Colby's Wife

‘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?’

CHAPTER TWO

‘SAME thing as you, I expect. Having a holiday.’ Colby’s eyes, black-fringed and even more strikingly blue than she remembered, locked with hers for a long moment, in a look so penetrating she had to brace herself not to flinch from it; and just when she was about to blink, his gaze fell to her mouth...making her wish, too late, that she had earlier applied a concealing coat of lipstick.

‘Jamie—’ he kept his gaze fixed steadily on her mouth as if he found it endlessly fascinating, and it was only with the greatest effort that Greer kept herself from running the tip of her tongue nervously over the vulnerable flesh ‘—your pancakes are ready. Maple syrup’s on the table.’

‘Okay.’ Slouching, the child set off up the beach.

Colby frowned. He shifted his gaze, focused it on the small departing figure. ‘Jamie?’ His tone was sharp.

The child hesitated, glanced back, muttered a strained “Thanks’ and then took off again, this time at a run.

‘My son,’ Colby said tersely. ‘Jamie.’

His shirt was unbuttoned and as he slid a hand inside and rubbed his ribs in a frustrated gesture, Greer’s gaze was drawn to the shadow of dark hair on his chest, hair that curled crisply and arrowed down beyond the low-slung waistband of his faded shorts. Dangerous, she decided with a tightening of her throat muscles, to venture further...

She forced her gaze up again, and drank in the absolute perfection of this man to whom she had long since gifted her heart. He seemed taller than before and leaner; wider of shoulder and slightly more powerful of neck. His jaw was unshaven and his black hair carelessly swept back, the rakish effect making Greer’s equilibrium wobble like Jell-O in an earthquake.

‘Yes.’ She kept her tone light, ‘I gathered that.’

‘How have you been?’

As he spoke, his bold gaze skimmed down over her figure, making Greer uncomfortably aware of how much flesh was revealed by her skimpy shorts and clinging tube top. ‘I’m fine.’ She tugged up the top though she had just minutes ago adjusted it and knew it was snugly in place. ‘How about you, though? How are you coping? Jem and I...when we heard about Eleanor...it was such a shock—’

‘Yes, it must have been a shock.’

‘The funeral—we felt we should have been there, but-’

‘The service was private—Eleanor wanted it that way. At any rate, she and your grandmother were never close—you were Jem’s favorite, always—and as for your relationship with your cousin...’ Colby’s eyes held a cynical expression that was more eloquent than any words could have ever been.

Greer knew what he was thinking—he believed that she was the one responsible for the split between herself and Eleanor. If only he knew the truth. But he never would. Only three people had been aware of what had really happened that night in the shadowy corner of the moonlit beach—Eleanor, Brad...and herself. Eleanor was now gone, Brad would never tell...and she, Greer, had sworn to herself that she’d protect Colby from the truth forever because his happiness was the most important thing in the world to her.

‘I didn’t introduce you to Jamie because I have to talk with him first.’ Colby’s tone was cool. ‘I had no idea you’d be here. When Jem wrote your aunt this spring, she mentioned to Cecilia that she was thinking of selling the cottage, so I expected it to be empty...or occupied by strangers. Eleanor never spoke of you to Jamie. I’ll have to explain to him that you are related.’

‘He seems...unhappy.’

‘He’s going through a rough time. That’s why we’re here.’ Colby’s lips twisted in a self-derisive smile. ‘I used to be happy here—I thought perhaps he could be, too, in this Canadian Eden.’

Greer met his gaze. ‘It was once an Eden,’ she said, very quietly.

‘But in every Eden there’s a snake.’

He might as well have stabbed her in the heart.

At seventeen, wildly in love and irrational because of it, she’d felt a bitter resentment toward Colby for having judged and condemned her on evidence that though damning, was circumstantial; in view of their many summers together at the cottage she felt he should have known she wasn’t that kind of girl. Men were so blind, she’d raged inwardly. So stupid. So easily fooled by the superficial.

Her cousin Eleanor with her baby-soft voice, her affected feminine fragility, her fake sugar-sweet smile, had fooled Colby into believing she was something she was not. He had fallen in love at first sight, bedazzled by the halo of outward beauty of a female who had in reality been—

Greer cut her thoughts off sharply. She should not be thinking ill of the dead. And of course she knew now that her resentment of Colby had been totally irrational. What else could he have thought, discovering her with Brad the way he had? She could even find it amusing, with a sort of black humor, that he had thought her capable of having a fling with a married man. After all, she’d been only seventeen at the time, and—sexually—as green as grass.

And wouldn’t it surprise him to know, she reflected with a wryly self-deprecating smile, that even now, at the grand old age of twenty-five, she was still a virgin!

‘You find that funny?’ he rasped.

Greer blinked. ‘Sorry... ?’

‘It amused you that—’

‘Oh, the snake thing.’ Greer twirled her index finger around a glossy strand of hair that had fallen over her bare shoulder. ‘No,’ she said lightly, ‘I don’t find that amusing. I was thinking of...something else.’

‘Something else...or somebody else?’ Colby’s voice had a taunting edge. ‘You’re here with a man, of course.’

Deliberately, she threw him a flirtatious look from beneath her silky eyelashes. ‘Hang around,’ she said, her taunting tone an echo of his own, ‘and you’ll find out.’

Her left hand lay at her shoulder, the coil of hair loose around her fingers. Taking her by surprise, Colby reached out and, slipping her hand free, grasped it firmly. He inspected it, and raised one eyebrow.

‘No ring?’ His upper lip curled. ‘He hasn’t staked a claim yet?’

Greer snatched her hand back, dismayed by the current of electricity that had shot up her arm. ‘A man can stake a claim without having to spend money on diamonds—’

‘No ring, no claim,’ Colby retorted. ‘So...the field is wide open, mmm? Prize available to the highest bidder?’