“And you remember your father donated a lovely sculpture for the sanctuary,” the reverend was saying, and Laura felt her heart begin to throb swollenly. She plucked at the high neckline of the silver lamé gown, which suddenly felt too tight. Where was Drew?
She scanned the crowd. Where was he? She felt a little like the elephant who had been given a magic feather that could enable him to fly. As long as he held the feather, he stayed safely afloat. But when he dropped it...
Finally she found him. He was across the room, talking to a laughing Mildred Milford. Looking up, he caught her eye and, making the thumbs-up sign, tossed her a quick wink before he returned his attention to Mildred.
It was enough. She braced herself with a deep breath, and somehow she got through the reverend’s discussion of Damian’s sculpture. She could do this. When the minister moved on to chat with other members of his flock, Laura found herself circulating almost comfortably, greeting old acquaintances, hearing the newest gossip until she felt almost at home again, almost as if she had never left. She always knew where Drew was and who he was talking to, but she never again felt the childish need for him to come back and prop her up.
Eventually, though, she tired—her nights hadn’t been particularly restful lately. Somehow, without offending anyone, she hoped, she found her way to the back porch, a long, glassed-in room that overlooked the family gardens. It was colder out here, and she leaned against the glass, letting its hard, frigid strength seep into her where the gown’s split back bared her skin, and took deep, conscious breaths of the chilled air.
She shouldn’t stay long. But she’d give herself one more minute and appreciate the serenity of the snow-quiet garden. She would draw peace from it.
It was a very cold, clear night, and the garden was enchanting, all silver blue snow that glittered with starlight. The focal point of the landscaping was a rectangular pond with a marble fountain carved by Damian. It was emptied now, winterized, and the fountain had been sensibly shut off. But Laura had seen the fountain in its summer glory, shooting rainbowed sprays around the central figure of a young girl whose lovely face was upturned to feel the droplets dancing on her cheeks, whose hands were outstretched to revel in the cool, wet kiss of the water.
It was one of Damian’s best works—Stephanie at about fourteen, if Laura remembered correctly. Odd, she thought, that the statue had always seemed utterly innocent, in spite of the way the girl’s soaked dress clung to her pubescent body, outlining her small breasts and boyish thighs as clearly as if she’d been naked. But it had never seemed lecherous or erotic. It was simply a lovely work of art, a celebration of the health and gaiety of youth.
Laura stared at the girl, whose outstretched palms were filled with snow, and still saw nothing lewd. Was it possible, she asked herself, that this statue really was different from all the others? Or did it just seem so because it was here at Springfields? Perhaps all the marble children might have seemed equally chaste if they’d been displayed here. Perhaps it was only at Winterwalk that everything seemed contaminated. If so, Laura thought, closing her eyes, she should stand here forever, drinking the pure air of this garden.
But suddenly, as though he had been looking for her, Drew was there, draping her silver-flecked black shawl around her shoulders, covering her bare back. “Tired?” he asked softly, letting his hands rest where her neck and shoulders met.
She shook her head, accepting his appearance quietly, as if they had planned this assignation. She was glad he was here. Though her floor-length gown had long, tight sleeves and a high neck, the slit in the back had let the cold air slip in to caress her skin, and she suddenly realized she was shivering. The heat of his hands sent delicious waves of warmth down from her collarbone, across her chest and over her stomach.
“No, not tired,” she said, her voice equally soft, as if they were sharing important secrets rather than pleasantries. “I was just thinking.”
“About what?”
“About this house. It occurred to me that if Winterwalk had been more like Springfields, more serene and simple, my life might have been very different.”
Drew chuckled, a low, mellow sound that drifted on the clear air. “Not a gargoyle in sight,” he agreed, and in spite of his surface amusement, she knew that he understood.
“That’s right.” She sighed, leaning back just a little, as if her body instinctively sought the warmth of his. “Thumper and Fifi and Bucko scared me to death. They still do.”
He chuckled again, and they stood in companionable silence for a long moment. She knew they were both remembering. There were good things to remember, too, weren’t there?
“Actually, though, you may have a point.” He rubbed her shoulders absently, as if it helped him to think better. “I can see that Winterwalk might have held a nightmarish quality for a young, impressionable girl.”
Laura nodded, as tranquil for the moment as if that impressionable girl had been someone else. “All those shadowy, twisting stairs.” She smiled at the symmetrical garden, so invulnerable here in Drew’s arms that she could afford to pity that young, frightened Laura. “All those stalactite carvings in the ceiling over my bed...”
“Yes. Definitely the stuff of nightmares. And, frankly, it might also have been easier for you,” he went on, his tone musing, “if your mother had been more—well, more simple, too.”
She stiffened. “In what way?”
She knew in what way. She knew even before he began to verbalize it. But she had always defended her mother, who had had no one else to defend her. It was a hard habit to break.
“I don’t know, exactly. More relaxed, I guess.” He seemed to be searching for nonjudgmental phrases. “More easygoing. With more of a sense of humor. Your mother took everything hard, didn’t she? Made heavy weather out of everything. Remember the time she caught us in the rose garden?”
Of course she remembered. Laura had been only eighteen, and her mother had been rabid with fury, vicious in her condemnation of the pair of would-be lovers. As humiliated as Laura was to be caught lying in the grass at midnight, Drew half on top of her, she had been even more ashamed for Drew to witness one of her mother’s rages. And the worst of it was, they hadn’t really been doing anything. They never really did anything, did they? But her mother hadn’t believed a word of it. Drew had been sent home, and Laura had been forced to stay up all night, first under her mother’s hysterical interrogation and then left alone in the dark, vaulted front hall, in the most uncomfortable antique chair, to contemplate her sins.
“She was just trying to protect me,” Laura said, struggling to keep any disloyalty out of her voice. Elizabeth’s reactions had often been excessive, but she had loved her adopted daughter fiercely. “If Damian had been there, it would have been his job to box your ears and send you packing. But she was alone. She had to be both mother and father to me. So if occasionally she went a little overboard, I think it was understandable.”
Drew dropped his hands, a low growl of frustration replacing the earlier chuckle. “You always defend her, Laura. But you know as well as I do that she wasn’t like other people. All those years after Damian left, when she practically didn’t get out of bed—”
“She was frail,” Laura interrupted heatedly, though she knew she was only falling into the old patterns, the old arguments. “She was very fragile...”
Drew grabbed her shoulders, his eyes glittering sharply, reflecting the silver gleam of her dress. “Fragile? Damn it, Laura, face it! She was—” He broke off, as if he suddenly realized that what he’d been going to say was unacceptable. He lowered his voice. “She was emotionally unstable. Maybe Damian did that to her and maybe not. I don’t know. All I know is that her ranting about how anything sexual was dirty and debasing was enough to upset any girl your age. All that blather about how you were a lady and ladies didn’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t!” His hands tightened, as if he wanted to shake her, but somehow he stopped himself and kept his voice under control. “For God’s
sake, Laura, it’s no wonder you grew up...ambivalent about sex. You don’t have to blame Damian for that. You don’t have to look any further than the frigid woman who adopted you!”
As he spoke, Laura’s blood had, in one sickening swoop, rushed to her hands and feet, and she felt suddenly cold and dizzy. How could he say such things? He’d always been less sympathetic toward her mother than she was, but never had he voiced such harsh, unforgiving sentiments. Laura found it terribly unsettling, as if she suddenly saw her mother through Drew’s eyes. It was a strangely frightening sight. Was it possible that he was right? Had her mother’s extreme aversion to any hint of her daughter’s sexuality warped Laura, too?
No. Laura’s emotional clarity returned with a flash of certainty, the way a sudden streak of lightning can illuminate a dark landscape. No, it wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible because it simply wasn’t enough. There had to be more.
“You're wrong, Drew,” she said. “I'm not ambivalent about sex. I'm terrified.“
She pulled out of his clutches, touching the window for support, and stared unseeing into the garden.
“Have you really forgotten what it was like, Drew? Have you forgotten that I couldn’t breathe, that I choked and coughed and sputtered as if I was dying?” She bit her lower lip, aware of what a disgusting picture of herself she was drawing. But it was the truth. “Do you remember how my muscles used to clench so hard that sweat poured from my whole body? What about the day I fainted?”
She turned to him, trembling. “God, Drew, ambivalent? Can you possibly have forgotten how terrible it was?”
His face looked gray, and she knew that she had finally shaken his composure. “No,” he said clearly, though his voice was brittle and his jaw was set so hard it looked chiseled from granite. “I haven’t forgotten a single thing that ever happened between us, Laura.”
“Then stop blaming my mother,” she said, feeling suddenly flat, deflated, as if the whole argument had been idiotic. She might have won this battle, but they had both lost the war. Nothing was accomplished by proving what it wasn’t, not if they couldn’t prove what it was.
Oh, this really was hopeless, wasn’t it? She didn’t even know anymore what she was doing here in Albany. Argue as bitterly as they might, shoving blame back and forth like a hockey puck across the ice, phrasing and rephrasing, thinking and rethinking whatever they did, they never seemed to get any closer to the truth.
But then, with another shocking insight, she suddenly saw that learning the truth wasn’t the only reason she had come back to Winterwalk. It wasn’t even the main reason. The real reason was one she had hidden even from herself. She had come because she’d hoped that her mother’s death had somehow broken the invisible bonds that held her prisoner in her own body. She’d hoped that maybe, just maybe, the past had died with Elizabeth Nolan.
Suddenly, the need to find out was overwhelming. She wanted Drew to take her in his arms. Right now. She wanted him to try again, to see if anything had changed. She wanted him to want her.
But he didn’t. Holding back the swell of tears, she forced herself to face the fact. He had another woman, a beautiful, sophisticated woman who was easy to love. He had no interest in conducting potentially distressing sexual experiments with Laura for old times' sake. He’d been alone with her time after time—he’d even carried her naked body against his heart—and he hadn’t once been moved to so much as kiss her. He had simply treated her with the affectionate concern he might have given his sister, nothing more.
She tried to tell herself she should be grateful for that, but she wasn’t. She wanted more. Her heart wouldn’t stop aching from wanting more.
Kiss me, Drew. She almost said the words aloud, but then out of the corner of her eye she saw Stephanie open the French doors, apparently having chosen that moment to come looking for them.
“Stephanie,” Drew called instantly, as if he was relieved to have someone to whom he could shift his burden, the burden of Laura’s neurosis. His voice was still so tight and drawn he sounded like a stranger. Stephanie, who had been trying to ease back into the ballroom without being seen, hesitated. She obviously thought Drew and Laura were having a romantic interlude on the porch and didn’t want to interrupt. If only she knew, Laura thought with an inner hysteria. If only she knew.
“Hi, there,” Stephanie answered, joining them with as much nonchalance as she could muster. “Getting some fresh air?” She fanned herself with her graceful fingertips. “Good idea. It’s an oven in there.”
“Stephanie, Laura needs to talk to you,” Drew said, ignoring the small talk. He met his sister’s questioning gaze bluntly. “She'll tell you what it’s about. See if you can help her,” he said, putting his hand on Stephanie’s shoulder, much as he had done to Laura only moments ago. Turning, he looked at Laura one last time. “God knows I can’t.”
And then he was gone. Stephanie and Laura followed his retreating back with their eyes, and then, when he had disappeared into the crowded ballroom, Stephanie let out a low whistle. “Wow.” She looked at Laura curiously. “This sounds serious.”
Laura felt ridiculous, like a child shoved into the middle of the living room and forced to recite to strangers. She wasn’t even sure how Stephanie felt about her anymore. For all she knew, Stephanie might not be at all inclined to help Drew’s ex-fiancée with anything.
“Serious? Well, it might be,” Laura said, stalling for time. This was absurd. She couldn’t start discussing this now, in the middle of Stephanie’s birthday party. “But maybe we can get together for lunch someday soon to talk about it. I'll be here for another week or so. This can’t be convenient for you right now.”
“Sure it is.” Stephanie hoisted herself onto a cushioned window seat and leaned against the glass, her hands folded comfortably across her swollen stomach. She looked perfectly at ease, as if there weren’t two hundred people waiting for her to open a mile-high stack of presents and carve up the three-tiered cake. “I need a break from all that in the worst way! So tell Stephie. What’s going on?”
Laura had to smile at the way the other woman could erase the years, making them kids again.
“Oh, Stephie,” she said, reverting to the old nickname, as Stephanie had no doubt intended she should. “I don’t even know where to begin. I don’t know what Drew has told you about why I'm back.”
“Darn little,” Stephanie said with a grimace. “You know Drew. He never even told us why you left in the first place, much less why you're back.”
Laura flushed. “I'm sorry about that, about not writing you when I left. I know you were confused—and probably angry, too.”
“I certainly was.” To Laura’s surprise, she found Stephanie’s honesty somehow easier to take than any polite denials might have been. “I was mad as hell for a long time. To tell you the truth, I still am, even if I can’t help loving you to pieces anyway. You really made a mess of my little brother’s heart, you know.”
Laura’s flush deepened. “I know.” She ran her fingertips along the windowsill, which was cold and rough under her fingers. “But he seems to have recovered fairly well. I've met Ginger.”
Stephanie made a rude noise. “That...Barbie doll? Don’t kid yourself. She’s a symptom, not a cure.”
Laura didn’t answer—her feelings were too complicated to express. Was it wrong for her to have hoped that Ginger was not a true love but a reaction? A rebound? Well, she had hoped it, but she was ashamed of herself for doing so. It was selfish and egotistical and utterly unfair.
“So come on!” Stephanie sounded impatient, and she wriggled, trying to settle her bulk more comfortably on the narrow seat. “Are you going to ask for my help or not?”
“All right. This will probably sound really strange,” Laura began, wondering how on earth she was going to put it. “It’s about Damian.”
Stephanie did a double take. “Damian?” she echoed incredulously. “I thought this had to do with Drew.”
Laura folded her arms acros
s her chest, nestling her cold fingers under her arms. Why was she so embarrassed to talk about this? She didn’t have to tell the other woman anything more than the barest facts. “With Drew? Not exactly,” she said. “At least, I don’t know if it does. It may. That’s part of what I need to ask you.”
“Well, that’s as clear as mud.” But Stephanie looked resigned, rubbing her stomach absently. “So ask away. It can’t be this hard to find the words, can it?”
Laura smiled awkwardly. “As a matter of fact, it can.” She took a deep breath and looked out at the laughing, drenched young girl who had been carved in Stephanie’s likeness. It was easier, somehow, to talk to her about this. “But here goes. I wondered whether, while you were posing for Damian, you ever noticed anything that made you uncomfortable. Whether he ever did anything that wasn’t quite right.”
Stephanie’s rubbing stopped slowly, like a wheel rolling to a halt. When Laura looked at her, Stephanie’s eyes were narrowed, her expression serious. “Laura Nolan, are you asking what I think you're asking?”
Laura just raised her brows, waiting to see what had leaped first into Stephanie’s mind.
“Listen here.” Stephanie frowned. “Are you asking me whether your father ever made a pass at me?”
“My adopted father,” Laura corrected automatically, but that was answer enough. Why else would Laura have felt the need to establish the distance between herself and Damian? Why else would she have wanted to remind Stephanie that Damian had been no true blood relation?
Stephanie’s eyes widened. “No,” she said. “There was never a hint of any such thing. And frankly, if you tell me he made a pass at any of his other models, I'm not going to believe you.”
“Why?” Laura caught her breath, stunned by the woman’s vehemence.
“Because he wasn’t like that.” Stephanie couldn’t have sounded more certain. “He wasn’t a wacko, for heaven’s sake. Surely you know that. You lived in the same house with him for ten years. He was your father.”
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