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Colby's Wife
Grace Green


He needed a nanny…Colby Daken loved his son–but ever since seven-year-old Jamie had lost his mother, he'd been timid and shy. Jamie needed the warmth of a woman's affection to bring him out of himself.But did he want a wife?Greer knew she could help–and she'd been secretly in love with Colby for years. She'd been devastated when he'd wed her beautiful cousin, but now Colby was free to marry again. Would he finally realized that he'd chosen the wrong cousin–and that Greer was the perfect wife for him?"Grace Green generates an unbeatable emotional intensity."–Romantic Times







“I don’t intend to marry again.” (#u2c037eea-b11f-5e5a-a1ab-515ef72598b0)Title Page (#ua15aa747-b1c7-5824-90b6-275a876f24a2)Dedication (#u2775dd83-1273-5e77-b966-7f5ca0d3ad7e)CHAPTER ONE (#u666b70cd-b0c9-5713-98ed-edfd147df09f)CHAPTER TWO (#u76b9ab6b-d5d1-5d99-9a04-439f041eafd5)CHAPTER THREE (#u8acb1e09-abee-51af-8278-73f5dcdf53d9)CHAPTER FOUR (#ue97f216b-2b1e-52a5-b5cb-3b27f256b0c4)CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


“I don’t intend to marry again.”

Greer frowned. “Have you considered the possibility that you may fall in love again?”

“Love is the last thing I’m looking for. Once I have a nanny in place for Jamie, I’ll be making another...arrangement.”

“An arrangement?”

“A mistress,” Colby replied. “What more could a single father want? A nanny to help look after his child...and a mistress to see to his other...needs.”

Greer stared at him disbelievingly. “You can’t be serious!”

“It’ll be a business arrangement, Greer. I wonder...would you be interested in the job? You did say you aren’t planning on marrying....”


Grace Green was born in Scotland and is a former teacher. In 1967 she and her marine-engineer husband, John, emigrated to Canada, where they raised their four children. Empty nesters now, they are happily settled in west Vancouver in a house overlooking the ocean. Grace enjoys walking the sea wall, gardening, getting together with other writers...and watching her characters come to life, because she knows that, once they do, they will take over and write her stories for her.

Grace Green has written for the Presents


series, but now concentrates on Harlequin Romance


...bringing you deeply emotional stories with vibrant characters.

Look out for The Wedding Promise (#3526) in October!




Colby’s Wife

Grace Green







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For my granddaughter, Kathleen


CHAPTER ONE

‘SELL it?’ Greer whirled round from the corkboard where she’d just pinned a sketch of her latest lingerie design, an elegant satin-and-lace negligee in Midnight Cobalt. She stared at her grandmother with dismay. ‘If I don’t want the summer place on Lake Trillium you’re going to sell it?’

‘Correct.’

‘But Gran ... it’s been in the family for generations!’

Leaning on her cane, Jemima Westbury moved across the office, skirting a table laden with bolts of purple, fuchsia and emerald silk, and stood with her back to the tall window overlooking Toronto’s Spadina Avenue. The sun glistened in her silver topknot; its shadow softened the lines seventy-odd years had etched around her firm mouth and azure eyes.

‘That’s as may be,’ she said, ‘but you never go there anymore, and I?’ She lifted one shoulder in an eloquent shrug. ‘I no longer enjoy spending time there on my own.’

Greer frowned. ‘I don’t like the idea of strangers living at the cottage, Gran,’ she said slowly. ‘Oh, I know I haven’t been to the lake for a couple of years but—’

Jem waggled the tip of her cane at her granddaughter. ‘Eight years. You haven’t been there for eight years, not since that business with Bradley P—’

‘Not since the summer Colby and Eleanor came home from Australia for his father’s funeral.’ Greer broke in hurriedly. ‘I was seventeen.’ She felt her cheeks flush. Stealing a moment to regain her composure, she crossed to her desk and flicked the switch that would silence the music coming over the Passing Fancy workshop speakers. When she faced Jem again, her cheeks had cooled and she managed a rueful smile. ‘You’re right. It has been eight years.’

Briefly she wondered—as she had so often done—how much of the truth her grandmother had guessed that long-ago summer. Not all of it, Greer was sure—but certainly some. After all, wasn’t Gran the one who had found her huddled down on the beach, dissolved in scalding tears, after Colby had flayed her with his scathing diatribe—

‘What I’d like,’ her grandmother was saying, ‘is for the two of us to go up to the lake this week. You can make your decision there. If you don’t want to keep the cottage, we’ll start packing and get it ready for sale.’

‘I really don’t think I can get away.’ Greer dropped her gaze; fidgeted with a scrap of Belgian lace on her desk. ‘Since my Vogue cover, this place has been a madhouse—’

‘Then I’ll contact an agency and they can see to the arrangements. I think this is a good time of year to sell, don’t you? Everything will be looking its best. Ben always said June was his favourite month at the lake—’ Jem’s voice caught, and shaking her head, she started for the door, her cane tapping unsteadily on the planked floor.

Greer had never met her grandfather—he had died before she was born—but she knew that after his death Jem had sold their large Toronto house and moved into an apartment. She had kept on the lakefront cottage because, as she had once confided to Greer, it was the only place where she could still sense Ben’s presence and was thus very special to her.

Greer took in a deep breath, and ignoring the warning bells clanging in her bead, hurried after the frail figure and caught her in the doorway. Clasping her grandmother’s hands, she said quietly, ‘I’ll come, Jem darling, of course I’ll come. But I can’t get away till Friday. Friday afternoon...probably quite late.’

‘Thank you, Greer.’ Jem’s voice trembled with pleasure. ‘Thank you so much. Oh, we’ll have a lovely trip, you’ll see—just like old times.’

No, Greer reflected, stifling a bleak sigh as she escorted her grandmother to the elevator, it wouldn’t be like old times. It could never be like old times again. Eleanor, and Brad Pierson, had seen to that.

She should have just told her grandmother the truth, she thought wearily—should have explained that though she had once loved going to the lake, it was a place she could no longer bear to visit. It was too filled with memories, memories of Colby, memories that tore her heart in two.

But she had committed herself to going.

And she could see no way out.

‘When are we going to get there?’ Jamie Daken’s tone was sullen. ‘How much farther do we have to go?’

‘Another couple of miles, if I remember rightly.’ Colby Daken glanced at the seven-year-old boy sitting slouched beside him. In the dim light from the Jeep’s dashboard, he could see tousled black hair, shadow-smudged dark eyes, a drooping mouth. ‘Tired?’ he asked softly.

‘Tired? Gosh, Dad, no—why should I be tired? The trip from Melbourne only took us from Wednesday till Friday, then we only took two hours to get through Toronto Customs, and we only got stuck in traffic for two hours getting out of the city. Now it’s only—’ he squinted through his glasses at the square watch strapped around his thin wrist ‘—five after midnight. Why should I be tired?’

The sarcasm in his son’s tone set Colby’s teeth on edge, but he decided this was neither the time nor the place to have a confrontation. Besides, Jamie was having a hard time dealing with his mother’s death; Colby knew that only too well, and took the fact into consideration. This trip to Canada had been at the suggestion of their family doctor, after Colby had expressed his deep concern that although Eleanor had now been gone for six months, Jamie didn’t seem to have made any steps toward accepting his loss.

‘Your son, I believe, is feeling very much adrift,’ Dr. Franks had said. ‘He needs to have his roots reaffirmed—needs to get a sense of the continuity of things. Could you get away for a while—take him to Canada, show him where you grew up? Perhaps even spend some time at your cottage in Ontario—you did tell me you’d hung onto it, didn’t you?’

Yes, he still owned the cottage, Colby had acknowledged. But he didn’t explain to the doctor that the only reason he hadn’t sold it when he’d flown to Ontario eight years ago for his father’s funeral was that Eleanor had announced—while they were actually at the lake—that she was pregnant; and he—impractical in his delight—had decided to keep the place, in case the coming child might one day want it.

Who would have thought then, Colby reflected with a bitter twist of his lips, that Eleanor would die before her thirty-first birthday, and that he would one day be bringing that child here alone, in an attempt to bridge the wide gulf between them.

He felt something nudge his elbow, and looking down, saw that his son had fallen asleep and was lolling against him. Small, vulnerable...and defiant in his grief. Colby felt a powerful surge of love. Lifting a hand from the steering wheel, he carefully pulled the thin body into a more comfortable position.

As he glanced up again, the headlights danced among the trees ahead, illuminating three boards nailed to a post, at the entrance to a narrow track. On each weathered board was a name, burned into the wood:

Daken

Westbury

Pierson

Something sharp seemed to jab Colby’s heart.

And as he swung the Jeep off the road, he frowned and moved restlessly in his seat. When he’d decided to make this trip, it had been for Jamie’s sake; he hadn’t given any thought to how he himself might be affected by this journey backward. Now he felt memories stumble from their hiding places, blink in the unaccustomed light and gradually evolve from their misty state into clearly visible form.

Memories of Greer.

Oh, God...he brushed a shaking hand over his eyes. Despite the years between, he could see her now as clearly as if she were walking along the track before him.

He’d always had a soft spot for the girl, but that last summer, the summer of her seventeenth birthday...

She’d been at Lake Trillium with her grandmother for a week before he and Eleanor had driven up there, and when he’d caught his first glimpse of her in three years, he’d felt a peculiar tightening in his throat. She had already acquired a lovely tan—the contrast between the nut brown of her skin and the stark white of her bikini had been breathtaking—but what had really struck him was the change in her hair. In the past, she’d always worn it in a ragged urchin style. Now it hung around her shoulders in a pale heavy sweep, the blunt-cut ends skimming like rich satin over high breasts that were already almost too lush for the sleek slenderness of her body.

She had, he realized, turned into a rare beauty.

But despite her new maturity, her green eyes had sparkled like sun-struck emeralds when she’d seen him, and with a delighted shriek she’d run up the beach and hugged him as enthusiastically as she’d always done as a child.

She was truly beautiful, and—he had thought—still as sweetly innocent as she had always been.

Which had made it all the more painful when he’d found her only three nights later with Brad Pierson—discovered her making love with the yuppie lawyer in a shadowed corner of the moonlit beach ... actually heard her moan and cry out in ecstasy at passion’s peak...

And all the while Brad’s wife Lisa was in a Toronto hospital waiting to give birth to their third child.

Colby breathed out a harsh oath as the memory slashed through his heart.

Something had died in him that night. He’d never been able to tell what it was; he just knew it was some part of him that he would never find again. Oh, he’d been furious with Greer for her betrayal of Lisa—a true friend with whom they’d both had a warm and longtime relationship—and the following evening, when he’d at last caught Greer alone, he’d given vent to his rage and contempt with words he’d never used to a woman before.

He had also been unutterably disappointed in her; he had acknowledged that—though only to himself. But beyond that rage and contempt, and beyond that disappointment, there had been more. Something that had glittered at the edge of his consciousness, too far away, too nebulous, to grasp...

His headlights picked out the black and silver gleam of the lake ahead, and blowing out a self-derisive sigh, he gathered his thoughts back to the present. Lifting his foot from the accelerator, he let the Jeep coast down the slope toward the beach, braking gently as he rounded the corner, and guided the vehicle into the carport.

Only three cottages sat at this end of the lake, and his was closest to the track. Beyond it, behind a high cedar hedge, lay the Westbury cottage, and beyond that, separated from the Westbury’s by birch trees and bushes, lay the Pierson’s.

The place was deserted. No lights shone, no music played, no voices drifted through the fragrant night air... not like in the old days, when—

Memories. Oh, memories...

Jerking his thoughts away from the images beginning to press in again so mercilessly, he undid his seat belt, and Jamie’s, and then he rounded the Jeep, opened the passenger door and scooped the sleeping child up in his arms.

‘What...what...?’ Jamie’s voice was muffled against Colby’s denim shirt. ‘Mommy...?’

‘It’s all right, son.’ Heart clenching, Colby tightened his arms around the slight body. ‘We’re here, at last.’

And as he dug into his hip pocket for the key to the cottage, he sent up an aching prayer that this little corner of paradise would achieve what he, on his own, had so far been unable to do.

Greer was glad she had come.

Relishing the feel of the dry white sand under her bare feet, she strolled along the deserted beach early Saturday morning. The day, she mused, was going to be a scorcher—the sky was forget-me-not blue and cloudless, the sun already drawing up a shimmering haze from the lake.

She felt relaxed... far more relaxed than she had ever imagined she could feel here again, in this place...and she knew why it was so.

It was because Colby Daken wasn’t here.

Despite having assured herself last night on the drive north that he was in Australia and chances of bumping into him at the lake were nil, she had still felt as if she were balancing on a tightrope of tension that had become more and more nerve-racking with every mile that had gone by. On arrival at the foot of the track, she’d directed a swift apprehensive gaze in the direction of the Daken cottage, and her relief at finding the place boarded up had been so intense she’d become light-headed. As she and Jem had shared a pot of coffee outside after a late dinner, she’d been unable to keep that relief from showing.

‘I’ve been foolish to stay away so long,’ she’d admitted with a rueful smile. ‘This—’ she waved a hand around the veranda, its deck and white-painted Adirondack chairs washed pink by the final rays of the setting sun ‘—has got to be the most relaxing spot in the world.’

‘You were afraid of facing up to the past’ was Jem’s blunt reply. ‘But we all have our own garden of memories, darling, and just as in a garden—where we have to tear out invasive weeds so they won’t choke the flowers we want to grow—in life we must haul all our darker memories out into the light...where they will, it is to be hoped, gradually die, allowing our sweeter memories room to flourish.’

Their eyes met, and there was so much compassion and understanding in her grandmother’s that Greer felt a rush of love so profound it left her shaken. She pushed herself up from her low-slung chair and crossed to the railing, so her grandmother wouldn’t see her tears. Hands cradling her mug, elbows on the rail, she blinked hard to clear her blurred vision as she looked out over the shadowy lake.

From the opposite shore could be heard the faint lilt of laughter, intermingling with the drifting strains of a tender love song; and in the gathering twilight, in air headily scented with the sweet fragrance from some unseen bush, fireflies flickered like tiny spurts of flame.

‘So,’ Jem’s voice came to her quietly, ‘do you think you’d like to keep the cottage after all?’

For a long moment, Greer didn’t speak, and then, finally, she said in an equally quiet voice, ‘Let me think it over, Gran.’

She turned and leaned back against the railing, meeting her grandmother’s steady gaze in the dusk. ‘I’ll sleep on it,’ she said, ‘and I’ll give you my answer tomorrow.’

And now tomorrow was here.

Greer walked a little way into the water. Sliding her hands into the pockets of her white shorts, she wandered along the fringe of the lake, lost in her thoughts.

Tomorrow was here...and yes, she had made up her mind.

Just after midnight, she had been wakened by some sound outside, and had found herself unable to get back to sleep. She had set herself to thinking about her grandmother’s offer... her ultimatum...and in the end, after tossing and turning and agonizing for hours, she had made her decision.

Undeniably it did hurt to be here, but the alternative—to see the cottage fall into a stranger’s hands—would hurt even more.

Besides, Jem was right—unhappy memories should be hauled out into the sunlight, and left in the scorching heat to wither and die—though she admitted she wasn’t ready to face that task. Not yet. Perhaps later in the summer she would come back to the cottage on her own, with the sole purpose of confronting her memories and by doing so, finally heal the aching wounds in her soul...

And what a joy—and a triumph—that would be.

She stopped, with her back to the shore. Raising her face to the sky, her eyes closed against its brightness, she threaded her fingers through her hair and lifted it from her nape.

‘Yes!’ she said aloud, determinedly. ‘Oh, yes!’

‘Yes what?’

Greer spun round as the voice came from behind, a voice tinged with curiosity, but also edged with hostility and perhaps a trace of sullenness.

The child standing at the water’s edge, feet planted challengingly apart, was a boy of about seven. He had an untidy sweep of black hair, and hazel eyes that glinted at her assessingly from behind a pair of dark-rimmed glasses. He was poking those glasses back up to the bridge of his nose, the movement automatic, as if habitual. His body was very thin and lightly tanned, and clothed only in a pair of multicolored baggy shorts that hung low on his hips.

‘Yes what?’ he repeated, scowling.

Greer waded out of the water, but when she reached the child, he stepped back, his gaze flicking over her hair, and over her face. Then, to her astonishment, she saw his eyes widen, his lips start to tremble. Good Lord, she thought, was she so terrifying a figure—or had the boy perhaps been overly cautioned to be wary of strangers?

‘Hi,’ she said, with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. ‘Where did you come from? I thought I was alone.’ She glanced along the beach toward the Trillium Lodge, a gracious mansion that sat atop a foundation of Precambrian rock about a mile and a half away. It had been built in the thirties by a wealthy New Yorker, as a summer home; now it was owned by a French couple, and run as an exclusive hotel. The boy, Greer decided, must be staying there.

‘Why were you talking to yourself?’ he demanded.

She shrugged. ‘I’d been trying to make up my mind about something, and I’d finally decided my answer was going to be yes. Don’t you ever talk to yourself?’

‘Sometimes’ was the grudging response.

Greer’s tube top had slipped a little when she’d raised her hands to lift her hair; now as she felt the sun’s heat begin to burn the tender skin on the upper swell of her breasts, she tugged the top back into place.

‘I’m going in now, for a coffee,’ she said, ‘but first I’ll walk you back along the beach. Your mother’s probably worried about you.’

‘I don’t have a mother.’

Greer heard a quiver in his voice. ‘Your dad then?’

‘He’s busy. He’s making pancakes.’

He had an intriguing accent. English? South African? She found herself wondering why his father would be cooking breakfast if they were staying at the Lodge. ‘You are at the Trillium Lodge, aren’t you?’ Frowning, she rested her hands lightly on her hips.

‘No,’ a cool male voice came from behind, ‘he’s at the cottage. With me.’

Australian. That was what the child’s accent was. But now that she had finally fixed it, it was too late...

‘Hello, Greer.’

Feeling as if her heart had stopped, Greer braced herself, braced every muscle in her body, and turned slowly.

‘Colby.’ It should have surprised her to see him, but somehow it didn’t. That he was at the lake, after all, seemed now as inevitable to her as the rising and setting of the sun. ‘What are you doing here?’


CHAPTER TWO

‘SAME thing as you, I expect. Having a holiday.’ Colby’s eyes, black-fringed and even more strikingly blue than she remembered, locked with hers for a long moment, in a look so penetrating she had to brace herself not to flinch from it; and just when she was about to blink, his gaze fell to her mouth...making her wish, too late, that she had earlier applied a concealing coat of lipstick.

‘Jamie—’ he kept his gaze fixed steadily on her mouth as if he found it endlessly fascinating, and it was only with the greatest effort that Greer kept herself from running the tip of her tongue nervously over the vulnerable flesh ‘—your pancakes are ready. Maple syrup’s on the table.’

‘Okay.’ Slouching, the child set off up the beach.

Colby frowned. He shifted his gaze, focused it on the small departing figure. ‘Jamie?’ His tone was sharp.

The child hesitated, glanced back, muttered a strained “Thanks’ and then took off again, this time at a run.

‘My son,’ Colby said tersely. ‘Jamie.’

His shirt was unbuttoned and as he slid a hand inside and rubbed his ribs in a frustrated gesture, Greer’s gaze was drawn to the shadow of dark hair on his chest, hair that curled crisply and arrowed down beyond the low-slung waistband of his faded shorts. Dangerous, she decided with a tightening of her throat muscles, to venture further...

She forced her gaze up again, and drank in the absolute perfection of this man to whom she had long since gifted her heart. He seemed taller than before and leaner; wider of shoulder and slightly more powerful of neck. His jaw was unshaven and his black hair carelessly swept back, the rakish effect making Greer’s equilibrium wobble like Jell-O in an earthquake.

‘Yes.’ She kept her tone light, ‘I gathered that.’

‘How have you been?’

As he spoke, his bold gaze skimmed down over her figure, making Greer uncomfortably aware of how much flesh was revealed by her skimpy shorts and clinging tube top. ‘I’m fine.’ She tugged up the top though she had just minutes ago adjusted it and knew it was snugly in place. ‘How about you, though? How are you coping? Jem and I...when we heard about Eleanor...it was such a shock—’

‘Yes, it must have been a shock.’

‘The funeral—we felt we should have been there, but-’

‘The service was private—Eleanor wanted it that way. At any rate, she and your grandmother were never close—you were Jem’s favorite, always—and as for your relationship with your cousin...’ Colby’s eyes held a cynical expression that was more eloquent than any words could have ever been.

Greer knew what he was thinking—he believed that she was the one responsible for the split between herself and Eleanor. If only he knew the truth. But he never would. Only three people had been aware of what had really happened that night in the shadowy corner of the moonlit beach—Eleanor, Brad...and herself. Eleanor was now gone, Brad would never tell...and she, Greer, had sworn to herself that she’d protect Colby from the truth forever because his happiness was the most important thing in the world to her.

‘I didn’t introduce you to Jamie because I have to talk with him first.’ Colby’s tone was cool. ‘I had no idea you’d be here. When Jem wrote your aunt this spring, she mentioned to Cecilia that she was thinking of selling the cottage, so I expected it to be empty...or occupied by strangers. Eleanor never spoke of you to Jamie. I’ll have to explain to him that you are related.’

‘He seems...unhappy.’

‘He’s going through a rough time. That’s why we’re here.’ Colby’s lips twisted in a self-derisive smile. ‘I used to be happy here—I thought perhaps he could be, too, in this Canadian Eden.’

Greer met his gaze. ‘It was once an Eden,’ she said, very quietly.

‘But in every Eden there’s a snake.’

He might as well have stabbed her in the heart.

At seventeen, wildly in love and irrational because of it, she’d felt a bitter resentment toward Colby for having judged and condemned her on evidence that though damning, was circumstantial; in view of their many summers together at the cottage she felt he should have known she wasn’t that kind of girl. Men were so blind, she’d raged inwardly. So stupid. So easily fooled by the superficial.

Her cousin Eleanor with her baby-soft voice, her affected feminine fragility, her fake sugar-sweet smile, had fooled Colby into believing she was something she was not. He had fallen in love at first sight, bedazzled by the halo of outward beauty of a female who had in reality been—

Greer cut her thoughts off sharply. She should not be thinking ill of the dead. And of course she knew now that her resentment of Colby had been totally irrational. What else could he have thought, discovering her with Brad the way he had? She could even find it amusing, with a sort of black humor, that he had thought her capable of having a fling with a married man. After all, she’d been only seventeen at the time, and—sexually—as green as grass.

And wouldn’t it surprise him to know, she reflected with a wryly self-deprecating smile, that even now, at the grand old age of twenty-five, she was still a virgin!

‘You find that funny?’ he rasped.

Greer blinked. ‘Sorry... ?’

‘It amused you that—’

‘Oh, the snake thing.’ Greer twirled her index finger around a glossy strand of hair that had fallen over her bare shoulder. ‘No,’ she said lightly, ‘I don’t find that amusing. I was thinking of...something else.’

‘Something else...or somebody else?’ Colby’s voice had a taunting edge. ‘You’re here with a man, of course.’

Deliberately, she threw him a flirtatious look from beneath her silky eyelashes. ‘Hang around,’ she said, her taunting tone an echo of his own, ‘and you’ll find out.’

Her left hand lay at her shoulder, the coil of hair loose around her fingers. Taking her by surprise, Colby reached out and, slipping her hand free, grasped it firmly. He inspected it, and raised one eyebrow.

‘No ring?’ His upper lip curled. ‘He hasn’t staked a claim yet?’

Greer snatched her hand back, dismayed by the current of electricity that had shot up her arm. ‘A man can stake a claim without having to spend money on diamonds—’

‘No ring, no claim,’ Colby retorted. ‘So...the field is wide open, mmm? Prize available to the highest bidder?’

Stunned at this side of Colby, a side she’d never known before, Greer was searching her mind for some snappy put-down when she heard her grandmother call to her.

‘Greer, darling, coffee’s ready. My goodness, is that Colby Daken? Hello there, you dear boy—what a delightful surprise! Come and join us, won’t you?’

Colby grinned as he waved to Jem, who was standing on her veranda, her hair twisted up in a topknot, her spare figure adorned in an oversize shirt and drainpipe jeans. ‘Hi, there, Mrs. W,’ he called back. ‘I’ll take a rain check if I may—catch you later.’

His smile transformed his face, changed it to the face Greer knew of old—eyes twinkling, teeth sparkling white, deep grooves bracketing his beautifully sculpted mouth. She felt something melt inside her, and it had nothing to do with the growing heat of the morning sun.

But as her grandmother went inside again, his smile faded, and his lips were compressed tightly as he looked at Greer. ‘You’re here with your grandmother?’

‘That’s right. No man in tow.’ Greer wrinkled her nose. ‘Disappointed?’

‘A little,’ he returned, and went on smoothly, ‘The chase is always more challenging when there’s competition. A woman always seems more interesting when someone else wants her, too. And I’m sure you feel the same way about men. After all, wasn’t that the appeal Brad Pierson held for you—he belonged to someone else?’

‘I knew there was a reason I didn’t want to come to the cottage this weekend.’ Greer found her words coming out with exactly the right edge of weary boredom she wanted to express. ‘There was always the chance you might be here.’

He ignored her jibe. ‘You’re here only for the weekend? You’re going back to town tomorrow?’

‘That’s right,’ Greer said coolly. ‘I’m here only because Jem asked me to come with her.’

‘Is she going to sell the cottage?’

‘That’s going to be up to me.’

Colby raised his eyebrows.

‘My grandmother doesn’t like spending time here on her own any more,’ Greer explained stiffly. ‘At least, that’s what she told me. I think there’s more to it.’

‘Such as?’

Greer shrugged. ‘Gran sold her Buick in February, around the time her driving licence was due for renewal, and I suspect the Motor Vehicles Branch may have called her in for a test that she failed...her eyesight’s not as good as it once was...and she’s too proud to admit it. At any rate, she no longer has transportation to get here, so she’s told me the property is mine, if I want it. And if I don’t—’

‘Then she’s going to unload it.’ Colby’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Greer. ‘So...what are you going to do?’

I thought I knew...but now that you’re here, Lord knows what my decision’s going to be! ‘I haven’t made up my mind yet. I told Jem I’d let her know today. If I don’t take her up on her offer, we’ll get the place ready for sale. Now—’ Greer turned to walk away ‘—if you’ll excuse me—’

‘Wait.’ He caught her arm.

‘What?’ She was so close she could smell the musk of his hair, the dizzying scent of his skin ... so close that if she wanted to, she could have run her fingertips over the hard sculpted angle of his jaw. And she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to.

‘I’ll bring Jamie over, after breakfast, to meet his great-grandmother. And because you’re here, I’ll have to introduce him to you, too—’

‘Well, sorry about that,’ Greer snapped, snatching her arm free, ‘but yes, I think that would be a good idea. He was taken aback when he saw me...I realize now it was probably because of the family resemblance. I must remind him of...his mother.’

Their eyes locked, and in Colby’s she saw something she hadn’t noticed before. A look of deep and private pain.

Greer felt a sudden stab of remorse, remorse that twisted her heart, and she had to ram her hands deep into her pockets to keep from reaching out to comfort him. Oh, how she ached for a return of the days when she could have done just that...

But those days were gone. Long gone.

And they would never return.

‘Colby, I’m sorry,’ she said, huskily. ‘It must still hurt, I know, to talk about Eleanor. You must miss her so.’

Fighting back a welling of tears, she turned away quickly so he wouldn’t see her distress, and set off up the beach toward the cottage.

This time, he didn’t try to stop her.

‘So...Colby is here.’

‘Yes.’ Greer tried to keep a lid on her roiling emotions as she met her grandmother’s shrewd azure gaze unflinchingly across the pine kitchen table. ‘He’s here.’

‘Alone?’

‘Jamie is with him.’

‘Mmm. And missing his mother dreadfully, I should imagine.’

‘Seems that way.’ Greer moved restlessly on her chair. ‘His father said he’s been having a rough time. He hopes, I think, that a summer at the lake will help Jamie come to terms with his loss.’

‘And Colby? How does he seem?’

‘Hard.’

Her grandmother raised her eyebrows.

Greer frowned, feeling unaccountably irritable and impatient. ‘He’s—’

She broke off, searching for a word that would describe Colby’s attitude toward her, without giving too much away, but before she could find one, Jem said, in a questioning tone, ‘Grieving?’

‘When he came back here after his father died, he was grieving.’ Greer fidgeted with the beaded edge of her place mat. ‘But he was still...nice.’ Oh, Lord, had he ever been nice! He had...during those first three days at the lake, before the Bradley Pierson affair...treated her like a cherished and dearly missed friend.

‘Colby sounded pleasant enough when he spoke to me.’

‘Oh, yes, the man can be pleasant when—’

‘Colby.’

Greer blinked. ‘Sorry?’

‘Colby.’ Jem lifted the coffeepot from its spot on the table and refilled her mug. She added a spoonful of sugar, and stirred it in, before saying, in a gentle voice, ‘His name is Colby, dear. It won’t hurt you to say it.’

‘I don’t want to say it!’ The outburst was childish, and Greer was ashamed of it...and of herself. She was twenty-five, no longer a child of seventeen, hurting and lonely. She pushed back her chair and got to her feet. ‘Jem, about the cottage. I thought this morning that I’d really like for us to keep it in the family...but now that...he...is here, I’m going to need some more time.’

‘Time for what?’

‘Time to find out what his plans are. If he intends to be here every summer, it would be an impossible situation. I could never relax, with him around...treating me like some sort of a...leper.’ Her voice cracked, and she crossed to the window. Gripping the edge of the countertop, she looked out...

A mistake. Straight ahead, slung between two ancient birch trees, was the hammock where she and Colby had cavorted together many times in happy summers gone by. Oh, Lord...

‘You love it here, just as much as I do,’ Jem said. ‘Greer, I’ve been thinking. The cottage, as you reminded me when we talked in your office, has been in the family for generations. Five generations, to be exact. Let us not make any hasty decisions. Now that I’m here, I’d like to stay, for the rest of the summer—’

Greer whirled around, aghast. ‘Gran, I can’t possibly stay with you! I’ve told you how busy I am—’

‘Darling,’ Jem soothed, ‘I’m not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that you join me on the weekends. You say Colby and my great-grandson are going to be here all summer—what a splendid opportunity it will be for me to get to know the child! And it will be good for him to get to know me.’

Her eyes had a spark of excitement that Greer hadn’t seen there in a while, and as she saw it, guilt stung her conscience. Oh, she didn’t neglect her grandmother—in fact, she made a point of seeing her several times a week, and she took her to the theater on a regular basis—but she had to admit her work took precedence. She’d buried herself in it for years, in an attempt to shut out her painful memories; and now she realized with a shock that she hadn’t given as much of herself as she perhaps should, to this wonderful, generous woman who had done so much for her.

She crossed to her now, and bending down, gave her a tight hug. ‘You’re right, Gran—it’s not the kind of thing that should be decided overnight. And especially it’s not the kind of thing that should be decided on the basis of who our next-door neighbors might be! If you’re sure you won’t mind being on your own through the week, that’s fine with me. I can’t promise, though, that I’ll be able to make it every single weekend, but I’ll try.’ She straightened, and managed a bright smile. “There, how does that sound?’

‘Sounds wonderful—’

A loud rat-tat rattled on the screen door, and when Greer looked around and saw Colby on the veranda, she felt a surge of dismay. How long had he been standing there? How much had he overheard? But before she could recall exactly what she’d been saying, Jem had scooped up her cane and moved across the room, clicking up the latch and opening the door.

‘Well, Colby,’ she began, pleasure warming her voice, but before she could go any further, Colby had swung her up in his arms and enfolded her in a bear hug.

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes, Jem Westbury.’ His voice was gruff. He dropped her gently to the floor, but took her hands in his and looked down into eyes that were hazed with tears. ‘Lord, it’s good to see you. Jamie—’ he put an arm around the shoulders of the boy trying to hide behind him, and pulled him forward ‘—I’d like you to meet your great-grandmother, Jem Westbury. Jem, my son, Jamie.’

Jem looked long and searchingly at the boy. In the end, she nodded, her expression satisfied. ‘You’re a Daken,’ she said bluntly, ‘and that’s good.’ And as Jamie pressed back against his father, she added, chucklingly, ‘Oh, you needn’t worry that I’m going to hug you and kiss you the way your father has just done with me. Mind you, I liked it, but that’s because I’m a woman, and we love to be fussed over. Maybe one day, though, when we get to know each other better, you’ll feel like giving me a hug. I’ll welcome it when you do. Now what do you want to call me, young man? Great-grandmother’s a bit of a mouthful, don’t you think?’

‘Your name’s Mrs. Westbury,’ Jamie said in a flat voice. ‘That’s what I’ll call you.’

If she was taken aback, Jem showed no sign of it. ‘That’ll be just fine,’ she said. ‘Now, you’ve already met my granddaughter, Greer... Greer Alexander, who is—’

‘Dad told me. She’s my mother’s cousin.’

And Greer guessed, from the indifference in his voice, that he was going to announce that he would call her Miss Alexander. Quickly she said, ‘That’s right, Jamie. Your great-grandmother Jem had two children, Lorna and Taylor. Lorna got married and had one child...that was me, and Taylor got married and had one child...that was your mother. And since I don’t have any nephews or nieces, nor shall I ever, I’d be really happy if you’d call me Aunt Greer.’

She knew she had put him on the spot. How could he refuse...without seeming churlish?

He scowled, and she sensed he had guessed her strategy. She could almost hear him say to himself: The battle is on and she’s won the first round! Jem had drawn Colby over to the table and they were chatting as Jem poured him a mug of coffee, but her own attention was fixed on Jamie as he searched for a response that would make him the winner of the next round. Her mouth threatened to curve in amusement; she primmed it and waited.

‘I thought you looked like Mommy when I saw you on the beach.’ Jamie’s hazel eyes glinted smugly. ‘But you don’t.’ He tilted his small chin and went on in a voice that was meant for her ears only, ‘You’re not nearly as pretty.’

Momentarily shocked, Greer wrapped her arms around herself. A defensive gesture, she knew. Yet why should she feel she would have to defend herself against this child? He was, after all, only seven. ‘You’re right,’ she said evenly, ‘I’m not nearly as pretty as your mother was.’

‘And my dad loved her more than anybody in the world.’

‘Yes, he did.’ Greer fought an urge to take the little boy into her arms and soothe away the hurt and anger she could feel emanating from him. Did Colby realize how deeply affected his son was by the loss of his mother? She hoped so, and she hoped he had the tools to deal with the problem. A summer at the cottage was wonderful for any child...but for this particular child she sensed that more, much more, was needed. ‘Jamie—’ she looped a strand of her hair back over one ear ‘—I think I may have an old photo album with pictures of your mother. Would you like me to fetch it?’

‘Now?’ His glasses slipped down; he flicked them back up onto the bridge of his small nose.

‘Sure...if you like.’

‘Darling.’ Jem touched Greer’s arm. ‘Pour yourself another mug of coffee and let’s all go out onto the veranda. It’s far too nice a morning to waste indoors. Here.’ She handed Jamie a frosted tumbler, and as Colby held the door open, she put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder and guided him outside. ‘Try this—lemonade, my own special recipe.’

Colby waited for Greer to follow, but she shook her head. ‘Go ahead,’ she said stiffly. ‘I promised Jamie I’d show him some pictures of Eleanor.’ She hesitated, and then went on in a voice that couldn’t be heard outside, ‘I think it will be good for him—being here, I mean, and getting to know Jem. She has a wonderful way with children.’

She thought she saw Colby’s face soften. ‘She was here for me when my own mother died,’ he said. ‘I was only four, of course, when Dad bought the cottage, but from that very first summer, she was a part of my life. Dad often said how much we both owed her—’

‘She got as much as she gave, Colby—perhaps even more. It’s so often the case, when we reach out to help someone.’

Colby leaned against the wall with one shoulder, and folded his arms. ‘Tell me something,’ he said softly.

Greer felt her heartbeats stumble. ‘If I can.’

‘Why are you so sure you’ll never have any nieces or nephews?’

‘Oh, that.’ Greer looked away from him, fixing her gaze on the pine dresser crammed with Jem’s antique dishes. She shrugged. ‘I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so—’

‘You know what I mean.’ Colby’s voice demanded she look at him; she didn’t. She let her gaze drift to the copper pots and pans dangling from a wooden beam on the ceiling above the sink. ‘When you marry there’s every likelihood in the world that you’ll end up with a horde of nephews and nieces...and if you keep the cottage, you can invite them all here for the summer, to play with your own children.’

Children. The only children she had ever dreamed of having were Colby’s. And that was never to be. The ache in her heart was an old ache, but age made it no easier to bear. ‘I don’t plan on getting married,’ she said, forcing herself at last to meet his gaze...and seeing him frown. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to go and get that old album for Jamie.’ Turning, she quickly left the kitchen, and was thankful to hear no sound of footsteps following her as she hurried along the lobby.

What would he think, she wondered dismally, if he knew that he was the reason she’d never marry, because she had never met anyone who could hold a candle to him? Oh, at first she had made a valiant effort to erase her memories of him and fall in love with someone else... but all she had to show for it were two failed relationships—relationships that had both foundered when the men involved had finally pressed for commitment and intimacy, neither of which she had been able to give, because her heart belonged to Colby.

She blinked back a tear as she crossed the sitting room. How would he feel if he knew she loved him...and loved him in the same single-minded way he’d loved Eleanor?

It was ironic that if she herself hadn’t been so besotted with Colby that she took snaps of him at every opportunity, Eleanor would never even have contrived to meet him, and there would have still been a chance, if only ever-so-faint a chance, that Colby would have waited for her to grow up...

Greer sank onto the hooked rug by the pine corner cabinet, and pulling open the door of the lower cupboard, hauled out a pile of albums. As she reached for the green one, containing photos of Eleanor and Colby, another album tumbled out...a heavy leatherbound brown one...

With a defeated sigh, she took the album in her lap, and let it fall open.

Her eyes blurred as she stared at the five-by-seven enlargement of Colby. No coincidence that the page had opened at this place...it had always been her favorite photo, and she had spent countless hours gazing at it. She found herself smiling now, wistfully, as she recalled the occasion on which she’d taken the original snap....

Jem had made three blueberry pies that breezy August morning, and had arranged two on the sill of the kitchen’s passing window to cool. She’d given Greer the third to take over to Lisa...and when Greer was on her way back, she’d noticed Colby sneaking across the veranda, his purpose blatantly obvious. She’d whipped inside for her camera, and had returned in time to catch Colby with his thumb in a pie.

But a second before she pressed the shutter, he must have sensed her presence. He looked around abruptly, and on seeing Greer, had let out a great guffaw of laughter; she had snapped the picture, and when it was processed a week later, she had felt her insides turn to mush. Colby’s eyes sparkled with laughter and delight, his features were creased in a devastatingly attractive ‘Oh, Lord, caught in the act!’ grin, and his hair had fallen over his brow giving him a devil-may-care look that would have melted the coldest heart.

And her heart hadn’t been cold.

It had been burning hot, with a passion that at the tender age of fourteen had mystified—and frightened—her.

She’d taken the album with her to Australia, when she’d gone there as usual to spend the last fortnight of the summer holidays with her aunt Cecilia, before returning to Toronto and school in the Fall.

Eleanor had, of course, been at home—she invariably chose to spend all her summers with her mother, loving the laid-back life-style...the live-in maid, the endless parties, the attention lavished on her by her mother’s women friends.

And Eleanor had come on Greer one morning as Greer lay on her bed staring at the treasured photo of Colby.

‘What’s this?’ her nineteen-year-old cousin had asked lazily. ‘A picture of some movie star? Don’t tell me you’re one of those mindless teenagers who send adoring fan letters to their current heartthrobs.’

Greer hadn’t answered. Let Eleanor think that if she wanted; she had no desire to share her secret with anyone. But her silence had made Eleanor curious. Her cousin had snatched up the album...and had then of course noticed the black writing scrawled over the foot of the photo:

To my summer sprite

Love from Colby

For a few moments the silence in the room had hummed as Eleanor had assimilated this information. Then...

‘Colby Daken.’ Eleanor’s tone was cool. ‘Gran’s mentioned him once or twice. He’s the one whose father owns the summer cottage next to hers?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Are they... well-off?’

Greer shrugged. ‘I think so. Actually yes—Colby’s father, Mackenzie Daken, owns Daken Construction—one of the biggest construction companies in Canada. The family has pots of money. But you’d never know it,’ she hastened to add, ‘they’re just...well, ordinary, I guess. Really nice.’

The following summer, for the first time, Eleanor had invited herself to the cottage at Lake Trillium for the whole of July and August. Greer had been astonished, and Jem had been, too. Eleanor had never hidden her disdain for cottage life—for ‘roughing it,’ as she scornfully put it—and it wasn’t till Greer saw her beautiful cousin setting her cap for Colby, that she finally realized what was going on. But she’d never told anyone...not even her grandmother...about Eleanor seeing the picture of Colby and asking if the family had money—

‘Have you found it?’

Jamie’s voice coming from right behind her made Greer start. Snapping the album shut, she stuffed it back into the cupboard, and then tugged the green album from the pile.

‘Here—’ she brushed off a trace of dust with her fingertips ‘—it’s yours, if you want to keep it.’

Jamie took the album but didn’t open it. Clutching it against his chest, he took in a deep breath, opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, then closed it again. His gaze drifted over her hair, and her face. He raised his hand, and Greer thought he was going to flick up his glasses. To her astonishment, what he did was reach out and touch the top of her head, letting his fingers slip over her hair, as if he wanted to experience the texture of it.

Emotion tightened Greer’s throat muscles. Was Jamie remembering how his mother’s hair felt? Eleanor’s hair had been ash blond, too, though not quite as thick, nor as silky as hers. ‘Jamie,’ she whispered, huskily—and lifted her hand to touch his...but he snatched it away. Wrapping both arms around the album, he took off like a frightened rabbit.

She thought she heard a sound like a gulping sob as he reached the door, but when she went out onto the veranda a minute or two later, she found him sitting on the swing, drinking his lemonade.

And when their eyes met, he looked at her as coolly as if the episode in the sitting room had never taken place.


CHAPTER THREE

‘GREER has done very well for herself,’ Jem said as Greer moved across the veranda. ‘The Passing Fancy label has really taken off. Tell Colby, dear, about your new workshop on Spadina Avenue!’

‘A workshop on Spadina?’ Colby had gotten to his feet when Greer came outside; now, as she perched her hip on the railing, he dropped back into his chair. ‘So,’ his tone was light, ‘you made your dream come true after all.’

‘It was a goal,’ Greer said quietly, her gaze dropping to the mug of coffee nestled in her hands. ‘Not a dream.’ The achievement of a goal needed only drive, talent, hard work... and luck. Dreams were different. Dreams required magic to make them come true. Goals and dreams. She had had one compelling goal, and one shining dream.

She and Colby had sat on this veranda more times than she could remember, her eyes sparkling with excitement, his with determination, as they talked about their goals. Hers: to become a respected and successful lingerie designer with a workshop on Toronto’s Spadina Avenue. His: to work with his father, learn everything he could about the business, and eventually have his own branch of Darken Construction. Of her secret shining dream she had never spoken—Colby was the last person to whom she could have spilled out this most cherished part of her soul, because he, Colby, was at the very heart of it. And he had never spoken to her of any dreams—at least, not till after he’d fallen in love with Eleanor; then he could talk of nothing else—

‘A goal, then.’ Colby sprawled back lazily. ‘And, if my memories serve me correctly, you’ve achieved it a couple of years earlier than you’d expected to.’

‘Greer?’ Jem’s tone was curious.

‘Yes, Gran—I’d always planned on having my own place, even when I was a little girl playing with cutout dolls and paper dresses...but he’s right. I hadn’t expected to get there quite so soon.’

‘Nothing to be proud of in your case, young lady,’ Jem said bluntly. ‘If your life had been balanced, if you’d been involved in a steady relationship with a man—and if that man had been worth his salt—you’d have had to spend less time working, and more time just plain living.’

‘I’ve had men in my life,’ Greer protested stiffly, her cheeks hot with mortification as she sensed Colby’s gaze on her. ‘You know I have. Nick Westmore, and Jared Black—you met them both, you liked them both! At least you said you did—now you claim not even to remember them!’

‘Oh, way back then!’ Jem’s expression was scornful. ‘Now it’s a different man every Friday night! Easy come, easy go! What ever happened to commitment—isn’t that the modern buzzword for what my generation called love?’

Greer treated her grandmother to a glare that would have withered any normal person but only seemed to intensify the challenging glitter in Jem Westbury’s eyes.

‘If you’ll excuse me.’ With a haughty tilt of her chin, Greer slid off the railing. ‘I think I’ll go for a walk.’

Colby got to his feet, and Jem pushed herself up, too. Leaning on her cane, she addressed Jamie.

‘Young fella,’ she said briskly, ‘I brought some tomato plants from the city and they have to be put in the ground. I need someone to help me, someone handy with a watering can. I don’t suppose you’d like the job? Of course, you’d have to take off your sneakers, and puddle about in the earth and probably get awfully wet and mucky—’

‘I’m not allowed to get dirty. Mommy doesn’t like—’ Jamie broke off abruptly, his cheeks suddenly bright pink.

Jem blinked in surprise, and Colby stood gazing at his son as if the boy was a complete mystery to him. Greer realized she was the one who was going to have to respond to the child’s comment.

‘Jamie?’

He looked at her with obvious reluctance, and she gave him another of her reassuring smiles. ‘Honey, things are different here at the lake. Nobody minds when we get grubby, it’s just part of cottage living, and it’s one of the very nicest parts. I’m sure your mommy didn’t want you getting dirty when you were in your school clothes, or when she took you for outings, or when she had friends in, but—’

‘I wasn’t to get dirty. Ever.’ Jamie’s eyes glistened, but small muscles flexed determinedly in his jaw. ‘I won’t get dirty. You can’t make me.’

Good grief, thought Greer, what kind of upbringing had Eleanor subjected her son to? Telling a boy he mustn’t ever get dirty?

‘Then you must come and watch me,’ Jem said firmly. ‘I’m going to get very dirty, and when I’m done, if you like you may turn the hose on my bare feet and legs and wash them off. Does that appeal?’

Jamie’s glasses slid down his nose. He pushed them up, and to her surprise, Greer saw the beginnings of a wavery smile tug the corners of his mouth.

‘All right,’ he said gruffly. ‘I can do that.’

‘Good lad.’ Jem held the screen door open for him, and they went inside, the door swinging shut behind them. As the snap of the catch echoed, and then faded, Greer became all too aware that she and Colby were now alone.

“Well,’ she said tersely, stepping quickly away from him, across the deck, ‘I’m off then.’

He caught up with her as she reached the short flight of steps leading from the veranda to the beach area. ‘Not so fast.’ He grasped her forearm. ‘Where are you going?’

The touch of his fingers on her bare skin sent a tingle of sensation rippling through her, a sensation that was as pleasurable as it was disturbing. She shook herself free. ‘Don’t you listen?’ She looked up at him...and wished she hadn’t. The blue of his eyes bedazzled her; the arrogant tilt of his head alarmed her. ‘I’m going for a walk.’

‘I’ll join you.’

‘I don’t want you to join me. I want to be left alone.’ Her voice had a breathless quality. ‘I have some thinking to do—’

‘About the cottage?’

‘Yes.’ How unfair that a man should have such lustrous and seductively long black eyelashes. ‘About the cottage.’

‘We can stand here all day,’ he said equably, ‘with you refusing to walk unless I go away...which I warn you I’m not about to do...or we can stroll along the beach... together. I’m going to be here for the summer, your grandmother tells me you’ll be spending most of your weekends here, too. You apparently don’t have a man in your life at the moment, and at present I am also unattached. We have a history, you and I...so why don’t we add to it!’ His lips twisted in a smile. ‘Just a summer affair, Greer—what do you think?’

Had Greer not been so stunned by his suggestion, she would have cut him off the moment he made it. But she was stunned...and not only stunned, outraged. Yet to be honest she had to admit he must feel it perfectly in order to make such a suggestion; after all, when she was seventeen she had allowed him to believe she’d slept with Brad Pierson...and just minutes ago her grandmother had remarked on her ‘easy come, easy go’ relationships with men. What Gran didn’t know was that the men she dated now were—because she wanted it that way—just friends, and nothing more.

‘You’re suggesting we have an affair?’ Greer raised her eyebrows mockingly. ‘In spite of my...promiscuous behavior? Don’t you think that might be dangerous—for you—all things considered?’

‘There are ways to...get around...that.’ A breeze gusted from the lake, tossing a heavy strand of hair over his forehead; gold gleamed at his wrist as he raised a hand and impatiently raked the strand back into place.

‘You’ve changed a lot.’ He really had beautiful hands, she reflected distractedly; long-fingered, elegant, with neatly trimmed spatulate nails. Just watching him thread those fingers through his glossy black hair had sent an odd dark shiver spiraling to some indefinable place deep inside her. ‘You’re not the man I once knew.’ Her tone was icy. ‘You say we have a history. We do, and that’s all it is. History! As far as I’m concerned you are history!’

He sidestepped her and blocked her way as she tried to go down the stairs. Now that he was standing on the step below her, their faces were on the same level...and she was staring right into those lethal blue eyes.

‘I’ve always found it impossible to understand,’ he said roughly, ‘why someone as lovely as you would need to look to a married man like Brad Pierson for satisfaction. You could have had any man you wanted. Why did you have to set out to seduce him? Good God.’ His voice had hardened. ‘I’d known him for years and I’d have sworn he was the last person to have gotten involved in an adulterous affair.’

‘You thought you knew Brad but you didn’t. You thought you knew me but you didn’t.’ Greer couldn’t keep the bitterness from her tone as memories of that long-ago summer rushed in again...

And shock froze her as, with a swift and totally unexpected movement, Colby grasped her by the shoulders and jerked her toward him. Before she could even gasp, he took her mouth in a deliberate and soul-shattering kiss.

It was over in a few seconds. Nothing was left of the abrupt assault but his harsh breathing, and her own...and the bruised tingling of her lips. She and Colby had never touched before, in any sexual way. This...this attack had her cringing from him as surely as if he slapped her.

‘Don’t ever,’ she whispered raggedly, ‘try to do that again.’ She stared at him through blurred eyes, seeing the dark mass of his hair, the bronzed color of his face, the brilliant blue of his eyes...

The cynically twisted slash that was his mouth.

He had kissed her. In days gone by she would have sold her soul for one kiss, just one kiss, from Colby Daken.

She would never have believed it would come to this. A tiny sob escaped her, before she could stifle it.

‘Very good,’ he said softly. ‘Very convincing. And oh, my God, very tantalizing. This summer—’ slowly, eyes never leaving hers, he ran the tip of his index finger over the chiseled curve of his upper lip, as if he would capture and store forever the memory of his stolen kiss ‘—is going to be far more fun than I’d expected. And before it ends, my darling Greer, I shall take you to my bed. And there I’ll find out just what it is about you that can make a man like Bradley Pierson succumb to your advances while his wife is in hospital waiting to give birth to their child. A challenge.’ His breath hissed in through narrowed nostrils. ‘That’s what you are. And one I accept.’

With a self-assured swing of his shoulders, he turned away and bounded down the steps. A moment later, she heard him open the screen door at the east side of his cottage; and then she heard the door clatter shut again.

Her mind in turmoil, Greer walked slowly down the steps, across the lawn and out onto the sandy white beach.

Why had she agreed to come with Gran to the cottage? Oh, what a mistake that had been. How she wished she had never come...

Still, when she thought of Jamie, and his troubled little mind, she acknowledged that perhaps something good would come out of this summer. Jem would get to know her great-grandson, and with her wonderful way of dealing with children, she might well be the means of drawing the boy from his state of unhappiness and confusion.

Had it not been for that, she would have reneged on her promise to Jem, and insisted they go back to the city right now.

She couldn’t. There was Jamie to consider.

She would just have to handle Colby as best she could, when he started his campaign to get her into his bed.

For that must never happen.

If she slept with him, he would discover she was a virgin. He would know she had never slept with Brad Pierson....

And he would have no option but to come up with another scenario, one that had obviously never crossed his mind.

It was Eleanor who had been involved with Brad. Eleanor, Colby’s own wife, the woman he’d loved so blindly it had verged on idolatry...and it would have destroyed him, Greer had believed then and still believed now... if he’d discovered she had betrayed him.

And this, of course, was why she’d agreed to cover up for her cousin. Oh, not for Eleanor’s sake—she had despised the woman for her adulterous behavior—but for Colby’s, to protect him from the truth that would have shattered him.

Now all Colby had left of his wife were his precious memories. And she, Greer, would do anything in her power to keep those memories intact.

Lisa Pierson and her three children turned up at Lake Trillium that afternoon.

Greer didn’t see them arrive. She’d gone out to the shed in the backyard after lunch, and had spent a couple of hours sorting out tools and planters and half-empty packages of this, that and the other, telling herself she was just getting things organized in case Jem had to sell the cottage...but all the time knowing in her heart that she was trying to avoid Colby.

Around four-thirty, she had just flopped down on an old tree stump outside the shed, and was wiping a grubby hand over her brow, when she heard the back door of the cottage swing open. Expecting to see Jem, she looked up with a smile...the smile changing to an exclamation of astonishment when she saw the woman coming down the path toward her, a petite brunette in her late thirties, dressed in a navy blouse and a pair of shorts.

Greer stumbled to her feet. ‘Mrs. Pierson?’

Lisa Pierson’s eyes glowed with pleasure. ‘Greer, I couldn’t believe it when Jem said you were here. I thought you’d given up on cottage living!’

Greer made a helpless gesture with one hand. ‘Is it really you? You look great—so slim and—’

She broke off, grimacing. But even as she started to murmur an embarrassed apology, Lisa laughed delightedly.

‘Don’t apologise, honey—it took two long years to lose those extra fifty pounds, and believe me, there’s nothing I like more than people complimenting me on my changed appearance. But you—’ she embraced Greer, and then stood back to examine her ‘—you look pretty wonderful yourself.’

Greer chuckled. ‘I hardly think so, Mrs. Pierson—I must look a sight, all cobwebs, and dust, and—’

‘Oh, drop the Mrs. Pierson, please!’ Lisa rolled her eyes. ‘You’re no longer a little girl...besides, you make me feel ancient. Call me Lisa. Look, I’ve got to dash—the kids and I just got here and I’ve left them unloading the van—but I’ll see you later. Jem has told me just enough about your successful career to whet my appetite—if I have one weakness, it’s gorgeous silk lingerie! But we’ll have loads of time to talk about that. I’ve brought enough steaks to feed an army and you and Jem are coming over for a barbecue. Around seven. Give us time to settle in. Okay?’

Greer knew, from Jem’s reports over the past several summers, that Lisa and her husband were still married, and still, apparently, happy together, but it sounded as if, on this trip at least, Lisa and the children were here on their own. Perhaps Brad was too busy at work to get away. Greer hoped that was the case; it was enough that she’d had to face Colby, without having to be in the company of the man she was supposed to have seduced into an illicit affair.

But even if Brad had been there, how could she have gotten out of the invitation? What possible excuse could she have come up with that would hold water? Besides, as far as she was aware, Lisa knew nothing of the incident that long-ago summer; she, Greer, would make sure it remained a secret. ‘I’ll look forward to it,’ she said. ‘Thanks a lot.’

‘Great. See you around seven.’

Greer stood watching Lisa bounce away along the path, her short brown hair as sleek as a seal’s, her trim behind attractively set off by her striped shorts and the shapely curve of her legs enhanced by the heels of her espadrilles.

Brad Pierson, Greer reflected wearily, was one very lucky man. Why would he ever have been foolish enough to risk losing a wife like Lisa?

She went back into the shed, but somehow, she had lost the zest for cleaning. It was too hot, of course...but Lisa’s visit had opened the doors to the past and, despite Greer’s earlier decision not to haul out her unhappy memories till later in the summer because she still felt too vulnerable to confront them, those memories—driven by forces over which she had no control—came rushing in...

Memories of the night her own happiness ended.

The night of the betrayal.

That summer, in late August, Mackenzie Daken had died, and Colby and Eleanor had come back to Canada for the funeral.

They’d been living in Australia since their wedding almost three years before, having chosen to settle there because Eleanor had wanted to be close to her widowed mother in Melbourne. Colby had started an Australian branch of Daken Construction and was doing extremely well.

Jem had attended the memorial service, but Greer—in the throes of final exams—had been unable to accompany her. Right after the exams were over, she had driven up to the lake with Jem, and didn’t come into contact with Colby till he and Eleanor turned up a week later; the couple planned to spend a few days there, readying the Daken cottage for sale.

For Greer, seeing Colby again was a taste of heaven, but she made sure she showed no sign to anyone that she was in love with him. Brad Pierson had come to the cottage for a few days, too; Lisa was carrying their third child, and it wasn’t due till October, but she’d been threatening to miscarry, so her doctor had hospitalized her. Brad’s mother was taking care of his two daughters, Brittany and Sarah, and Brad—stressed out with worry over Lisa, and with problems at work to boot—had taken some time off to relax.

That Colby was as besotted as ever with Eleanor was plain; and because it made Greer’s heart ache to watch them together, she’d spent a lot of time with Brad, laughing and joking with him much more than she normally would have, to make sure nobody suspected her real feelings.

On the third day after Colby and Eleanor arrived at the lake, Colby had gone to Toronto to meet with his father’s lawyers regarding the sale of Mac’s house in the city. Since the meeting was scheduled for evening, Colby planned to stay over and drive back to the cottage in the morning.

That night, Jem went to bed around eleven, leaving Greer and Eleanor sitting on the veranda at the Daken cottage, the moon lighting up the beach in a way that made it look like a silver and purple fairyland. Eleanor seemed restless, and disinclined to chat. In the end, Greer left her, and went off to bed.

But once there she couldn’t sleep for the heat. She tossed and turned for almost an hour, naked, on top of the covers, but sleep still eluded her, so in the end she got up. After slipping on a bikini, she tiptoed out of her room, hoping a stroll in the night air might cool her off.

She walked along the beach just below the cottages. All three were in darkness...and the occupants, she guessed, all asleep—Eleanor in the Daken cottage, Jem in the Westbury cottage and Brad in his.

But after she’d gone a little way past the Pierson place, she heard an unfamiliar sound ahead. It seemed to come from the edge of the forest about ten feet away, from the black-shadowed grassy area under a large maple tree. It sounded, Greer decided with a frown, like someone crying.

She paused, listening intently. It sounded like Eleanor. But whatever could be wrong? Trying to decide what to do, Greer crept forward hesitantly, stopping with a shiver after she’d gone a few steps into the dark shadowy area under the tree.

For long minutes, she stood there, but heard nothing now but the whisper of the breeze in the leafy branches above her head. She had just convinced herself she’d been mistaken, when she heard the sobbing again...very close by. But...no, not sobbing. Moaning. Moaning that, as she stood frozen, bewilderedly peering down into the dark shadows, became more anguished, pained...a panting, desperate—

She thought she saw a shimmer of blond hair not a yard away. She was about to whisper ‘Eleanor? Is that you?’ when she heard it. Heard the sound that jolted her heart against her lungs so she could scarcely breathe. A groan...

A man’s groan.

And a voice. A man’s voice. Brad’s voice, rasping out words...of passion.

Then Eleanor’s whisper—husky, and brittle with excitement. ‘Do you like this?’ There was a rustle of sound. ‘Oh, I know you’re going to like this...’

Another groan. Again a man’s groan, thick, deep-throated.

And then...an escalating series of inarticulate pleas, Eleanor’s whimpered ‘Don’t stop, oh, don’t stop now...’ and then a crescendo of—

Hands pressed hard against her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the horrible, the unthinkable, Greer stumbled behind the maple tree. With a stifled cry, she sank to the ground, and squeezing her eyes shut, rocked back and forth, back and forth—

‘What the hell is going on in there?’

Colby’s voice shattered the air. Harsh, challenging, it ripped through Greer like the jagged blade of a chain saw. For a terrifying moment, she thought he was addressing her. Aghast, she peeked around the tree trunk...but when she saw where he was standing on the beach, his white shirt fluorescent in the moonlight, she knew he couldn’t possibly have seen her. No, he was addressing the two people who had been making love in the shadows, so close to her she could now hear their ragged breathing. He must have come walking along the beach, to stretch his legs after the long drive from Toronto—

‘Pierson!’ Colby’s bellow almost deafened Greer. ‘I can see it’s you! Get out here!’

A frantic female whisper sizzled in the air then Greer heard a startled protest, swiftly cut off. Immediately after, someone brushed past her into the forest—Eleanor, light on her feet as she scrambled by in the dark, leaving behind nothing but a hint of her perfume. And then... Brad’s voice, panicky, uncertain. ‘Greer—wait—’

Greer felt her heartbeats jar. Why was Brad saying her name? But as her mind reeled confusedly, she heard Colby’s voice again, so harsh now it was almost unrecognizable.

‘Greer, come out this minute. If you don’t, by God, I’ll come in and get you!’

She had never heard him so angry. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she uncoiled her body and got up unsteadily. She reached out to the tree trunk to support herself, but lost her balance. With a cry, she fell sideways against the sun-dried branches of a bush, the crackling noise echoing in the stillness, echoing and reechoing, over and over.

Colby thudded toward her, and before she could draw a breath, he had pulled her out onto the moonlit beach.

Brad had come out of his hiding place, too, right behind her, but she had no time to waste thinking of Brad. All her thoughts were centered on Colby...and when she saw the expression of revulsion on his face as he looked at her, she felt as if she was sliding down into a dark bottomless hole. It was obvious he believed she’d been the one making love with Brad...because Eleanor—with Brad’s cooperation—had set it up that way.

Oh, what a sly and selfish mind her cousin had...and oh, what a swiftly manipulative one. She could have had no idea that Greer was close by; she was probably on her way now to the Westbury cottage, intent on securing Greer’s cooperation in this deception. Greer knew it was in her power to wipe the look of contempt from Colby’s face; knew that with a few quiet words, she could exonerate herself and regain his respect.

But even as pain twisted her heart so she almost cried out with the intensity of it, she realized that his pain would be even greater than her own, if he were to find out the truth.

‘Oh, spare the tears,’ he said with soft menace as his steely grip on her wrist tightened, ‘spare me the tears.’ His indrawn breath was harsh...his tone cruel as he said, ‘Get inside! I have some things I want to...say... to Brad Pierson and you don’t want to be around to hear them!’

Greer spun her blurred gaze to Brad. Would he say the words that would clear her? She could see by the evasive shift of his gaze that he would not. Oh, she was well aware that all she ought to feel for him was repugnance, but she couldn’t help feeling a faint welling of pity, too. He had had his moment of pleasure, and now he’d have to pay for it. She just hoped he felt it was worth it. At least, in her own case, she knew that Colby would never lay a hand on her.

It might have been easier if he had, she’d often thought afterward; easier to bear a physical punishment—for a sin of which she was innocent—than to have to bear the contempt he heaped on her the following evening.

Physical punishment might have broken her bones, but the punishment he did inflict on her—the withdrawal of his affection and friendship—had broken her heart.

And from that, she had never recovered.

‘Greer, darling, I’ve made a pot of tea!’

Startled back to the present, she saw Jem at the back door, and determinedly squashing her memories, she gave a quick wave, and walked along the path to join her.

‘The barbecue’s going to be such fun,’ Jem said. ‘Lisa has invited Colby, too. It’ll be just like old times.’

‘It will, won’t it!’ Greer said lightly as she tried to ignore the sudden jarring of her heartbeats. ‘Except, of course, that Brad won’t be there.’

‘Oh, didn’t Lisa mention?’ Jem patted her topknot. ‘Brad is coming later, in the Mercedes. He’ll be here by eight.’


CHAPTER FOUR

THE WRAPAROUND veranda at the Pierson cottage was roofed, its wooden furniture painted sage green to blend in with the surrounding landscape...and flowers were everywhere. Orange geranium spilled from clay pots on the deck and the stairs; bowls of lupins adorned the low casual tables; and ivies, sapphire lobelia, and fuchsia trailed in profusion from hanging moss baskets suspended by hooks from the eaves.

Normally Greer would have delighted in looking at the colorful blossoms and inhaling their sweet and spicy scents, but—for her, at least—tonight was not normal. Her love for Colby kept threatening to spill over, and she was terrified it would show in her eyes, her voice, her body language...but along with that love smoldered a burning resentment at the way he was treating her, and the constant effort to control her conflicting emotions had stimulated a pain in her temples that showed no signs of letting up...




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