“School okay?” Allie asked politely.
“I guess.” Sean lay back on the boards of the dock, which rose and fell slightly beneath them, and stared up at the sky. “Did you graduate from high school in West Fork?”
Allie shook her head, then wasn’t sure he’d seen her. “Lynnwood. You know, that high school by the Alderwood Mall?”
“Yeah, that’s weird. You can go to Macy’s on your lunch break.”
The sun threw dazzling shards off the surface of the lake. Even with dark glasses, she kept having to blink to protect her eyes. “Nolan didn’t say. Did you go to a different district last year?”
“I did second semester at the middle school here. It was, um... I didn’t really make friends. It was kind of too late in the year. You know?”
“My mom and I moved two months into my senior year of high school,” Allie said softly. She was watching the boat and Nolan on the far side of the lake, not much more than specks. “That was hard.”
Sean sat up and shoved lank blond hair away from his face. “Wow. Your senior year?”
She nodded, feeling pleasantly sleepy from the sun on her face.
“Where’d you come from? Around here?”
“Oklahoma.” The minute she said it, she wanted to grab her answer back. It was horrifyingly like dropping something precious and watching it bounce toward the edge of the dock and the depths of the lake beyond. If only she could lunge for it and save it.
“I’ve never met anyone who lived in Oklahoma,” he said after a minute. “Is it dry and boring?”
She tried to make her laugh natural. “No, there are cities like anywhere else. I don’t think it’s much like the musical anymore. If it ever was.”
She got a blank stare. “The musical?”
Allie laughed again, more genuinely. “Oklahoma? Haven’t you heard of it?”
He shook his head. “Oh, God. They’re coming back. You should go next. Like, ladies first. That’s what Grandma always said.”
This time Allie giggled. “Coward.”
The boat swung in a semicircle, slowing to a stop. It had delivered Nolan, on the end of the towline, almost directly in front of the dock, where he sank gently into the water. He swam to the ladder, pulling the ski and line with him.
His hair was dark and slick like a seal’s as he climbed onto the dock, and water streamed from sleek skin and plastered the board shorts to his body. Big bulge, Allie thought involuntarily, remembering the dancers in leotards. His grin was exultant.
“Who goes next?”
“I think Allie should,” Sean declared hastily.
She stuck out her tongue at him but rose to her feet. “Fine. I’ll make a fool of myself first.”
As she settled herself at the edge of the dock, Nolan crouched beside her, helping her put her much smaller feet in the bindings. She gripped the handle of the towline so tightly her knuckles showed white.
“Don’t look so terrified.” His voice was a gentle rumble in her ear.
“You’re sure the vest will keep me afloat?” she begged.
“Positive.”
“You don’t have to go if you don’t want, Allie.” Astonishingly, it was Sean who spoke. He’d risen to his feet and hovered over them. He sounded almost aggressive. “You shouldn’t have to do it if you’re scared.”
She gave him a grateful look. “Thank you. But I think I want to try. As long as the vest won’t fall off even if I crash really hard.”
Nolan rechecked the buckles. “Sean’s right.” His eyes, kind as always, surveyed her face. “If you’d enjoy yourself more just watching, that’s okay.”
“No. I’m ready. Lean back,” she told herself.
Nolan stood and lifted a hand to Chuck, behind the wheel of the cruiser. “Go for it, honey.”
Allie swallowed and waited for the yank on the line.
* * *
NOLAN STOOD BESIDE his foster son, watching apprehensively as Allie took off on her first attempt at waterskiing. He had a sinking feeling that she might be an even poorer swimmer than she’d admitted to. Most people were afraid of getting yanked off their feet; all that seemed to scare her was the possibility of being stranded midlake—which happened—without the life vest.
Somehow, though, he wasn’t surprised when she rose as gracefully to a standing position as if she’d skied a hundred times, and seemed to fly off, her body beautiful and slender in a simple, one-piece black bathing suit cut high on her hips and low in back. He’d seen the two college boys eyeing her until they caught his expression. Mine.
“Man,” Sean breathed, “look at her go.” He was quiet for a minute. “Now I’m going to be the only person to fall on my face.”
Nolan clapped him on the back. “You’re a good athlete. And don’t be embarrassed if you do fall. Even experienced skiers do. Allie is having beginner’s luck.”
“No.” The boy frowned. “It’s just her.”
Nolan thought so, too, but he didn’t agree aloud. “You two getting along okay?”
Sean rolled his eyes. “I was nice. As ordered.”
“Did I order?”
He shrugged.
“I thought you’d both enjoy this.” Nolan stared after her. She’d become very small as the boat headed for the end of the huge lake. “Was I wrong?”
“No, it’s okay,” Sean said, to Nolan’s surprise. “Can I dive in and swim while they’re gone?”
“Of course you can.”
He did, then erupted back out. “It’s freaking cold!”
Nolan grinned. “I didn’t mention that?”
Spitting out profanities, Sean scrambled out of the water and flung himself full-length onto the warm dock.
“That’s what keeps you on your feet while you’re out there.” Nolan nodded toward the distant boat. “Course, you’re getting sprayed, so by the time you’re back here, you’re already numb.”
His foster son told him where to go, not very politely.
Happy in an unfamiliar way, Nolan leaned back on his elbows and kept an eye on Allie until boat and skier disappeared from sight as they curved around the southern shore of the lake.
She made two circuits, although she didn’t quite have the nerve, apparently, to let loose of the handle with either hand to wave when she passed by. She was laughing, though, so Nolan was able to relax again. Drowsing in the sun, he and Sean talked little, and in slow sentence fragments.
When the boat came back around either the boy piloting it or Allie—or both—miscalculated the drop-off, leaving her sinking into the water a good twenty yards off the end of the dock. Seeing her panic, Nolan came to his feet. The vest still seemed to be securely fastened, good. He dived off the dock and swam quickly to her.
She looked a little less panicked when he surfaced. “I feel like a cork.”
“You look like a cork. Here, I’ll take that.” He grabbed the ski. “Can you make it? If not, I’ll take this to the dock and come back for you.”
“No, I can...well, sort of.” She began kicking and doing a sort of half crawl, half dog paddle that did propel her forward, if slowly.
Sean was on his feet, watching. He reached down for the ski, freeing Nolan to put his hands around Allie’s waist and boost her halfway up the ladder. The boat had circled around and Nolan was able to grab the handle of the towline. Allie was laughing and gulping when he joined her on the dock.
“Oh, Lord! That was...”
“Fabulous?” Nolan prompted.
“Awful?” Sean asked.
“Fabulous, once I decided I wasn’t going to fall down. Though at the end it got a little scary.” She laughed up at Sean. “Go for it.”
He gulped. “God. Do I have to?”
“No.” Nolan put a hand on his shoulder. “Same thing I told Allie.”
He shook his head, sat down and wedged his feet into the rubber bindings. After a deep breath, he lifted his hand. “Oh man, oh man, oh man...”
The line stretched taut, and he was off, Nolan and
Allie both cheering when he remained on his feet.
Allie sat on the end of the dock where Sean had been, legs dangling. Nolan joined her. “So, what do you think?”
“I’m really glad I did it.” She smiled at him, the glints of gold in her eyes more mesmerizing than the white-hot shards of sunlight bouncing off the waves. “Thank you, Nolan.”
He bent his head enough to kiss her. “You’re very welcome.”
It took some effort for him to keep the kiss as undemanding as he did. He felt a stirring that would become all too obvious in wet board shorts. Something he’d have to quell before Sean got back. As the kiss deepened, he decided a last-minute plunge into the ice-cold lake would do it.
He was nuzzling her neck when Allie stiffened and gasped. “Oh, no!”
“What?” He straightened and put a hand over his eyes. Across the lake, the boat had slowed and was circling back. There was no water-skier behind. “Did you see what happened?”
“Just him and then a big splash.”
“I’ll bet he got cocky.”
She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from the scene across the lake. “You think he’s all right?”
“Yeah, I think he’s all right.” God, he hoped so. Despite his reassuring words, he jumped to his feet to see better. Allie did the same.
“There he is. He’ll have to learn to start from the water. Unless they’re going to pick him up. No.” It looked as though the handle of the towline had been tossed back to the figure in the water. He was left bobbing while the boat made another gentle semicircle and gained speed. “He’s up...he’s up... No. Shit.”
“Is he okay?”
“I’m worried about his ego, not his physical well-being.”
“Oh.” She was all but on tiptoe as they watched another attempt begin. “Come on, Sean,” she whispered. “You can do it.”
The kid made it up this time and they were off around the lake.
Allie patted her chest. “I don’t know if I could take having children.”
Nolan laughed. “Me, I figured if I skipped all the early years, I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.” Anna had found the argument convincing, right?
Allie’s snort sounded an awful lot like his sister’s.
He didn’t resume kissing her; Sean would be by any minute. Allie sat back down and tipped her face contentedly up to the sun. He did the same. “Wish he’d had a friend to bring with him,” Nolan said after a minute.
“It’ll happen. I mean, he’s not getting in fights, and nobody is making fun of him or anything like that, right?”
Suddenly less drowsy, Nolan frowned. “I don’t think so. No fights, anyway. I’d have heard from the school about that, I’m pretty sure.”
“Mmm. He’ll be fine, then. It takes time, that’s all.”
“That’s right. You said you moved a lot. You must be a pro at starting over in new schools.”
“We talked about it, a little,” she said after a minute. “Sean and I. He said school is okay, but that he didn’t make any friends last spring. We agreed that it’s harder then. Everybody already belongs. It’ll be different this year.”
“It’s October.”
“I’ll bet he has guys he hangs out with at school. And maybe some girls flirting with him.”
The boat roared by, closer to the shore this time. Sean’s grin was jubilant as he shot past.
“I’m glad we did this,” Allie said, her voice utterly free of tension, as though something had loosened inside of her. She quit holding herself up on her elbows, instead lying flat on her back. Her eyes closed.
Nolan sat looking down at her, feeling a squeeze in his chest. God, she was beautiful, poetry in motion and equally graceful on those rare occasions she was still, like now. His gaze ate up the dark curve of her eyelashes against ivory cheeks, the delicate skin of her eyelids, the wing of eyebrows, the purity of her bone structure and the long arch of her neck. The suit clung to her small, perfect breasts, slim waist and supple hips. And those exquisite legs.
The funny thing was, even as he looked, hungry, awed at his own luck and totally appreciative, Nolan knew that this grip she had on him had to do with a lot more than her beauty. It was the sunrise of her smile, the way she lifted her chin in defiance. It was her patience as she worked over the quilting frame with her back so straight and her arms held just so, the unexpectedness of the fabrics she put together, the way she listened to him, the fierceness of her anger and—hell, maybe most of all—the ghosts he could see in her sometimes haunted eyes.
Vulnerability that moved him—and frightened him.
His heart beat heavy and hard in his chest. Life had been easier before he looked into her eyes and stumbled into something unexpected. On a silent, shaken laugh, he knew. Scared to death or not, he couldn’t imagine going back. A world without Allie.
He made himself turn his face away and look out over the water. Another boat passed, this one towing two skiers. He watched it and them, without seeing.
CHAPTER NINE
THAT NIGHT, ALLIE FOUND herself remembering all those vacations her family had taken when she was young, nearly always to someplace on a lake or the ocean. She’d been embarrassed that she couldn’t swim and had to dabble in water close to the shore. Why hadn’t her father taught her? He’d often stroked far out into the water. Either he’d helped Jason, or Jason was bolder than Allie, because he’d gone in.
She could close her eyes and picture her brother climbing onto one of those floating docks well out into a lake—that one in the Catskills, she thought—his fists raised in triumph. He probably shouldn’t have set out for the dock, because she didn’t suppose he’d been a good swimmer. Allie wondered if either of their parents had been watching. Likely not.
Maybe neither of her parents had known how awkward she felt. She’d been only four years old when her day care had given kids the option of taking a ballet class. From that moment on, it had been all she wanted to do. The instructor had spoken to her mother, seeing something in her from the beginning—passion or skill, or perhaps both.
Doubtless assuming it would be a fleeting obsession, her parents had allowed her to take classes—and then more classes. The cost must have required sacrifices on their part. It seemed as though, once they resigned themselves to her single-mindedness, they’d never given any thought to broadening her education or experiences.
Although that might not be totally fair. It was also possible they’d tried, and she’d rejected those opportunities. She had had her eye fixed on a goal and saw very little else.
Allie had always known that their relocation had been harder for her than it would have been for most girls her age. She hadn’t only had to give up friends, the familiar, her name; she’d given up a consuming passion, her identity, her dreams, her future. It felt like everything then. She had been lost.
Maybe the only way she could survive was to wall off that part of her life. Remembering it hurt too much. Shying away from any reminder had become habit, more subconscious than deliberate. She never watched dance programs on PBS, had never been tempted to buy tickets to Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet.
That week, she even noticed how she drove several blocks out of her way going home to avoid passing the local dance school and chancing to see eager girls in their leotards being dropped off in front by their moms. She hadn’t known she was doing it.
This year she’d agreed to let students hang a poster advertising their recital in her front window, but other than checking to be sure it hung straight and to note the day when the event would be over and she could rip it down and crumple it in her trash, Allie had never once really let herself see it.
Did the Y offer adult swim lessons? she wondered. It wouldn’t be so embarrassing if she wasn’t alone. Of course, it wasn’t likely there’d be that many occasions when she wished she knew how to swim better. Mostly people didn’t swim in Puget Sound. It was not only salty, it was bitterly cold. And the majority of beaches were rocky rathe
r than sandy, too. Waterskiing, if Nolan ever took her again, well, she thought maybe she’d trust the life vest better next time.
Sean had been so enthusiastic, he’d taken a second turn, as had Nolan. By the time they returned, Sean was talking animatedly with the college boys and had enthused all the way home about waterskiing. Nolan, looking amused, had declined to buy a powerboat or to sell the house and buy a lakefront one.
“Maybe Ryan will invite you again one of these weekends,” he’d suggested. Ryan was Chuck’s son.
“He said he would.” Sean sounded flattered but doubtful.
“He and his buddy were pretty friendly.”
“Yeah, they were great, but they’re in college.”
Well, yeah. Neither Nolan nor Allie argued that Ryan would want Sean as his new best friend.
“It was a good day,” Nolan said with satisfaction.
Looking at his face, Allie had felt something complicated that she didn’t understand. Maybe because it was a wonderful, perfect day—except for the fact that she wasn’t the woman Nolan thought she was.
Ever since he’d told her about his mother’s affairs, she kept hearing him say, with steel in his voice, I’ve told Sean that the one thing I won’t tolerate is lies.
She was lying to him every time they saw each other. Not maliciously, of course; she told herself that made a difference, but she wasn’t completely convinced. How would he feel if he ever learned how different her life had been from what she’d told him? Would he understand why she’d had no choice but to lie?
Allie wanted to believe Nolan would. But then she wasn’t so sure when she remembered his bafflement and fury and hurt when he talked about his mother and the lie his entire life had been because his parents hadn’t been honest with him.
She tried to tell herself he’d never have to find out about her lies. Even if, well, they became more involved or even got married, it would be Allie Wright he’d wed. It was Allie Wright he loved, not Chloe Marr, who had died for all practical purposes, anyway. And certainly not Laura Nelson, the stunned girl who had almost given up talking at all in her grief over the life left behind and her worry of saying too much.
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