Colby's Wife
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Grace Green
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Chapter 1
‘SELL it?’ Greer whirled round from the corkboard where she’d just pinned a sketch of her latest lingerie design, an elegant satin-and-lace negligee in Midnight Cobalt. She stared at her grandmother with dismay. ‘If I don’t want the summer place on Lake Trillium you’re going to sell it?’
‘Correct.’
‘But Gran ... it’s been in the family for generations!’
Leaning on her cane, Jemima Westbury moved across the office, skirting a table laden with bolts of purple, fuchsia and emerald silk, and stood with her back to the tall window overlooking Toronto’s Spadina Avenue. The sun glistened in her silver topknot; its shadow softened the lines seventy-odd years had etched around her firm mouth and azure eyes.
‘That’s as may be,’ she said, ‘but you never go there anymore, and I?’ She lifted one shoulder in an eloquent shrug. ‘I no longer enjoy spending time there on my own.’
Greer frowned. ‘I don’t like the idea of strangers living at the cottage, Gran,’ she said slowly. ‘Oh, I know I haven’t been to the lake for a couple of years but—’
Jem waggled the tip of her cane at her granddaughter. ‘Eight years. You haven’t been there for eight years, not since that business with Bradley P—’
‘Not since the summer Colby and Eleanor came home from Australia for his father’s funeral.’ Greer broke in hurriedly. ‘I was seventeen.’ She felt her cheeks flush. Stealing a moment to regain her composure, she crossed to her desk and flicked the switch that would silence the music coming over the Passing Fancy workshop speakers. When she faced Jem again, her cheeks had cooled and she managed a rueful smile. ‘You’re right. It has been eight years.’
Briefly she wondered—as she had so often done—how much of the truth her grandmother had guessed that long-ago summer. Not all of it, Greer was sure—but certainly some. After all, wasn’t Gran the one who had found her huddled down on the beach, dissolved in scalding tears, after Colby had flayed her with his scathing diatribe—
‘What I’d like,’ her grandmother was saying, ‘is for the two of us to go up to the lake this week. You can make your decision there. If you don’t want to keep the cottage, we’ll start packing and get it ready for sale.’
‘I really don’t think I can get away.’ Greer dropped her gaze; fidgeted with a scrap of Belgian lace on her desk. ‘Since my Vogue cover, this place has been a madhouse—’
‘Then I’ll contact an agency and they can see to the arrangements. I think this is a good time of year to sell, don’t you? Everything will be looking its best. Ben always said June was his favourite month at the lake—’ Jem’s voice caught, and shaking her head, she started for the door, her cane tapping unsteadily on the planked floor.
Greer had never met her grandfather—he had died before she was born—but she knew that after his death Jem had sold their large Toronto house and moved into an apartment. She had kept on the lakefront cottage because, as she had once confided to Greer, it was the only place where she could still sense Ben’s presence and was thus very special to her.
Greer took in a deep breath, and ignoring the warning bells clanging in her bead, hurried after the frail figure and caught her in the doorway. Clasping her grandmother’s hands, she said quietly, ‘I’ll come, Jem darling, of course I’ll come. But I can’t get away till Friday. Friday afternoon...probably quite late.’
‘Thank you, Greer.’ Jem’s voice trembled with pleasure. ‘Thank you so much. Oh, we’ll have a lovely trip, you’ll see—just like old times.’
No, Greer reflected, stifling a bleak sigh as she escorted her grandmother to the elevator, it wouldn’t be like old times. It could never be like old times again. Eleanor, and Brad Pierson, had seen to that.
She should have just told her grandmother the truth, she thought wearily—should have explained that though she had once loved going to the lake, it was a place she could no longer bear to visit. It was too filled with memories, memories of Colby, memories that tore her heart in two.
But she had committed herself to going.
And she could see no way out.
‘When are we going to get there?’ Jamie Daken’s tone was sullen. ‘How much farther do we have to go?’
‘Another couple of miles, if I remember rightly.’ Colby Daken glanced at the seven-year-old boy sitting slouched beside him. In the dim light from the Jeep’s dashboard, he could see tousled black hair, shadow-smudged dark eyes, a drooping mouth. ‘Tired?’ he asked softly.
‘Tired? Gosh, Dad, no—why should I be tired? The trip from Melbourne only took us from Wednesday till Friday, then we only took two hours to get through Toronto Customs, and we only got stuck in traffic for two hours getting out of the city. Now it’s only—’ he squinted through his glasses at the square watch strapped around his thin wrist ‘—five after midnight. Why should I be tired?’
The sarcasm in his son’s tone set Colby’s teeth on edge, but he decided this was neither the time nor the place to have a confrontation. Besides, Jamie was having a hard time dealing with his mother’s death; Colby knew that only too well, and took the fact into consideration. This trip to Canada had been at the suggestion of their family doctor, after Colby had expressed his deep concern that although Eleanor had now been gone for six months, Jamie didn’t seem to have made any steps toward accepting his loss.
‘Your son, I believe, is feeling very much adrift,’ Dr. Franks had said. ‘He needs to have his roots reaffirmed—needs to get a sense of the continuity of things. Could you get away for a while—take him to Canada, show him where you grew up? Perhaps even spend some time at your cottage in Ontario—you did tell me you’d hung onto it, didn’t you?’
Yes, he still owned the cottage, Colby had acknowledged. But he didn’t explain to the doctor that the only reason he hadn’t sold it when he’d flown to Ontario eight years ago for his father’s funeral was that Eleanor had announced—while they were actually at the lake—that she was pregnant; and he—impractical in his delight—had decided to keep the place, in case the coming child might one day want it.
Who would have thought then, Colby reflected with a bitter twist of his lips, that Eleanor would die before her thirty-first birthday, and that he would one day be bringing that child here alone, in an attempt to bridge the wide gulf between them.
He felt something nudge his elbow, and looking down, saw that his son had fallen asleep and was lolling against him. Small, vulnerable...and defiant in his grief. Colby felt a powerful surge of love. Lifting a hand from the steering wheel, he carefully pulled the thin body into a more comfortable position.
As he glanced up again, the headlights danced among the trees ahead, illuminating three boards nailed to a post, at the entrance to a narrow track. On each weathered board was a name, burned into the wood:
Something sharp seemed to jab Colby’s heart.
And as he swung the Jeep off the road, he frowned and moved restlessly in his seat. When he’d decided to make this trip, it had been for Jamie’s sake; he hadn’t given any thought to how he himself might be affected by this journey backward. Now he felt memories stumble from their hiding places, blink in the unaccustomed light and gradually evolve from their misty state into clearly visible form.
Memories of Greer.
Oh, God...he brushed a shaking hand over his eyes. Despite the years between, he could see her now as clearly as if she were walking along the track before him.
He’d always had a soft spot for the girl, but that last summer, the summer of her seventeenth birthday...
She’d been at Lake Trillium with her grandmother for a week before he and Eleanor had driven up there, and when he’d caught his first glimpse of her in three years, he’d felt a peculiar tightening in his throat. She had already acquired a lovely tan—the contrast between the nut brown of her skin and the stark white of her bikini had been breathtaking—but what had really struck him was the change in her hair. In the past, she’d always worn it in a ragged urchin style. Now it hung around her shoulders in a pale heavy sweep, the blunt-cut ends skimming like rich satin over high breasts that were already almost too lush for the sleek slenderness of her body.
She had, he realized, turned into a rare beauty.
But despite her new maturity, her green eyes had sparkled like sun-struck emeralds when she’d seen him, and with a delighted shriek she’d run up the beach and hugged him as enthusiastically as she’d always done as a child.
She was truly beautiful, and—he had thought—still as sweetly innocent as she had always been.
Which had made it all the more painful when he’d found her only three nights later with Brad Pierson—discovered her making love with the yuppie lawyer in a shadowed corner of the moonlit beach ... actually heard her moan and cry out in ecstasy at passion’s peak...
And all the while Brad’s wife Lisa was in a Toronto hospital waiting to give birth to their third child.
Colby breathed out a harsh oath as the memory slashed through his heart.
Something had died in him that night. He’d never been able to tell what it was; he just knew it was some part of him that he would never find again. Oh, he’d been furious with Greer for her betrayal of Lisa—a true friend with whom they’d both had a warm and longtime relationship—and the following evening, when he’d at last caught Greer alone, he’d given vent to his rage and contempt with words he’d never used to a woman before.
He had also been unutterably disappointed in her; he had acknowledged that—though only to himself. But beyond that rage and contempt, and beyond that disappointment, there had been more. Something that had glittered at the edge of his consciousness, too far away, too nebulous, to grasp...
His headlights picked out the black and silver gleam of the lake ahead, and blowing out a self-derisive sigh, he gathered his thoughts back to the present. Lifting his foot from the accelerator, he let the Jeep coast down the slope toward the beach, braking gently as he rounded the corner, and guided the vehicle into the carport.
Only three cottages sat at this end of the lake, and his was closest to the track. Beyond it, behind a high cedar hedge, lay the Westbury cottage, and beyond that, separated from the Westbury’s by birch trees and bushes, lay the Pierson’s.
The place was deserted. No lights shone, no music played, no voices drifted through the fragrant night air... not like in the old days, when—
Memories. Oh, memories...
Jerking his thoughts away from the images beginning to press in again so mercilessly, he undid his seat belt, and Jamie’s, and then he rounded the Jeep, opened the passenger door and scooped the sleeping child up in his arms.
‘What...what...?’ Jamie’s voice was muffled against Colby’s denim shirt. ‘Mommy...?’
‘It’s all right, son.’ Heart clenching, Colby tightened his arms around the slight body. ‘We’re here, at last.’
And as he dug into his hip pocket for the key to the cottage, he sent up an aching prayer that this little corner of paradise would achieve what he, on his own, had so far been unable to do.
Greer was glad she had come.
Relishing the feel of the dry white sand under her bare feet, she strolled along the deserted beach early Saturday morning. The day, she mused, was going to be a scorcher—the sky was forget-me-not blue and cloudless, the sun already drawing up a shimmering haze from the lake.
She felt relaxed... far more relaxed than she had ever imagined she could feel here again, in this place...and she knew why it was so.
It was because Colby Daken wasn’t here.
Despite having assured herself last night on the drive north that he was in Australia and chances of bumping into him at the lake were nil, she had still felt as if she were balancing on a tightrope of tension that had become more and more nerve-racking with every mile that had gone by. On arrival at the foot of the track, she’d directed a swift apprehensive gaze in the direction of the Daken cottage, and her relief at finding the place boarded up had been so intense she’d become light-headed. As she and Jem had shared a pot of coffee outside after a late dinner, she’d been unable to keep that relief from showing.
‘I’ve been foolish to stay away so long,’ she’d admitted with a rueful smile. ‘This—’ she waved a hand around the veranda, its deck and white-painted Adirondack chairs washed pink by the final rays of the setting sun ‘—has got to be the most relaxing spot in the world.’
‘You were afraid of facing up to the past’ was Jem’s blunt reply. ‘But we all have our own garden of memories, darling, and just as in a garden—where we have to tear out invasive weeds so they won’t choke the flowers we want to grow—in life we must haul all our darker memories out into the light...where they will, it is to be hoped, gradually die, allowing our sweeter memories room to flourish.’
Their eyes met, and there was so much compassion and understanding in her grandmother’s that Greer felt a rush of love so profound it left her shaken. She pushed herself up from her low-slung chair and crossed to the railing, so her grandmother wouldn’t see her tears. Hands cradling her mug, elbows on the rail, she blinked hard to clear her blurred vision as she looked out over the shadowy lake.
From the opposite shore could be heard the faint lilt of laughter, intermingling with the drifting strains of a tender love song; and in the gathering twilight, in air headily scented with the sweet fragrance from some unseen bush, fireflies flickered like tiny spurts of flame.
‘So,’ Jem’s voice came to her quietly, ‘do you think you’d like to keep the cottage after all?’
For a long moment, Greer didn’t speak, and then, finally, she said in an equally quiet voice, ‘Let me think it over, Gran.’
She turned and leaned back against the railing, meeting her grandmother’s steady gaze in the dusk. ‘I’ll sleep on it,’ she said, ‘and I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.’
And now tomorrow was here.
Greer walked a little way into the water. Sliding her hands into the pockets of her white shorts, she wandered along the fringe of the lake, lost in her thoughts.
Tomorrow was here...and yes, she had made up her mind.
Just after midnight, she had been wakened by some sound outside, and had found herself unable to get back to sleep. She had set herself to thinking about her grandmother’s offer... her ultimatum...and in the end, after tossing and turning and agonizing for hours, she had made her decision.
Undeniably it did hurt to be here, but the alternative—to see the cottage fall into a stranger’s hands—would hurt even more.
Besides, Jem was right—unhappy memories should be hauled out into the sunlight, and left in the scorching heat to wither and die—though she admitted she wasn’t ready to face that task. Not yet. Perhaps later in the summer she would come back to the cottage on her own, with the sole purpose of confronting her memories and by doing so, finally heal the aching wounds in her soul...
And what a joy—and a triumph—that would be.
She stopped, with her back to the shore. Raising her face to the sky, her eyes closed against its brightness, she threaded her fingers through her hair and lifted it from her nape.
‘Yes!’ she said aloud, determinedly. ‘Oh, yes!’
‘Yes what?’
Greer spun round as the voice came from behind, a voice tinged with curiosity, but also edged with hostility and perhaps a trace of sullenness.
The child standing at the water’s edge, feet planted challengingly apart, was a boy of about seven. He had an untidy sweep of black hair, and hazel eyes that glinted at her assessingly from behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. He was poking those glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, the movement automatic, as if habitual. His body was very thin and lightly tanned, and clothed only in a pair of multicolored baggy shorts that hung low on his hips.
‘Yes what?’ he repeated, scowling.
Greer waded out of the water, but when she reached the child, he stepped back, his gaze flicking over her hair, and over her face. Then, to her astonishment, she saw his eyes widen, his lips start to tremble. Good Lord, she thought, was she so terrifying a figure—or had the boy perhaps been overly cautioned to be wary of strangers?
‘Hi,’ she said, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘Where did you come from? I thought I was alone.’ She glanced along the beach toward the Trillium Lodge, a gracious mansion that sat atop a foundation of Precambrian rock about a mile and a half away. It had been built in the thirties by a wealthy New Yorker, as a summer home; now it was owned by a French couple, and run as an exclusive hotel. The boy, Greer decided, must be staying there.
‘Why were you talking to yourself?’ he demanded.
She shrugged. ‘I’d been trying to make up my mind about something, and I’d finally decided my answer was going to be yes. Don’t you ever talk to yourself?’
‘Sometimes’ was the grudging response.
Greer’s tube top had slipped a little when she’d raised her hands to lift her hair; now as she felt the sun’s heat begin to burn the tender skin on the upper swell of her breasts, she tugged the top back into place.
‘I’m going in now, for a coffee,’ she said, ‘but first I’ll walk you back along the beach. Your mother’s probably worried about you.’
‘I don’t have a mother.’
Greer heard a quiver in his voice. ‘Your dad then?’
‘He’s busy. He’s making pancakes.’
He had an intriguing accent. English? South African? She found herself wondering why his father would be cooking breakfast if they were staying at the Lodge. ‘You are at the Trillium Lodge, aren’t you?’ Frowning, she rested her hands lightly on her hips.
‘No,’ a cool male voice came from behind, ‘he’s at the cottage. With me.’
Australian. That was what the child’s accent was. But now that she had finally fixed it, it was too late...
‘Hello, Greer.’
Feeling as if her heart had stopped, Greer braced herself, braced every muscle in her body, and turned slowly.
‘Colby.’ It should have surprised her to see him, but somehow it didn’t. That he was at the lake, after all, seemed now as inevitable to her as the rising and setting of the sun. ‘What are you doing here?’
