Belonging

by Nancy Thayer

  Belonging is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  2014 Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 1995 by Nancy Thayer

  Introduction copyright © 2014 by Nancy Thayer

  Excerpt from Nantucket Sisters by Nancy Thayer copyright © 2014 by Nancy Thayer

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  Originally published in hardcover by St. Martin’s Press in 1995.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Nantucket Sisters by Nancy Thayer. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-553-39102-2

  Cover design: Eileen Carey

  Cover image: © Shawna Lemay/Flickr Open/Getty Images

  Author photograph: copyright © Jessica Hills Photography

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  An Introduction from the Author

  Epigraph

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Part Two

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Part Three

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Nantucket Sisters

  An Introduction from the Author

  Joanna Jones, the main character in Belonging, longs for a family and a true home. When she sees a sea captain’s house on the water’s edge, she knows she’s found her place in the world. But even the most fabulous house feels empty if there’s no one there to love.

  I wrote Belonging because I was enchanted with Nantucket Island, its fabulous romantic history, complicated society, and many mysteries and secrets. This novel holds buried treasure in love and discoveries.

  I’m delighted that my early novels are being made available to my readers as ebooks. My style has changed slightly, as the world has grown faster, but my subject, family life, remains as mysterious and fascinating to me now as it was in these early books: falling in love, raising children, friendships and betrayals and forgiveness.

  Looking back at all my books, I note one other consistency: most books are set somewhere near water. Stepping begins on an island in Finland where I lived for a few months. My other books take place in Vancouver, British Columbia on the Pacific Ocean, in Milwaukee on Lake Michigan, and finally on my beloved Nantucket. I’ve always found the blue immensity of water inspirational, and of course the storms and sunny beachside days provide wonderful settings and metaphors for novels.

  I hope you enjoy these early novels and discover some new friends there.

  Nancy Thayer

  There is an old Indian tradition that some time previous to the settlement of the island by the whites, a French ship, having on board a quantity of specie, came ashore at the east end of the island in a severe storm, and was driven up into what is called the “Gulch,” a trifle to the westward of Siasconset, and wrecked. The island at the time was so thickly wooded in that vicinity that they were compelled to cut their way through the forest to reach the Indian settlements. Such is substantially the tradition, as remembered by many of our older inhabitants, and it is submitted for what it is worth. That the story was not wholly regarded as a myth by our ancestors is shown from the fact that the beach in that vicinity has been thoroughly dug over within a hundred years, in the vain hope of unearthing the ship’s treasure, which was said to have been buried there.

  Wrecks Around Nantucket, compiled by Arthur H. Gardner (New Bedford, Mass.: Reynolds Printing, Inc., 1913, 1943)

  John Coffin built a house at Quaise, on one of the harbor’s eastern coves, and it became known as Kezia’s country estate. Watching Kezia Coffin profit at what they considered their expense, many Nantucketers spread rumors about her dealings with the enemy. The Patriots on the island were the most vociferous because they felt the most aggrieved. Kezia Coffin was trading regularly with the British, they claimed. Coffin ships were running the British blockade with impunity. And Kezia’s country house at Quaise was the collection point for smuggled goods and a rendezvous for secret deals with the enemy. So went the rumors, including a claim that Kezia had had a tunnel dug from her house to the beach, and that the tunnel was jammed with illicit merchandise.

  A. B. C. Whipple

  Vintage Nantucket, revised edition

  Part One

  One

  The television screen showed a family and their guest at ease in a luxuriant garden. The man wore white flannels and held on his lap, recumbent in the curve of his arm, his curly-haired daughter, fresh as peppermint in a pink sundress. Leaning toward them in indolent possession, a pregnant woman clad in a floral smock reclined on a white wicker chaise, her hand with its glinting diamonds draped complacently against her abdomen.

  The other woman wore a crisp silk suit of a green so pale it was nearly white. She was not pregnant, and she wore no rings.

  She spoke: “Until next time, this is Joanna Jones with Fabulous Homes.”

  Joanna Jones smiled, tilting her head slowly so that her blond hair slid rippling against her shoulder, catching the sun. The camera moved steadily back, opening up the scene to focus on the house. Massive and stony as a castle, it was softened by trellises of roses and window boxes spilling with flowers. In the open door a black Lab and a white cat sat side by side in a shower of sun.

  Theme music sparkled in. The credits began to roll.

  Joanna flicked the remote control and the scene vanished. She was glad. She’d taped this Tennessee segment just last month, and now, watching the final version from her office in the CVN building on Third Avenue, she was surprised to find that this particular home stirred her emotions just as it had during her interview and tour. Joanna did not usually lust for possessions or envy others their lives, but the pretty little curly-haired girl and her smug pregnant mother made her feel oddly lonely and filled her with an unsettling, powerful longing.

  Secretly she chided herself: she should feel exhilarated. She should feel smug. She’d completed another show for next year’s series. This one was slotted for next March. It would be a welcome spot of fresh air and flowery bloom right when her audience would be most desperate, most receptive, most eager for spring to come. It would cheer everyone.

  “That’s it!” she announced to the two men watching with her.

  “It’s good,” Jake told her.

  Jake Corcora
n was vice-president in charge of network programming for CVN; a benevolent dictator, his opinions were famous in the cable television business for being precocious, brilliant, and trend-setting. Jake had been the first to endorse Joanna’s show, and she had not let him down.

  Jake was right; this show was really good. Her shows kept getting better and better. The fan mail proved it, as did the caliber of guests who opened their homes to her. And before all that, before the airing of the produced shows and the response of the audience, before the praise of her employers and the compliments from her colleagues, before she even saw the first videotapes on the monitor, she knew as she was planning and writing and hosting the shows that they were so good, so substantial, so meaty, that they were no longer merely entertaining. They were significant. They were worthwhile.

  The essential focus of Joanna Jones’ Fabulous Homes was not on the celebrity of the owners or the costliness of the statues in the garden or the prestige of the architect or interior decorator. The homes Joanna profiled were not museums of fabulously expensive, fragile, and unusable antiques. In FH houses there were cookie crumbs on the counters, silk shirts flung on the chaise longues, dog hair under the sofas, and opened novels lying on the sunroom floors. The air was electric, ringing with calls down the stairwell and doors slamming shut and bathwater bubbling and little boys wrestling and maids muttering over their caviar ceviche. Joanna Jones’ Fabulous Homes were lived in by families, and although they were families of notable people—writers, painters, movie directors, actors, corporate leaders, statesmen, professors—the emphasis was not on the fame or wealth, but on the family life.

  Joanna had a talent for discovering homes full of movement, contentment, beauty, and warmth, and a gift for graciously displaying those homes and their families in the richest, most generous light.

  If, during the past two years as she produced and presented her show, she came to realize that this knack was like that of a starving person sniffing out a bakery, or a cold person locating heat, she ignored that old news, shrugging it off as irrelevant. She was a practical woman. She could not change the past, only the future.

  Carter Amberson, who coproduced the show, remarked, “We thought it was quite a coup to get the senator’s permission.”

  “It was,” Jake agreed, adding, “Joanna’s reputation is pure gold.”

  A whisper of tension rang in the room then like the reverberation of a struck gong. From the beginning, Carter had been scrupulously careful to see that Joanna got full credit for her achievements; now that Fabulous Homes was two years old and successful, he no longer had to be vigilant on her behalf, but rather on his.

  Carter was one of the network’s producers, working behind the scenes, handling a complicated spectrum of tasks. He was responsible for the dry work of contracts and logistics, but provided necessary conceptual advice on both the taping and the postproduction editing. The crucial procurement of in-house production financing and advertising hookups was also in his charge. He had to be creative and analytical; he had to deal with small print and with giant egos. He could do it all; and he did do it all beautifully.

  But Jake was not willing to give Carter any praise these days, and Joanna was always putting herself into the position of peacemaker between these two men, both of whom she loved in complicated ways.

  “I’m off, then,” Jake declared, rising.

  Joanna’s heart stirred with pity. The Jake Corcoran she’d grown to admire and even to worship during her tenure at CVN had always been a vigorous, dynamic man, an industry giant, capable of flashing lightning bolts when angry or engendering joy with his great, heart-lifting smile.

  But now the blaze in his dark eyes was nearly extinguished, and premature silver swirled among his black curls, and his hand-tailored suits hung loosely over what had once been a robust, even burly, torso. Emily, his wife of twenty-five years, had recently died, a wretched death, of liver cancer. Joanna, like some of the others in the network family, was not certain Jake would survive the loss, but Joanna believed firmly that if anything would save him, work would, and for that reason alone she’d asked him to sit in on this viewing before the three went their separate ways during August. She wanted him to remember how much she valued his opinion and needed his counsel. She wished there were more she could do to ease his burden of grief.

  “Where are you spending your vacation, Jake?” Joanna asked.

  “Adirondacks. My son’s fiancée’s family has a house up there. Mark and I will do some trout fishing, some sailing, some hiking.” He smiled at Joanna with affection. “I’ll be fine.”

  In response, Joanna stepped forward and embraced Jake, wrapping him in a tight hug in an instinctive, irresistible act of affection and consolation.

  She’d never been this bold before, although Jake was a natural toucher. He crunched his staff in his great bear hugs during celebrations and ruffled hair and patted backs. Joanna considered Jake patriarchal, or avuncular, but suddenly as she stood holding her great, heart-bruised boss, she realized that he had never fit into any tidy category—nor did her emotions, which stunned her now with their inappropriateness.

  She and Jake were almost of equal height; he was five feet nine inches of muscular male; she was five eight, and large-boned though slender. As her body pressed Jake’s, Joanna experienced a rush of pleasure at the feel and smell and warmth of this powerful, emotional man. She didn’t want to let him go, and she was at once so startled and so ashamed that she nearly shoved him away.

  She stepped back. “Take care of yourself, boss.”

  Jake’s eyes were kind. He didn’t notice her confusion. “You, too, kid.”

  She never minded Jake calling her “kid.” He was ten years older than she, but eons more experienced at the cable television game, and he had always given her excellent advice; he had always been on her side. Her ally. Her mentor. Her trusted and esteemed friend, a rare thing in this competitive business.

  Looking past her, Jake said, “Carter, I hope you and your family have a great time in Europe.” He held out his hand.

  For a split second Carter hesitated, and his icy blue eyes sparked. Then he stepped forward and shook Jake’s hand. Jake was after all his superior at the network, and Carter was, above all else, self-protective. What a force field those two created, Joanna thought, looking at them. Jake was massive and dark and emotionally open; Carter was nearly beautiful in a cold, blond, aristocratic way, and tense and guarded. It was possible that Jake guessed that Carter and Joanna were lovers; if he did, he was bound to disapprove.

  “Thanks. We will,” Carter replied. “We’re flying to France tonight. Blair and I honeymooned in Paris. We’re sending Chip to his grandmother’s after the tour and spending a week in Paris, just the two of us, a sort of second honeymoon. Walking by the Seine at midnight, sipping champagne on the balcony of our hotel suite, strolling down the Champs-Elysées. All that mushy stuff. I’ll come home a new man.”

  “That should be interesting,” Jake remarked dryly. Nodding to them both, he said, “Good night,” and went out the door.

  Joanna looked at Carter. “Ouch.”

  He seemed genuinely surprised. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean it wasn’t very kind—either to Jake or to me—to make it quite so crystal-clear that you have a loving wife with whom to share your vacation.”

  Carter looked crestfallen. “God, Joanna, I see what you mean.” With the heel of his hand, he struck his forehead. “I’m sorry. I was just trying— Look, Joanna, I’m sure he suspects us. And neither one of us needs the network hassle for that. I thought that if I romanticized my wife in front of the woman who might very well be my lover, I’d deflect suspicion.”

  For a long moment Joanna stared at Carter, relishing as always the sight of his exceedingly handsome face and the sheer blissful lean height of the man. The tantalizing glitter of his arctic-blue eyes. The iceberg planes of his cheekbones and shoulder blades and chin. The cutting white sail of his smile.


  “Oh, it’s all right, Carter. I guess I’m just overreacting.” But she couldn’t keep the emotion from her voice.

  Coming close to her, but not yet touching her, Carter said, “Joanna, you know I have to do this. It has nothing to do with honeymooning with Blair. I was determined not to be an absent father, and I don’t think I’ve lived up to my goal. The least I can do is give Chip a family vacation.”

  “I know.” She crossed her arms over her breasts, steadying herself.

  “But God. I’m going to miss you.” Approaching her, Carter put his hands on her shoulders, and with great deliberation moved them down along the curve of her arms, so that his thumbs lightly brushed the swelling arch of her breasts. His warm breath stirred her hair. His body loomed against hers like a dark shadow. “Joanna. You know I need you.”

  Torn by pride and desire, Joanna did not reply. Carter gently kissed her hair. Her temple. Her throat.

  “It’s so late,” Joanna protested. “You’ll miss your plane.”

  “It’s not until nine. We’ve got plenty of time.” Already his hand had found its way beneath the lapels of her jacket and was slipping under the lace of her bra.

  “Yes, but, Carter—” she protested, attempting to pull away from him.

  “I love you, Joanna. You know I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Carter,” she murmured, and that was true. Lifting her arms around his neck, she swayed against him.

  “I need you. I need you now.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, surrendering, for she needed him, too, and together they sank down onto her office sofa.

  Because it was the last time they’d be together until Carter returned from Europe, he took his time making love to Joanna, holding himself back so that her pleasure could mount and expansively unfold, and when finally they had collapsed together, Joanna was pleasurably mussed and crushed and breathless. Twisting languidly onto her side and out from under the mass of his body, she maneuvered herself so that she faced his chest. She listened to his powerful heart pounding beneath the white arc of ribs, the tough warp of muscles, the taut stretch of white skin, and she imagined that his heart was like a hot, determined engine booming steadily in the depths of an ultramodern vessel—an icebreaker, cold, clean, gleaming, Olympian.