by Susan Wiggs
“But I’m not letting you leave without it,” he said, and kissed her again.
The next day, Sophie awakened alone—no Noah, no warm puppy. She tensed, bracing herself for the leftover terror of nightmares. Then she opened her eyes with a soft gasp of disbelief. The nightmares weren’t there. They didn’t seem to be lingering like cobwebs she couldn’t shake off. It might be an aberration, or maybe she’d turned a corner.
Hoping it was the latter, she got up and, almost without thinking, grabbed a plaid flannel shirt and slipped it on. She instantly felt better. The fabric, worn soft, held a hint of Noah’s scent. Hugging the shirt around her, she went to the bathroom to put herself together. This was getting out of hand. She couldn’t keep falling into bed with Noah Shepherd simply because they were snowed in. Simply because it was what every cell in her body wanted to do. It was impulsive, self-indulgent behavior, and she needed to exercise a little control. Yet she’d made some sort of decision, hadn’t she? Perversely, that was the one element she loved surrendering to Noah—control. With him, she was able to live in the moment, to immerse herself in sensation the way she never had before. It was a kind of insanity, yet he acted as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Maybe for him, it was.
She scrubbed her face and vigorously brushed her hair, then went downstairs with a new sense of resolution. The snowfall had ended. Surely the road would be reopened today. Ordinary life needed to resume, and in ordinary life, she had to focus on her kids and how she was going to be their mother from now on.
She glanced at the small writing desk by the window. There was a stack of blank paper and a selection of pens, and she found herself remembering Dr. Maarten’s advice to her. She was supposed to write things down in order to release them. The idea was simple. Take something festering inside, and let it out.
I don’t have anything festering inside, she’d told the doctor. She had actually said so with a straight face. And to his credit, he hadn’t burst out laughing. Now she really had found relief—in sex with a stranger. An insane act that was restoring her sanity. “Just write down something each day, large or small. Write down a conversation you wish you’d had with your captors. Write down something you wish you’d said with someone close to you, but never did.”
Now that was an assignment. In a hundred years, there would never be enough time to cover that. She wished she’d been more forthright with her parents, back when she was young and too preoccupied with not disappointing them. She wished she’d had a thousand honest conversations with Greg, and maybe the derailment of their marriage could have been averted. She wished she’d managed to make her children understand why she had let a sense of mission keep her away from them. And her captors? Good God. She couldn’t even begin to write down what she wished she had told them.
She decided to take a stab at some of these conversations. She took a piece of paper and started, “Dear Dad.” And then nothing. Not because she had nothing to say but because she had too much. She faced the same dilemma with “Dear Greg.” And then “Dear Daisy and Max…” She wondered what her children would think if they knew how she’d waited out the snowfall. She hoped they would never find out. Instead of writing a note, she made a list of momlike things she hoped to do. Go to Max’s hockey games. Help Daisy make a baby book for Charlie. Sign a progress report. Learn to bake cookies.
It was a start. She folded the list and slipped it in her pocket. Following her nose to a pot of coffee in the kitchen, she found evidence of an early breakfast—a cereal bowl in the sink. Ugh, Cocoa Puffs. Judging by the tracks in the snow, she concluded that Noah had gone out with the dogs. She fixed herself a cup of coffee and hoped he would be back soon, so she could explain that this…whatever this was…probably wasn’t a very good idea. Or was it?
A pity, she thought. Because as bad ideas went, this one felt completely wonderful. She sighed and hugged herself, took her coffee to the front room and added a few more items to her list. Through the window, she spotted a small group of parents and children at a roadside bus stop. The road appeared to have been plowed and sanded. Yes, she thought. I finally get to see Max and Daisy.
So life was going on. One mother was standing behind a little girl, braiding her hair, while others stood back and chatted while the kids chased each other around the bus shelter. A moment later a black-and-yellow school bus lumbered around a bend in the road and ground to a halt with a gnashing of air brakes. A surge of children in snowsuits and backpacks piled toward the open door of the bus. Watching the hugs being dispensed, Sophie felt a deep and elemental clutch of emotion. It was a simple, mundane moment, a mother seeing her child off to school, yet to Sophie the experience seemed rare and special.
Noah came into the room and hugged her from behind, nuzzling her neck until she practically melted. He smelled of the outdoors, fresh snow and wood. “That’s the same bus I used to ride as a kid,” he said.
She tried to imagine living in one place all her life. “Did your mother stand at the bus stop with you every day?”
“Nope. She was too busy working. But my grandmother was always there.”
“I see—well.” As she watched, the bus swung wide around a curve, its broad yellow flank looming ominously close to the guardrail. She tensed, her mind veering sickeningly to a moment in the van. She reeled her thoughts back in, then relaxed against him as the bus chugged away in a cloud of exhaust smoke.
She caught herself wondering if Noah liked kids, but asking him was way too personal, despite last night’s intimacy. It was also date talk: Do you like kids? was obvious code for Are you a decent prospect for settling down?
It was not the sort of thing you asked a guy, even one who rescued you from ditches, brought you firewood, fixed you macaroni and cheese. Who gave you addictive, orgasmic sex, again and again.
“You’re too quiet,” he commented. “What are you thinking?”
Like she’d tell him that. Still, she felt like talking. “Seeing that—” she gestured outside, where the mothers were heading back to their houses “—makes me feel guilty. I never did that for my kids, never waited at the bus stop with them.”
“Most serial killers would say the same thing.”
“I’m serious, Noah. I’ve got a lot to answer for. This divorce—I’ve handled it poorly. Kids are supposed to go with their mother after a divorce, right?”
“There’s no ‘supposed to.’ Every family’s different. I’m sure you did what was best under the circumstances.”
“That’s interesting, because I’m not sure at all.”
“How’s the knee today?” he asked. “I hope you didn’t overdo it last night.”
It took her a moment to realize he was referring to the riding, not the sex. All right, she thought. He didn’t want to talk about her kids. Of course he didn’t. And she didn’t blame him one bit.
“It’s fine. I’ve got an appointment to see a doctor in town.” She’d found Dr. Cheryl Petrowski in the phone book and, solely on the strength of her name, had made the call. Ordinarily Sophie would obsessively research a doctor before committing herself to her care. But being so new here, she had to take a leap of faith.
He nuzzled her neck again. “So we’ve got all morning…”
She was inches from succumbing. He made it seem completely natural to do so. “You’re turning me into a hussy,” she said.
“Being snowed in will do that to a person.”
With a groan of reluctance, she peeled herself away from him. “I need to get busy. I’m finally going to see my children today. And I have to get rid of my rental car and lease a different one. I was thinking of a minivan.” If she was going to start acting like a mom, she might as well drive a car that made her look like a mom.
“Make sure you get snow tires and all-wheel drive.”
“I will.” Just like that, the plan began to feel very real, and nervousness hummed through her. This was going to work, she promised herself. There were only a few hurdles to cross, like
the fact that her kids were bound to be skeptical of this ever working out at all. Or the fact that she hadn’t exactly explained the plan to her ex-husband.
Thirteen
“You’re doing what?” Greg Bellamy took Sophie’s coat from her and frowned. “Come on, Soph. Back up a little. Let’s go over this again.”
Sophie tried not to feel defensive as she regarded her ex-husband in the vestibule of his house, a house where she was a stranger. He had every right to be suspicious of her motives and actions. She had done a spectacularly bad job of being a wife and mother. It was understandable that he would question her now.
“Can we sit down?” she asked evenly. “I’ll try to explain.” She doubted she could fumble through a reasonable-sounding explanation of why she’d come to Avalon, but she was going to try.
He gestured toward the old-fashioned parlor. “I’ll hang up your coat. Go have a seat.”
He didn’t say, Make yourself at home, but she shouldn’t have expected that, of course. Nor did she want the gesture. She and Greg were exes for a reason. For a lot of reasons. When they were married, they were so busy taking care of business that they forgot to take care of each other and had let the marriage die a slow death. They were not like wistful TV exes who got along beautifully, trading kids back and forth like keys to a mutually beloved car.
She took a seat in a Queen-Anne-style oval-backed armchair and regarded her surroundings with mild fascination. Greg had reinvented himself and rebuilt his life from the ground up, and every item in the room was unfamiliar to Sophie, from the overstuffed armchairs to the bowl of Jelly Bellies on the coffee table.
When Greg had first made his move, she’d thought he was nuts. He’d sold his Manhattan architecture firm and moved upstate, to the town where he’d spent all his boyhood summers. He’d bought a historic lakefront hotel, the Inn at Willow Lake, and had recently married a woman who seemed to be Sophie’s polar opposite. They lived on the property in a tall, boxy house built in Carpenter Gothic style and furnished with a bright, eclectic mix of antiques and contemporary pieces.
The room was casual and comfortable in a way no room in their former home together had ever looked. There was a cushy, lived-in atmosphere here, and despite her differences with Greg, she was glad Max got to live here. There was an array of photos on a narrow table against one wall, showing Max and Daisy at various ages. There were also pictures of Sonnet Romano, Nina’s daughter, who now attended American University.
Just like that, Greg had another child. Even though Sonnet was away, she was a permanent fixture in Max and Daisy’s lives. So far, the three of them got along beautifully. Or so it seemed to Sophie. Suddenly, sitting here, it finally struck her how out of the loop she had been.
She recognized a couple of shots from last summer when Greg’s niece, Olivia Bellamy, had married in a big wedding at the Bellamys’ Camp Kioga, a rustic wilderness camp on the north end of the lake.
There was a collage frame of brand-new images, too, and Sophie couldn’t help herself. She was fascinated. The photos depicted Greg’s wedding, which had taken place on Epiphany. Sophie now had two reasons she wished she could forget that night.
She felt an unexpected twist of pain. Yes, she’d known on an intellectual level that Greg had fallen in love with Nina Romano, a young single mother with a grown daughter. Yes, Sophie had known he’d remarried in a small ocean-side ceremony on the island of St. Croix.
She thought she had processed this data and neutralized the pain. She thought she was all right with the turn of events. Now, looking at the smiling faces of her children, her ex-husband, her ex-in-laws whose name she still carried, she realized she was not okay. She was devastated. It was not that she wished she was still married to Greg, God, no. It was not even that she resented seeing him so happy. The thing that ripped into her heart was the knowledge that the Bellamys had once witnessed her own wedding. She felt entirely expendable. But she stopped herself from unraveling by keeping a stiff upper lip. She’d made a decision years ago, and she knew how to live with it.
She focused on a group shot of the Bellamys and Romanos, who were complete strangers to her. Everyone looked so happy, laughing and carefree against the bright white of the sand and the deep Caribbean blue of the water in the background.
Nina was a small-town girl, born and raised in Avalon, even serving a term as its mayor. Sophie, on the other hand, had grown up dividing her time between two large, vibrant cities—Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. Nina had some ungodly big family with members numbering in the double digits, while Sophie was an only child, with the entire weight of her parents’ expectations on her shoulders. Nina was dark and intense, small and curvy, given to expressing every emotion in true Italian-American fashion. Sophie was fair and tall and slender, and so emotionally reserved that even her therapist got frustrated with her. Nina was casual and comfortable in her creamy, olive-toned skin; she’d actually gotten married in flip-flops. Sophie had never worn flip-flops in her life. Seeing these photos was proof in living color that she had been wrong for Greg in every possible way.
Hearing him return to the parlor, she turned away from the array of photos. “Congratulations on your marriage. I should have said so before.”
“Thanks.” He looked distinctly uncomfortable. Like Sophie, he clearly had no clue about the etiquette in this situation.
Studying him, she noticed for the first time that he still bore the faint shadow of a suntan from his Caribbean wedding trip, and it looked wonderful on him, enhancing his golden good looks. Her gaze was drawn to his hands. It was a curious fact that when you were truly intimate with a man, you knew every detail of his hands—their shape and texture, the nails and creases of the palms. She couldn’t remember much about Greg’s hands these days, which was a good sign. However, she became fixated on his wedding band. It was a wide chunk of gold, bluntly beautiful, nothing like the slender Tiffany band he’d worn while married to her. No, the two wedding bands were as different from one another as…Sophie and Nina.
Which, she conceded, was entirely appropriate and as it should be.
Focus, Sophie reminded herself. It was too easy to be distracted by things like the fact that her ex had remarried and was living a dream life, a life he never could have had while married to her.
“We’ve been worried as hell about you,” he said. “It’s not like you to just walk away from something. I read the published reports about what happened in The Hague. It was bad. Really bad.”
“I won’t lie to you. It was horrible. I’m sure it will haunt me for the rest of my life. But I wasn’t hurt, and I’m ready to move on.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
Could anyone be “all right” after what she’d done? She looked him in the eye. “One hundred percent.”
“Then why are you here, Sophie?” he asked.
Even though his voice was gentle, the question was a touch of fire to the base of her spine. Of course he would ask that. Of course he would assume that she’d come simply because she had no other options. He had no idea what she’d sacrificed to come to Avalon.
“I’m here for Max and Daisy and the baby,” she said evenly. “And yes, the incident at the Peace Palace was a wake-up call, but my being here is about the kids, not about me.” Good heavens, understatement there. Why else would she move to a town where the name of her ex-husband was uttered in reverential tones, and where Greg’s new wife, the former mayor, was known and loved by all? Did he think this would be fun for her?
“That sounds reasonable,” Greg said, “but for how long?”
Again, she reminded herself that he was looking out for his kids. “I can understand why you’d ask me that,” she said. “Ever since our children were babies, I’ve been coming and going between them and work. It’s different this time. Greg. I’m here for good.”
He studied her for a long moment. There were things about her that Greg Bellamy knew better than any other living soul, and vice versa. M
arried at an absurdly young age, it was no shock that they’d wound up divorced. The shock was that they’d stayed married as long as they had. Sophie attributed this to their stubbornness and commitment to their kids.
She shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny. “What?” she asked finally.
“You seem…different,” he said at last. “A lot less uptight.”
A night of wild sex will do that to a girl, she thought.
“I didn’t mean to make you blush,” Greg said.
She waved her hand nonchalantly and reminded herself not to get defensive. “It’s not you.” Another huge understatement. “Listen, we’re going to have our moments, but I don’t want it to be about us, either. My total focus is going to be the kids.”
“From international lawyer to soccer mom, just like that.”
“You don’t buy it.” She didn’t trust herself, either, but the uncertainty wouldn’t keep her from trying.
“It’s hard to see you in that role. I don’t want the kids getting hurt.”
Then why didn’t you work harder on our marriage? she almost asked. No, that wasn’t fair. They had both worked on it, but eventually each had to concede defeat.
“I’m not here to hurt them.”
“I know.”
Even though he agreed with her, she heard what he didn’t say aloud: You can’t help hurting them.
As objectively as possible, she explained that she would take a hiatus from work. The Wilsons had invited her to stay as long as she wanted as they rarely used their lake house until the Fourth of July. Sophie planned to find more permanent living quarters well in advance of that. She was still licensed to practice law in the state of New York. Since her family was here, she had been diligent about keeping her license current. Eventually she might join a local firm as an “of counsel” associate, working two or three days a week.