in a patch of woods. Part of the reason why Sunny wanted the house was because of the garden. She had always wanted to try to plant flowers and rose bushes, but she had always lived in big cities. The most her mother had ever allowed her to have was a small little flower box that housed African violets that had never really bloomed into the splendid flowers she had imagined them to be.

She pushed the slightly creaky windows open and let the fresh clean air come into the musty house. Corn, so much corn. She thought a little perturbed, she had never really liked corn, but now she was practically surrounded by it. Sunny wasn't stupid however, she noticed the looks that the women of the town gave her and the looks that the women gave their husbands as she walked by, but she had made her choice. It wasn't her fault that she wasn't a gargoyle; she just had the right genes. She had a delicate bone structure that she had acquired from her Swedish grandmother, rich brown hair and deep denim blue eyes and a mouth that she rarely painted unless she was feeling low.

Her cell phone began to buzz irritably on the table where she had left it and when she reached over to answer it there was hardly any signal at all. Annoyed, she picked it up and marched outside. It was her sister Mallory; probably about to demand if she had lost her mind, then Sunny and Mallory would get into a huge fight then hang up the phone. After the phone call would end, Sunny would sulk about her new house, while Mallory on the other hand would rush to her high-price physiologist who would probably tell her that her anxiety is linked to some idiot idea and Mallory would run out and buy hundreds of dollars of pills she didn't need.

She ignored the call and went around back to the garden to mentally plot where she wanted to grow her fruits and flowers. There was a rustle in a thick brush of bushes beside her and as she looked over, prepared to use anything she could for a weapon as New York had taught her to do, a little girl in a pleated blue cotton dress giggled as she ran off like a dart towards the house next to her. Sunny smiled brightly and shook her head. Children delighted her she never supposed that she would have any of her own, but that didn't mean that she couldn't fall completely adore the next- door neighbors little girl.