But his heart lurched when he reached the top of the stairs. Natalie stood in a beautiful long nightgown, arms bare and elegant, head bowed. She had her back to the wall beside the closed door to Brad’s room, and looked so sad and vulnerable that he couldn’t sustain disappointment, much less anger. He had loved her for more than seventy years. He had believed in her that long. Even through the dark days after her marriage to Alexander, he had known she had done it in good faith.
Now there was this.
His clothing was damp, and he was tired. Every bone in his body ached, but it was the ache inside that propelled him over the carpet to where she stood.
He leaned against the door by her side, staring at the baseboard on the opposite wall while he faced a personal truth, made a soft confession. “I used to dream he was mine. After the war, I used to look at him and see if there was anything of me in him, but I only saw you.”
Her voice was broken. “There was a chemistry between you two that was never there with Al.”
“Did Al know?”
“No. He resented my favoring Brad, but he never guessed why.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, and whispered a fierce, “Of course, I favored him. He was all I had of you. Then I lost him, too.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. Carl turned to her in time to catch it. He left his finger on her jaw, needing to comfort her as surely as he needed to breathe. “You never lost me. I was always yours.”
When she looked at him, he saw that the tears weren’t new. She had been crying before he had come. “I wanted to tell you about him, Carl. You can’t imagine how many times I came this close”—she gestured—“this close to it, but stopped because I thought it would only cause more pain.” She pressed a tissue to her nose. It was a minute before she lowered it. “I used to look at the two of you and see the pleasure he gave you, and I said that it didn’t matter if you didn’t know the whole truth, that telling you everything would change our lives and that would only hurt Brad. I loved him. The world allowed me to do that. I loved him with all my being, because the world wouldn’t let me love you.” The tissue went to her nose again.
Hearing her reasoning, Carl wondered if he would have had her do differently. She was right. Things would have changed, perhaps her marriage would have fallen apart, but would that have made Carl happy? Or Brad? Would Brad have felt responsible for the breakup? Would he have lived any longer if he had known that Carl was his father?
In the end, the questions were moot. The only thing that mattered—the only thing that learning about Brad proved to Carl—was that Natalie had loved him for the same seventy years that he had loved her.
Pulling her close, he held her while she cried. When she quieted, he kissed her brow and murmured against her skin, “It’s done. So, so long done. We can’t change it. We can only go on.”
Drawing back, he searched her eyes. Along with the love there, he saw understanding. She stayed where she was for another minute, he hoped drawing strength from his closeness. Then, holding his hand, she quietly opened the door to Brad’s room, pushed it all the way back, and led him inside.
OLIVIA SAW THE OPEN DOOR as soon as she turned down the hall. Glancing inside as she passed, she saw Natalie and Carl, with their backs to her. They stood at one of the bookshelves that held all the things an eleven-year-old boy had loved. She went quickly on. Of all the angst she had witnessed tonight, this seemed the most private.
In the wing, she checked on Tess, who was sound asleep. She pulled draperies shut to darken the room, took a brief shower, and returned to her own room to find Simon there. He was propped on the edge of the window seat with his elbows on his knees, looking disheveled and needy, tugging at her heart like there was no tomorrow.
Trying to make light of the way she felt, she said, “Why do I get the impression that if I were to push one of your elbows, you’d fall on the floor?”
“I would,” he said without a smile. “I’m that tired. I can’t sleep for long, just an hour or two. There’s cleanup to do.” His heavy eyes held hers. “I can’t … do anything. I just want to hold you.”
She could barely breathe. No man—not a one—had ever said that to her. It was a profoundly beautiful thing to say.
Wondering what in the world she was going to do about the things he did to her heart, she turned away to pull back the sheets, but by the time that was done he was in the bathroom. The shower went on for barely two minutes. He returned with his hair damp and a towel around his hips. Dropping his clothes by the door, he climbed into bed and pulled her close—and it was exactly as he’d said. He didn’t remove the towel. There was no sex. He just held her cupped snug to his body and was asleep within minutes.
Olivia had a harder time of it. She didn’t want to sleep, if sleeping meant missing a minute of this. So she lay awake, aware of every spot where they touched, every sound, every smell. Inevitably, she dozed, only to waken a short time later when he rolled the other way.
She sat up then, wrapped her arms around her knees, and watched him. He was so very real lying there, the kind of man she had spent a lifetime fantasizing about.
But he wasn’t the only thing she had been fantasizing about, and much of the rest was real now, too. She had found her mother. She had found a degree of financial security. She had found options for Tess. She had found a job, even a family of sorts.
So many changes this summer, so much of it unexpected. She could deal with the money, the school, and the job. Simon was the problem.
His back was broad and bare, freckled at the shoulders and lightly tanned, tapering in a virile way to his hips. From rounded biceps on down, his arms were darker than his back. One hand lay palm up. She studied it, mapping calluses and scars. She held her own hand inches above it and compared the size and shape of the two.
His hand was larger and stronger than hers. His body was larger and stronger than hers. Perhaps his will was larger and stronger, too, if he could keep up his widower’s wall, because she knew one thing right then. She was tired of that wall and wanted it down.
Not knowing how to deal with that, she did what she did best. Slipping quietly into clothes, she ran—but only as far as Natalie’s office. She took refuge in one of the wing-back chairs.
Achmed lay on the other. Normally when she was there he sat tall, as befitted royalty of the Persian type. This day, like the rest of the household, he slept. His body was an elegant curve of sleekness, all ivory and gray. Even resting on a lean shoulder, his head had a dignified bent. His front paws were extended. She reached out to touch, wavered, pulled back.
It was all she could do not to pick up the cat and hug him to her. She wanted—needed—softness and warmth. But she knew just what would happen if she tried to hold him. He would pull free and run off.
“Fortunately, cats aren’t men,” Natalie remarked from the door. “Men can be tamed.”
Olivia burrowed into the chair. “Do you think?”
“I do.” She came to the chair where Olivia sat and put a hand on its wing. “If I was short with you yesterday, it was because I care. I do care, Olivia. I care about you and I care about Tess. You add something to this place. I knew you would, right from the minute I saw your picture.”
Olivia’s breath caught. “What picture?”
There was a moment’s silence. Then she looked up into a sweet, sweet face full of guilt. “What picture, Natalie?”
“Of you and Tess. You were dressed as dance hall girls.”
“I had that in Otis’s studio. When were you there?”
“When I first hired him. I stopped at his house one weekend, and he showed me around the studio. That was when I saw the picture. The two of you were just so full of spirit and spunk.”
Olivia had a sudden horrible thought. Dismay must have been written all over her face, because Natalie said with force, “No, Olivia, no. I did not make up this job for your sake. The job came first. Then I thought of you, because I knew Otis was retiring, but I doubted you’d b
e interested. I honestly didn’t. After all, it was only for the summer.”
“Did you think of me with Simon?”
“No,” Natalie said a bit too quickly.
“Oh, Natalie,” Olivia cried in dismay.
“Well, what if I did? Do you think it would have made a bit of difference if you hadn’t liked him, or vice versa? I couldn’t make things happen between you. All I could do was to put you in the same general vicinity, and that was all I did, Olivia. That was all. You and Simon did the rest.”
Olivia wanted to argue, but to what end? That things had gone as far as they had was her own responsibility. Hers and Simon’s.
Natalie came around to the front of the chair. “Forget about Simon right now. My wanting you to stay has nothing to do with him. It has to do with me. You did exactly what I wanted when it came to my book. I couldn’t have hired anyone better.”
“You could have hired an English major.”
“And gotten a book that might have been letter perfect but probably would have had none of the love and emotion you’ve put into it. You wrote that book the way I would have done it. You’ve been the backbone behind the details of this wedding. You’ve made my life easier just knowing that you’re here, not to mention your daughter getting old Carl out there on the tennis court.”
She pulled out Olivia’s computer chair and sat. “So. Let’s look at the slate. On the plus side, you have a job. You have a school for Tess. You have people who care. On the minus side, you have risk, because something could go wrong with one of those things and that would hurt.”
Olivia nodded. “Big time.”
“You can eliminate the risk if you want.”
“How?”
“You can leave. Take the job in Pittsburgh. Start over. No risk there.” She pushed herself out of the chair and walked to the door.
Olivia turned to follow her. “And?”
“That’s it.”
“No. We’re in the middle of the conversation.”
“I’ve said my part. You know how I feel.”
“Convince me,” Olivia begged, but Natalie was gone—and rightly so. Natalie couldn’t convince her to stay. No one could, not even Simon. The decision was Olivia’s.
Same with the risk.
Stay. Go. Stay. Go. She went back and forth until her head buzzed with indecision. This was reality as she had rarely known it. On top of a night without sleep, it was exhausting.
Thinking to slip back into bed with Simon, she returned to her room, but the bed was empty.
Just as well, she told herself. Tess would be getting up soon. No sense her seeing them sleeping together. No sense getting her hopes up.
Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be getting Tess’s hopes up at all. Tess had started off hating Simon. Maybe a part of her still did. Maybe she would be relieved to know they were leaving. After all, Tess had had Olivia to herself for ten years. What child wanted to share?
Climbing into bed in the exact spot where Simon had lain, Olivia put her head in the hollow his had left on the pillow and pulled up the sheets. His smell surrounded her.
She was just tired enough—just imaginative enough—to pretend that he was there in the flesh. Comforted by that thought, she fell asleep.
• • •
OLIVIA SLEPT until the middle of the afternoon. She came awake slowly, then bolted up when she realized how late it was.
Tess was gone from her bed, though certainly safe. If Susanne hadn’t kepts tabs on her, Jill or Carl or Natalie would.
Feeling guilty even thinking that—Tess was her responsibility—she opened her bedroom door to go looking and and saw a note half over the threshold.
It was from Tess—no mistaking that handwriting.
“Gone sailing with Simon,” it said, and her heart began to thud.
BY THE TIME Olivia pulled up at the yacht club and ran around to the back deck and out onto the dock, she had analyzed Simon’s taking Tess sailing from most every angle.
One said he was procrastinating, that the vineyard was a mess and he wasn’t ready to tackle it.
Another said he was fulfilling a duty. He had promised Tess he would take her out. Once it was done, he was free.
The therapy angle said that he hadn’t been sailing in four years, but that the ocean was calm after the storm, and it was time.
Bribery was a possibility. He might be taking Tess out in exchange for leaving him alone when he worked. Or for not talking back. Or for helping find homes for the kittens.
His taking her sailing might be a way of saying good-bye.
Olivia didn’t want it to be that. Standing there on the dock, looking out at a sea filled with sailboats, any one of which might hold Simon and Tess, she realized that she didn’t want it to be that.
Gnawing on her cheek, she walked back down the dock. Cleanup crews were removing boards from the clubhouse windows and sweeping driftwood, stones, and sand from the deck. Several boats lay askew in their slips. Others had lost masts, windows, or seats.
Olivia did not want it to be good-bye.
Turning on her heel, she went up the dock again. At the very end, she sat down and waited.
Several boats returned, but Simon and Tess weren’t in them.
Another boat tacked toward the dock, then another, and she knew the people in these. They were locals. When they waved, she waved back.
Finally, she spotted Simon and Tess, and came to her feet. Their heads were close together, though she could have sworn that Tess was holding the lines. Then they spotted her and waved, both of them with jubilant smiles, and she started to cry—started to cry, just like that, for no good reason she could think of.
“Hi, Mom!” Tess yelled, but her eyes quickly returned to the sails. When Simon said something, she pushed the tiller and pulled in the lines, and the sailboat sidled up to the dock as smoothly as if she had been docking boats for years. The sail went slack and lowered. Olivia caught the line they tossed.
“Did you see us, Mom?” Tess cried, ebullient. “Did you see how far out we went? We were heeling all the way, it was so cool!” She would have climbed out then and there if Simon hadn’t insisted that she help fold and tie and put things away.
By the time that was done, she had spotted a friend on one of the other docks. Putting her small hands on Simon’s shoulders, she said a very grown-up, “You were wonderful, Simon. Thank you.” Then, like a switch flipped, she was a ten-year-old again, hopping onto the dock, giving Olivia a positively beatific smile before taking off at a run.
Olivia sat down on the dock with her feet hanging in the boat.
Simon leaned against her knees. “Why were you crying?”
Her eyes filled again. She coiled her arms around his neck and locked her hands. “Don’t leave.”
“Me? I’m not going anywhere.”
“But will you? Will you get tired of things one day and just walk out?”
He smoothed back the hair that blew toward her eyes. “Not from you.”
“That frightens me so much.”
“And you don’t think it frightens me? I lost everything once. I know that pain.” He frowned and watched his thumb stroke her arm. “On my way to your room this morning, I saw Natalie and my dad. They were in Brad’s room. It couldn’t have been easy for either of them. I admire their courage.” His eyes met hers. “I want to admire ours, too.”
Olivia wanted it, too. She wanted it more than anything. “Do we have it?”
“I think we do.” He swallowed, and while she watched his lips, he mouthed the magic words.
Thirty
“SHIFT THE LIGHT, SWEETHEART?” Simon asked around the nails clamped between his teeth.
Tess jumped up and adjusted the floodlight so that it was aimed at the spot where they worked. Seconds later, she was back, taking another handful of nails, handing him a few at a time. They were putting down the floor in what would be a family room with a cathedral ceiling and skylights. It was half of the addition Simon was ad
ding to the cabin. The other half, already livable thanks to friends from town, held bedrooms.
“The cord is stretched to the limit,” Olivia remarked from the door. She was leaning against the newly raised wood, with her hands in the pockets of her jeans and three cats at her feet. Buck was there with the two of her litter that they had kept, Oliver and Tyrone. Both were growing into their ears and eyes, but none of the three was venturing past Olivia until the hammering was done. “It’s a message that you’re supposed to quit for the night.”
“Just another couple of feet,” Simon said and put out a hand toward the pile of maple planks. “A short one now, Tess.” She picked one out. He fitted it in beside the last piece laid, tongue to groove, and hammered in two well-placed nails.
Olivia should have insisted that they stop. It was getting late, and it was November raw. Though the walls were closed in and insulated, there was no heat here yet, which was fine for nestling under goose down in the bedrooms, but barnlike under high ceilings. On top of that, Tess still had homework to do. She was settling in at Braemont, far happier than she’d been in years, but the school didn’t coddle its students. No excuses were made for learning disabilities. The teachers knew exactly what they were dealing with and how to do it in the best possible way. That meant work.
But then there was this—Tess feeling like she was a vital part of the building process, and Simon delighted to have her help. And it wasn’t an empty gesture. He made her work, whether they were spraying vines, harvesting grapes, sailing, or building a room.
Olivia couldn’t have asked for more for her child. If ever there was a man who captured the work ethic of the past, Simon was it.
She fingered the ring in her pocket, then pulled out her hand to see it again. As engagement rings went, it was more beautiful than anything her wildest dreams might have forged. A single perfect diamond was flanked by matching pairs of baguettes, set in platinum with a simplicity that highlighted the sparkle of the stones. It was exquisite in every sense, not the least of which was that the gems were from a brooch that Carl had given Ana at the time of Simon’s birth. It had belonged to Carl’s mother before that.
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