by Becky Wade
For this one beautiful, cocoa-powder-covered moment, it was enough simply to have heard from John. And to know that she’d get to see him again.
John.
Oh, John.
Nora had been experiencing a wide range of misgivings since she climbed into Willow’s Range Rover en route to the hair salon. They intensified as she sat in Javier’s chair and he gently took down her hair.
Her updos were the one aspect of her appearance that people seemed to remember, that people commented on. Was she really willing to give up her one memorable, comment-worthy feature?
She’d finally told Willow she’d consent to a new hairstyle because she earnestly wanted to look her best for Grandma’s party now that she knew John would be there.
Willow had laughed and confessed that she’d made a hair appointment for Nora the day after they’d eaten borscht. Willow hadn’t informed Nora about the appointment because she’d been employing the technique their mom used to use on them for dental appointments. When they were kids their mom would announce, “We’re having our teeth cleaned today!” immediately before pulling into the dentist’s parking lot. She’d never given her daughters time to wail or stoke their anxiety. It had been stealth attack dentistry.
Willow had been planning stealth attack hairstyling.
“Were you just going to kidnap me?” Nora had asked.
“Yes. But I won’t have to now that you’ve come to your senses, which I applaud you for, by the way. I’ll pick you up tomorrow at three thirty.”
So here she was. And even though Nora hadn’t been kidnapped . . . even though she’d raised her hand for this . . . yikes.
Javier listened carefully to Nora’s ideas, concerns, and limits. Then, just like at the makeup counter several weeks back, he and Willow did a great deal of talking back and forth amongst themselves. The two experts, the two taste-brokers. Nora felt like an eight-year-old at the mercy of adults.
As he worked on her color, Nora became more and more certain that she was going to end up with brown hair the color of blah. Just how much would she infuriate and offend Willow if she went to the drugstore and bought her usual box of Firelight Red and dyed it all back tomorrow?
An assistant shampooed and conditioned Nora, then Javier flashed his shiny scissors around her head. It looked to her like he was cutting it too short. Her heart dropped like a rock down a canyon. Unlike the color, there’d be no way to change this back before the party.
Javier spun her to face the center of the salon, away from the mirror, while he blew her hair dry. “No peeking!” he kept saying in his accented English. Could it be called peeking when you were trying to look at your own hair?
Finally, he set aside the blow dryer. He swept a flat iron along the strands. Willow beamed. Nora felt queasy. The chicken salad sandwich she’d had for lunch hadn’t been the best choice, perhaps.
Her hair was her thing. Why had she subjected herself to this?
Because Willow’s a beauty genius and because you really do want to look your best for the party. Take heart! Be brave!
Javier considered her critically.
I don’t think I like you, Javier. You, with your accent and shiny scissors.
He reached out and brushed a lock into place with the kind of familiarity that only hair stylists and massage therapists were permitted. “Finished,” he declared. “You look beautiful.”
This was at least the fourth time he’d told her she looked beautiful. Nora knew very well that he was doing it unconsciously. No doubt he told all his clients they were beautiful with perfunctory regularity. Which went a long way toward explaining his salon’s roaring success.
Slowly, Javier turned Nora to face the mirror.
Nora watched her own eyes round in the mirror’s reflection.
Oh. My. Goodness.
Willow came to stand at her shoulder, looking self-satisfied.
Javier had dyed Nora’s hair a deeper shade than it had been before. Instead of resembling a brassy copper penny, it now resembled burnished cinnamon. A little darker near her crown, with a few lighter, more honey-colored strands around her face. It was just as striking and eye-catching as Nora had always wanted but no longer one flat shade. This red had depth. A Dutch master could have used the color palette of her hair in a painting.
Javier had parted it on the side and cut a light fringe of bangs that swept across the edge of her forehead, then melded seamlessly with the rest of her hair. He’d done a lot of layering, but it had all been subtle under-layering, because, for the most part, her hair appeared to be all one length. It ended in a perfect line at her shoulders.
Nora was too surprised to speak.
She looked . . . Did she look better? She’d been braced for displeasure, so it was taking some mind-bending to figure this out. But, yes. She thought she might look better. The side bangs complemented her features. The length of the cut flattered the shape of her face.
She looked classy.
“You’re welcome,” Javier drawled.
“See?” Willow said. “You’re still exactly yourself. We’ve just surrounded your beauty with the best possible setting.” She waved a hand down Nora’s hair. “Like a Tiffany setting is to a diamond, this hairstyle is to your face.”
“I . . .”
Javier chuckled deeply. “You’re welcome,” he said again.
Unsent letter from John to Sherry Thompson O’Sullivan:
Dear Sherry,
My name is John Lawson and I was born at Presbyterian Hospital thirty-three years ago this past November. I learned your whereabouts by speaking with Sue Hodges who lives on Regent Street in Shelton and by traveling to Blakeville and searching through Thompson family records.
I was adopted by Ray and Linda Lawson and raised in Seattle. I have one sibling, a sister.
I graduated from Northern Arizona University and was fortunate to play baseball during my years there. Shortly after graduation, I joined the Navy and served for six years. For the past five years, I’ve been living and working in Shore Pine. I own Lawson Training, a company that offers emergency preparedness and response courses.
If you’re the woman that I’m looking for, I’d like an opportunity to meet you. I won’t contact you further until I hear from you via the phone number, email, or address I’ve included below. I’d appreciate the chance to speak with you and ask you a few questions.
Sincerely, John
Email from Duncan to his personal assistant:
Go ahead and book me on that flight into Seattle. I fancy some Pacific lobster, a trip up the Space Needle, and time with my American friend.
CHAPTER
Fourteen
Willow Bradford considered herself to be an accomplished hostess.
She was probably the least talkative Bradford sister, but luckily for her, you didn’t have to be extraordinarily talkative to host a good party. You simply had to be skilled at planning, at introducing people, and at keeping the food, drinks, and conversation flowing. Those things, she excelled at.
Willow stood on Bradfordwood’s back patio, assessing with satisfaction the scene that awaited Grandma’s party guests.
She and her sisters would have appreciated a rustic/chic party. That type of party would have suited the outdoor summertime setting perfectly, but it wouldn’t have suited Grandma. “Rustic” would have confounded the older woman. Margaret Elizabeth Burke appreciated formality.
So, after much thought, Willow had decided to derive her party inspiration from the pair of pearl earrings Grandma wore every day. She’d chosen an elegant white-on-ivory color scheme. Because the weather had been gracious enough to cooperate with her hopes—thank you, Lord—the party rental company had arranged round tables on the brick terrace behind Bradfordwood. She’d selected linens and plates in hues of white. Pearl napkin rings. White hydrangea centerpieces. Numerous votive candles in silvery holders. Every tablecloth, fork, glass, and hydrangea petal was in place.
She’d rented dozens of whit
e lanterns of various heights and shapes and filled them with flickering LED lights. Some of the lanterns lined the edges of the patio. Some stood at the French doors that marked the boundary between the interior and exterior of the house. Many more lanterns hung from the branches of the trees bordering the terrace.
Thin strips of gauzy clouds striated the blue sky, and the air was just beginning to take on that gilded, late-afternoon quality. Beyond the terrace, the emerald swath of lawn swept like a carnival slide down the acres that separated the house from the Hood Canal.
She’d talked Grandma into a sit-down dinner that started at seven o’clock, despite the fact that Grandma typically ate no later than five fifty. The guests were invited to arrive anytime between six and seven—which meant that Grandma’s early-bird friends could be expected to appear at any moment. Willow checked the time. Five forty.
Willow made her way inside and spotted Nora in the living room near the fireplace, pinning a corsage to Grandma’s blue raw silk coat while Grandma grumbled.
Willow paused for a moment, struck by the picture Nora presented. The Enhancing of Nora was complete, and Willow had enjoyed it so much that she was almost sad that it was over. Watching Nora’s transformation had been sweeter than watching the best renovation show HGTV had to offer because it had been happening to Nora. Her Nora. Who deserved it. Who’d basically retreated to a cave of her own making after Harrison broke up with her.
They’d shopped for Nora’s dress together. A pale blue strapless bodice and wide skirt formed the dress’s base. On top of that rested a sheer, intricately embroidered overlay that added a scalloped neckline and three-quarter sleeves to the top half of the dress and additional detail to the bottom half. The vintage flair of it suited Nora, as did the golden high heels, complete with decorative bows over the toes that Willow had insisted upon. All of it, the whole package, absolutely worked. So much so, it was hard not to congratulate herself a little.
The doorbell rang. Taking a bracing breath, Willow hurried forward to answer it.
Guests arrived in a steady stream. The conversational volume rose. Drinks were poured. A respectable portion of the prosciutto-and-melon skewers, shrimp cocktail, and crispy veggie egg roll appetizers were eaten.
Britt kept an eye on the food. Nora helped people find the bathroom and their name on the list of assigned tables. Willow remained in the front part of the house, greeting guests as they arrived.
Thirty minutes before dinner was scheduled to begin, Willow made her way through the downstairs rooms and terrace to take a quick head count. She expected sixty and was only missing a few.
She rounded the corner from the living room into the central hall on her way back to the foyer. Her face lifted—
Her steps immediately cut off.
Terrible, terrible surprise clenched her heart.
Two men had just entered. They were both tall, athletic, and handsome. Both wore expensive, well-cut suits and ties.
But only one of them had broken her heart.
The old bitterness, misery, and fury came rushing back, causing her pulse to pound. What in the world was he doing here? This was her house. Her territory. Private property! She’d never wanted to see him again in her lifetime, and until this moment she’d felt confident in her ability to achieve that goal.
Shock paled his chiseled face. Clearly, he was as appalled to see her as she was to see him.
Corbin Stewart. Here. She wanted to shove him hard in the chest and tell him to leave. She was a famously composed person. Of all men, however, he was the one who had the power to break that composure like a brittle stick between his hands.
Only if you give him that power, Willow.
Every good model knew how to perform for the camera. She’d had years of practice at looking into lenses and communicating desire or boredom, amusement or questioning inquiry. With effort, she called on her experience, channeling both calm and indifference. She stood tall in the simply cut teal sheath dress she’d chosen for the evening and approached them, her high heels rapping against the hardwood floors.
The man standing beside Corbin must be John, Nora’s Navy SEAL. She’d been expecting John, and she’d known he was bringing a guest. Of all the people on earth, this was the friend John had chosen to bring?
She gave John a smile she did not feel in any corner of herself. “Hi, I’m Willow. Nora’s sister.”
“I’m John Lawson. This is my friend, Corbin Stewart. Do . . .” He looked back and forth between them. “Do you two already know each other?”
Clearly John had noticed the painful clang of recognition that had passed between her and Corbin. “We do,” Willow said.
“We dated once,” Corbin told John.
Corbin’s voice was agonizingly familiar to her. She lifted her chin a fraction and did her best to concentrate on John, though it was hard to ignore the huge, glowering presence of one of the NFL’s most successful former quarterbacks. “It didn’t end well,” she said.
John winced. “Nora asked me to bring a friend.”
“I didn’t know this was your family’s party,” Corbin stated, voice flat.
“This is your first time to come to the house?” John asked him.
“Yes.”
“When we dated,” Willow said stiffly to John, “I lived in LA, and he lived in Dallas. We didn’t date for very long, so there was never a reason for him to come to Washington to meet my family.”
Animosity filled the silence.
“Ah,” John said.
Corbin said nothing.
“How do you two know each other?” Willow asked John.
“We met a few years ago at a charity golf event. We were paired together on the course. Who else was in our foursome, Corbin? I can’t remember now.”
“A couple of rich businessmen.”
“That’s right,” John said, his tone relaxed. He was obviously trying to bring his buddy and himself back to less awkward ground. “Corbin came to Seattle about a month ago to have his shoulder operated on.”
Willow already knew this information. She hadn’t watched Corbin’s press conference back in March—she wasn’t a masochist—but she’d been unable to avoid learning that he’d announced his retirement. Both the career-ending shoulder injury he’d suffered in his final game and his subsequent retirement had made national news. He’d undergone his second surgery in Seattle because Dr. Wallace, America’s most renowned orthopedic surgeon, was based there.
“After the surgery, when he came to Shore Pine, he called me,” John said. “I live in Shore Pine, so we’ve been hanging out.”
With effort, Willow made herself meet Corbin’s eyes. The power of it resonated all the way down her body, as if she were a tuning fork. “Why did you come to Shore Pine after the surgery?”
“Dr. Wallace has a rehab center there.”
It disoriented her to look at Corbin again after four years. He was a complete stranger and simultaneously someone she knew intimately.
He still kept his hair shaved close to his scalp. It was the exact color, a brown caught between mahogany and auburn, that it had been when they were together. His dark eyes were the same, except that they’d once glowed with tenderness for her and were now frozen over with coldness. The muscles defining his six-foot-three frame were distributed so perfectly that when you saw him in pictures or on TV, you didn’t have an inkling of how large and solid he was in person.
When she’d known him, the driven, hardworking quarterback side of him had been balanced by an easygoing, charming, humorous demeanor off the field. Tonight, there was no humor in him at all.
“Had you heard about the rehab center in Shore Pine?” John asked her.
She glanced at him. “No, I hadn’t.”
“Dr. Wallace built it about a year and a half ago. It’s state of the art.”
“I see.” She wished Corbin had chosen a state-of-the-art rehab center in Dallas, where he lived.
A version of Bogart’s line from Casablanca
slid through her mind. Of all the homes, in all the towns, in all the world, he walked into mine.
“Can I get you something to drink before dinner?” Willow motioned to the back of the house and the mingling guests.
“That’s not necessary,” Corbin said. “I can leave.”
“There’s no need. What happened between us is ancient history.” Willow did her best to say the last smoothly. What had happened between them might be ancient history, but it still bothered her. It was usually a low-level type of bother. However, being confronted with him made the pain big and fresh all over again. She gave him an expression that said, I can handle this fine. Can you?
“Okay,” Corbin said grimly.
She escorted them to the bar, then sailed outside. Each round table sat eight. At her table, she, her sisters, their cousin, the post office worker Evan, Zander, and John had place cards announcing their names in calligraphy. No card waited at Corbin’s place because they hadn’t known who John was bringing. Nora and Britt had been adamant about seating her next to John’s guest, so that was how she’d arranged things. Unknowingly, she’d positioned Corbin Stewart right next to her.
She refused to sit next to that man during dinner. Surreptitiously, she slid her cousin Rachel’s place card in front of the plate next to Corbin’s, then sat herself a safe distance away, next to Evan.
“Changing the seating plan?” Nora came to a stop beside Willow.
“Yes.” Willow’s heart continued to beat as fast as a rabbit’s. “John’s here.”
“Oh?” Nora’s face lit up.
“He brought Corbin Stewart as his guest.”
Nora’s eyes rounded. “What? No!”
Almost a month had passed since Nora had seen John. They’d gone to Blakeville in early June, and now the electronic calendar on her smartphone had glided into early July.
Not a day had gone by during that time that Nora hadn’t thought about him and missed him and wished, painfully, to see him. She’d been fairly certain during the past month that she’d never get that chance again. It had been agonizing to think that her parting glimpse of him, standing on his deck alongside Allie, was the last glimpse she’d ever get.