Colby's Wife

Pierson

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.