A Family Likeness
A Family Likeness
Margot Dalton
Margot Dalton's creativity dazzles…–Bethany Campbell, bestselling author of See How They RunShe "sold" her baby…Fifteen years ago desperate circumstances had forced Gina Mitchell to do the unthinkable. Give up her baby daughter hours after the birth.Now Alex Colton–a man she's never met–has checked in to Gina's bed-and-breakfast with his rebellious teenage daughter. One look at the girl and Gina knows she can no longer escape her past.Alex is a good father, but he's never told his daughter the circumstances of her birth, and he has no idea that his child–Gina's child–is living a nightmare. A nightmare only her birth mother can end."Margot Dalton's creativity dazzles. She's a writer who always delivers probing characterization, ingenious plotting, riveting pace and impeccable craft. She can completely engage both the reader's mind and emotion. She's superb."–Bethany Campbell, bestselling author of See How They Run
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u1b64f16f-7669-55af-9e32-60e991a86521)
Excerpt (#u71ba6974-2936-591c-944a-cbdfc423569d)
About The Author (#ub365999b-0c62-5a4b-ab9a-8979c070bac4)
Title Page (#u2db3d484-edf9-5c49-9aa4-edd73ab58508)
CHAPTER ONE (#uda248c9a-6aaf-5860-949f-c7c79720cf11)
CHAPTER TWO (#u077fa7f2-4076-5a9c-8c55-db09b400e305)
CHAPTER THREE (#ua5ecac6f-62f1-5f31-85da-965c68f0b0c1)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u2aff7180-9038-537a-b519-1f171b4bb714)
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)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Alex, I have something to tell
you about your daughter.
“I should have told you before, but I was…” Gina’s voice broke. She rummaged in the pocket of her jeans, took out her billfold and extracted a photograph from one of the side pockets. Wordlessly, she handed it to Alex.
He studied the smiling girl in the picture, his eyes widening. “It’s Steffi,” he said at last, then hesitated. “Isn’t it? She looks older.”
“It’s not Steffi. It’s my sister, Claudia, when she was Steffi’s age. You can see a difference in her mouth. Steffi has your mouth.”
“I don’t understand. How can they look so alike?”
“Because they’re related. Claudia is Steffi’s aunt”
“Her aunt? What are you saying, Gina?”
“I’m Steffi’s biological mother.…”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Family Likeness, Margot Dalton’s sixteenth Superromance novel, is set in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, where the author has lived for the past seven years and been inspired by the spectacular beauty and natural wildness of her surroundings.
This bestselling author has also written seven books in Harlequin’s popular CRYSTAL CREEK series, two mainstream titles for MIRA Books, and has contributed to two anthologies.
A Family Likeness
Margot Dalton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_83f52616-34bf-5b2b-9599-2cc84329bb3c)
“NOW, LET’S SEE…it’s seven inches down to this little bunch of flowers, and four and a half inches up from the bottom…”
Gina made a pencil mark at one end of the strip of wallpaper stretched out on the floor, then crawled briskly over the hardwood, pencil clamped between her teeth, to make a corresponding mark farther down on the roll.
“Did I say four and a half inches?” she muttered, pausing to frown at the paper. “Or did I say four?”
“Who are you talking to?”
Gina glanced up at the doorway, then gestured toward the wall behind her. “Hi, Mary. Isn’t this pretty?”
Her housekeeper strolled into the room, wiping her hands on her apron, and looked at the strips of new wallpaper that partly framed an upholstered window seat.
“You were right,” she said in surprise. “I thought it was too yellow, but it looks really nice on the wall.”
“I knew it would. This paper is exactly what I wanted.”
“Listen to her,” Mary said indulgently. “The girl who always knows what she wants. You’re too young to be talking to yourself.”
Gina crawled back around to measure the strip again. “Four and a half inches,” she said. “I thought so.”
Mary dabbed with her dishcloth at a tiny soiled patch near the edge of the window seat. “I’ve got to find the time to clean all these before the summer rush,” she murmured.
“Now you’re doing it.” Gina held the ruler in place to make a pencil line, then started cutting.
“Doing what?”
“Talking to yourself.”
“I’m sixty years old,” Mary said placidly, smiling and looking out the window as a pair of white butterflies danced an aerial ballet near the lilacs. “I can talk to myself anytime I want.”
“Well, I’ll be thirty-six next week.”
Gina rolled the strip of wallpaper and plunged it into a narrow plastic trough. She stood erect, holding the dripping sheet of paper over the trough, and glanced at the other woman.
“You know, Mary,” she said, “there are times when I can hardly believe it.”
“What?” Mary sat down on the window seat, fingering the yellow chintz upholstery with a dreamy faraway look.
“That I’m almost thirty-six years old. Where have all the years gone? It seems like yesterday that I bought this place.”
“There’ve been a lot of yesterdays,” Mary said in her gentle voice. “And you’re right, they’re really flying by.”
“Well, I guess that means we’re having fun, right?” Gina said dryly. “Even though it doesn’t always feel like it.”
“You love this place,” Mary said.
Gina carried the wet length of paper across the room and climbed the ladder. She frowned in concentration as she fitted the strip into place, matching the pattern carefully. “You’re right,” she said. “This was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t find it pretty frustrating sometimes.”
She took a sponge from the tray on the step-ladder and began to smooth the paper. Mary asked, “The only thing?”
“Beg pardon?” Gina was still wiping briskly at the damp paper.
“Gina, you’ve got a big wrinkle there on the edge, right under that yellow basket.”
Gina smoothed the wallpaper while Mary watched her with a thoughtful eye. “I just wondered,” the housekeeper went on, leaning back against the broad oak window frame, “whether that’s really true. I mean, that running this business is the only thing you ever wanted.”
“Of course it’s true. What else have I ever wanted to do?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
Gina’s face shadowed and she turned away quickly. “If you mean a husband and babies, I’ve never wanted them. You and Roger are my family.”
Mary smiled. “Some family,” she said.
“It makes me happy.” Gina climbed down from the ladder to smooth the bottom of the wallpaper, then trimmed it above the wide baseboard. “Families come in all shapes and sizes, you know.”
“I know.” Mary got to her feet and headed for the door. “But you and me and Roger, we’re a mighty strange family by anyone’s standards.”
Still kneeling at the baseboard, Gina looked over her shoulder. “Speaking of Roger, don’t forget to tell him about that cracked toilet seat in the blue room, all right?”
Mary’s cheeks turned pink with distress. “You’ll have to tell him yourself,” she said. “I’m still not speaking to him.”
Gina sighed and got to her feet. “Now what are you two fighting about?” It seemed the housekeeper and the handyman/caretaker were always at odds over something.
“The man keeps insisting on sneaking food to Annabel, even though I’ve specifically asked him not to.”
“But Roger loves Annabel. You know he does.”
“She’s my dog,” Mary said firmly. “And the vet says she’s too fat. She needs a low-calorie diet. How can she lose weight if that man insists on giving table scraps to her behind my back?”
“Roger’s just too softhearted. He can’t stand to hear the way Annabel whimpers in the pantry during every meal. It really is a heartbreaking sound, you know.”
“She’s my dog,” Mary repeated with uncharacteristic stubbornness. “I guess I know what’s best for her.”
“I’m sure you do.” Gina gave up the argument. “I’ll talk to Roger, all right?”
Mary nodded, looking somewhat mollified, and paused in the doorway. “Oh, by the way, I just remembered what I came up here to tell you. A man called a few minutes ago.”
“What man?”
“Name’s Alex Colton. Said he wanted to talk to you about a room.”
“Did you get his number?”
Mary shook her head. “He’s in town. I gave him directions and he said he’d drive out this afternoon to make arrangements with you in person.”
Gina looked at the messy scraps of wallpaper and the damp floor. “Well, I hope he doesn’t get here until I’ve had time to finish this,” she said. “I was really hoping for just one day when I could work without any interruptions.”
“There’s no such day in this business.” Mary smiled, her sunny nature apparently restored. “After fourteen years, you should know that, dear. It looks real nice,” she added, gesturing at the wall. “You’re doing a lovely job.” Then she was gone, vanishing down the gleaming oak staircase that descended to the lower foyer past a wall of stained glass.
Gina stood in the doorway and watched, thinking about her housekeeper. Mary Schick was worth her weight in gold. She’d been here almost since Gina had first opened the old mansion as a bed-and-breakfast. It was hard to imagine the place without her. A small spare woman with graying hair worn in a careless perm, the housekeeper was the kind of quiet efficient person upon whom people seemed automatically to depend. In fact, she’d spent her entire life looking after others. She’d settled in right after high school to run her family’s restaurant and look after her parents. She’d never married, had never even left Azure Bay. When her mother died and her father soon afterward, she’d sold the restaurant, happy to be free of the responsibility, and come to work as a cook and housekeeper for Gina Mitchell.
A few months later, Mary had sold her parents’ little house in the village, as well, and moved into the bed-and-breakfast as a permanent resident. She and Gina had been together ever since.
Fourteen years, Gina thought as she walked back into the guest room shaking her head in disbelief. She knelt to measure the next strip of wallpaper, then squinted up at the wall to determine the pattern match.
But Mary’s visit had set Gina’s thoughts on another track, and keeping her mind on the job at hand became increasingly difficult.
“Almost thirty-six years old,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “Lord, I can’t believe it. Where has the time gone?”
She got up, the pencil in her hand forgotten, and wandered over to look out the window. Beyond the leaded-glass panels, a willow tree swayed and rustled in the warm breeze, partially obscuring her view of the lake. Gina stared into the trailing green branches, thinking about the swift passage of time.
Framed by the window, she could have been a boy. She wore loose denim shorts, a white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and frayed sneakers. Her body was slim and sun-browned from hours of working outside in the yard and garden, and her curly dark hair was cropped short. She had hazel eyes, high cheekbones dusted with freckles, and a sober level gaze that belied the boyishness of her face and body.
Fourteen years, she thought again, opening the casement window and leaning out to look across the lake. Almost half her life had been poured into this place.
But Gina had no regrets. Edgewood Manor was her life; it was her passion, her dream come true. Few people ever had the chance to live out a fantasy the way she had, right from the beginning.
She remembered the first time she’d seen the old mansion, and the powerful visceral surge of yearning she’d felt when she looked at its stately facade, its spacious grounds. From that moment, at the edge of twenty-one, she’d wanted the place for herself, and she would have done anything to get enough money to make the down payment.
In fact, what she had done to raise the money had been almost unthinkable…
Gina’s face tightened. Those were memories she never allowed herself to dwell on. They were buried deep in the past, and she intended to leave them hidden there forever. It was enough to know that Edgewood Manor was hers. As long as she could keep her business operating at a modest profit and make the mortgage payments on time, nobody could ever take the house away from her.
Nobody, she thought fiercely, gripping the window frame.
She swung her gaze to the orchard. It was early June, and the blossoms on the fruit trees had vanished, replaced by a drift of fresh green leaves. Soon the fruit would ripen, and they’d pick baskets of apples and pears and luscious apricots, and Mary would make jam and preserves. Then the frost would come and the leaves would fall. Snow would drift across the mountains, hiding the lake in shrouds of mist.
And another year would pass, and another…
Gina caught sight of a solitary figure down in the side yard, under one of the apple trees.
“Roger!” she called, leaning out the window. “What are you doing?”
The caretaker looked up and waved a length of wood he appeared to be whittling.
“Don’t go away,” Gina said. “I’m coming down.”
She glanced at the unfinished wall, the partial roll of wallpaper on the floor and the untidy clutter of scissors, rulers and paper scraps. With a rueful shake of her head, she left the room and ran lightly down the stairs.
An elderly couple were in the plant-filled sunroom when she passed, reclining in wicker chairs among the ferns and reading peacefully. Gina paused to smile at them.
“Hello,” she said. “Are you enjoying our Okanagan sunshine?”
“It’s heaven,” the woman said, lowering her book. “We came all the way from Pennsylvania to stay at this place, you know. Friends of ours were here two years ago, and they never stopped talking about how wonderful it was.”
“Really?” Gina said, pleased. “From Pennsylvania?”
The man nodded. “The Piedmonts,” he said. “Allan and Sheila.”
“Oh, I remember them,” Gina said. “They were here in the fall, I think. In fact, I seem to recall that Mr. Piedmont spent most of his time outside taking pictures of the autumn foliage.”
“Allan’s a real camera nut,” the woman said. “Sheila gets so annoyed with him.”
Gina lingered for a moment, exchanging pleasantries with the guests, then excused herself and went out through the French doors.
She crossed the flagstone courtyard, where a young honeymoon couple shared one of the wrought-iron benches near a rose-covered trellis, talking in low tones.
They looked up at Gina with shy smiles as she passed, then returned immediately to their conversation, heads close together and fingers intertwined. Gina ignored the tiny pang of envy she felt. The young couple had a closeness, an almost palpable aura of love that shut the rest of the world out.
She moved to the gate set in the honeysuckle hedge, then trotted across the clipped grass to the orchard.
“Hi, Roger,” she said, approaching the tall man in a plaid shirt and denim overalls who sat under the apple tree whittling. “What’s that?”
“One of the spindles on the back stairway is warped. I’m carving a new one.”
Gina looked in awe at the length of oak, which had been partially turned on the lathe in Roger’s workshop at the back of the house and was now being hand-finished to match the other spindles.
“It’s amazing,” she said, bending to run her fingers along the wooden shaft. “When you’re done, I probably won’t know which spindle you replaced unless you point it out to me.”
“Well, I certainly hope not,” Roger said placidly. He returned to his carving while Gina leaned against the tree and considered how to tell him that his habit of sneaking food to Annabel was a source of great distress to Mary.
It was funny about this pair. Roger and Mary were about the same age, and Roger, like the housekeeper, had wandered into Gina’s life just when she’d needed him most.
She’d still been fairly new in the business then, struggling to make a success of her bed-and-breakfast operation and cope with the mortgage payments. Mary had helped a lot in those early years, with her housekeeping skills and her genius in the kitchen. But Gina was still crushed by the constant repairs that needed to be done, and the prohibitive expense of getting tradespeople out from the city.
Then, one mellow autumn day, Roger had dropped into her world like a gift from the gods, and things had begun to run smoothly.
Roger hadn’t arrived looking for work. He’d actually been a paying guest, an executive from a Vancouver-based lumber company trying to deal with burnout and job stress by taking a holiday in British Columbia’s lovely Okanagan Valley.
Despite his desk job, Roger was a man who could turn his hand to almost anything. He’d entertained himself during his vacation by helping Gina with leaky pipes, ill-fitting windows and warped doors.
When it was time for his holiday to end, he decided he didn’t want to leave. So he simply mailed in his resignation, moved his accounts to the bank in Azure Bay, bought a snug little house and property just down the road from the hotel and stayed on as Gina’s handyman and caretaker.
“I don’t know how I ever ran this place without you,” she told him now, watching as he carved neat grooves into the bottom portion of the spindle. “What on earth would I ever do if you left?”
“You’d manage,” Roger said comfortably. “You’re not a girl who needs help from anybody, Gina. You’re a real survivor.”
She thought about that, enjoying the way the long curls of wood fell away from the oak shaft under his hands. “Everybody thinks I’m so tough and independent,” she said at last. “But lots of times I don’t feel that way at all.”
He smiled up at her. Roger was nearly bald, with a tall angular body and eyes that were blue and tranquil under silvered brows.
Gina sometimes wondered how he’d adapted so readily to this life-style, which must have been, after all, a radical departure from his old existence.
Roger never talked about his past. Apparently he had no family or emotional entanglements, and seemed to be financially independent. At least, he managed without apparent discomfort on the small salary that was all Gina could afford, ate most of his meals with Gina and Mary in the hotel kitchen and passed his free time happily in his little farmhouse. For hobbies, he had his woodworking and a lovely old cello he played with surprising skill in a local chamber-music group.
“Mary’s upset with you again,” Gina said at last. “I promised I’d talk to you.”
Roger sighed. “What did I do this time?”
“It seems you’ve been sabotaging Annabel’s diet.”
Roger looked up, feigning innocence. “Is Annabel on a diet?”
“Roger, you know she’s too fat.”
“She certainly is. She’s probably the most obese poodle in the province.”
“So why do you insist on feeding her table scraps?”
Roger grinned and began to carve another neat groove. “That animal was howling so loud yesterday the couple in the patio room were complaining about the noise. I just gave her an old soup bone to chew on, that’s all.”
“With a bit of meat on it?” Gina asked wryly.
“Maybe a little,” he admitted.
She chuckled, then sobered. “You’re a sweetie, Roger, and you know how much I love you. But you’ve got to stop upsetting Mary that way. Someday this will escalate to the point where I’ll lose one of you, and then I’ll probably have to close the business.”
“Nobody’s indispensable,” Roger said mildly. “Always remember that, Gina. You could get along perfectly well without either one of us. We’re just a habit, you know. A well-worn groove.”
Gina glanced at him sharply, caught by something in his tone. “You keep saying things like that.”
“Do I?”
“Lately you’re always talking about how capable I am, and how perfectly well I could manage on my own. Are you setting me up, Roger? Is there something you want to tell me?”
He shook his head and went back to his careful whittling. “I don’t like hearing you say you’d have to close the place down if one of us left, that’s all. It doesn’t sound like you, Gina. You’re a fighter, not a quitter.”
“I know. But I’ve grown used to having companions in the battle, that’s all. I’d really hate to be all alone again.”
“So why don’t you find some nice young man to work at your side?”
Gina kicked his leg gently with the toe of her sneaker.
“Stop that,” she said. “Immediately.”
Roger moved his leg slightly. “I mean it,” he said, holding the shaft of wood to his eye like a rifle and squinting down its length. “You’re not that bad-looking, and still reasonably young. Aren’t there any decent prospects out there who don’t mind a skinny, freckled, hot-tempered girl with a will of iron?”
Gina relented and sank onto the grass, sitting cross-legged next to him and frowning at a ragged tear in the hem of her shorts. “All the men I meet fall roughly into two categories,” she said.
“Okay.” He put the wood down and rubbed his knife on a small whetstone, then tested the blade with his thumb. “I’ll bite. What are they?”
Gina plucked a stem of grass and chewed on it thoughtfully. “Well, there’s the kind of man who feels really threatened by a woman living alone and running her own successful business. Those men seem to need to put me down in all kinds of subtle ways just to prove they’re still dominant.”
“Mmm. That’s attractive,” Roger said. “What’s the other kind?”
“The ones who think what I’m doing is great, because they could move in with me and have a nice free ride on my efforts.”
“Equally attractive. So which category’s worse?”
“I don’t know,” Gina said gloomily, throwing the grass away. “I hate them both.”
“Not an attitude that’s going to get your dance card filled, my dear.”
She grinned and got to her feet. “Oh, there are a whole lot of openings in my social calendar, all right. And it’s probably a good thing, because I never have .enough time to get my work done as it is.”
“Speaking of work, what are you doing in the gold room this afternoon?”
“Putting up new wallpaper. You should come and see it, Roger. It looks terrific, especially around the window seat.”
“Isn’t that the paper Mary thought was going to be too yellow?”
“Yes, but now she admits she was wrong.”
“She does?” Roger’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Now, there’s a first. For such a timid little thing, Mary can be pretty hardheaded in her opinions, you know.”
“You be nice,” Gina told him severely.
She left him under the tree with his whittling, strolled across the grass and let herself through the gate into the courtyard, recalling, too late, that she still hadn’t told Roger about the cracked toilet seat in the blue room.
No rush, she decided. Roger was busy with other things at the moment, and the blue room wasn’t booked for at least a week.
She paused inside the hedge and looked up at the house. Even after all these years, the sight of its massive vine-covered bulk against the distant violet of the mountains and the cloudless blue sky was enough to make her heart beat faster.
“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” a feminine voice said at her elbow, echoing her thoughts. “Like a scene out of Sleeping Beauty or something.”
Gina turned and smiled at the honeymoon couple who, dressed in bathing suits now and carrying towels, were on their way down the path to the beach. They were an attractive pair, both medical students from Minnesota who’d just completed their residencies before their June wedding. This Canadian honeymoon had been a gift from the groom’s parents.
“The house is more than a hundred years old, fairly ancient by local standards,” Gina told them. “Actually it’s quite a romantic story.”
“Tell us,” the girl commanded, leaning against her young husband and gazing up at him. “We’re in the mood for romance these days.”
Gina smiled, thinking about their cozy love nest up in the rose pink dormer room with its little stone fireplace.
“The house was built by Josiah Edgewood,” she began. “Josiah was a Scottish nobleman and adventurer who came out to Canada when he was a young man and discovered gold up north in the Caribou region. Josiah made a fortune at his mine and fell in love with the area. He picked the Okanagan Valley for its spectacular scenery and mild winters, and started trying to convince his new wife to come and join him here.”
“But she wouldn’t?” the young bride asked, still looking up at her husband as if unable to believe that any woman would be reluctant to follow her man to the ends of the earth. He dropped a kiss on her nose.
“She was afraid. Poor little Lady Edgewood,” Gina said. “She was barely out of her teens and quite frail, and she thought this whole country was overrun with wolves and grizzly bears. She refused even to consider living in the wilderness unless Josiah could provide her with some decent accommodation.”
“So he built this big house?” the groom asked.
Gina smiled. “Wait till you hear the story. Josiah moved the house. Most of this is the original Edgewood Manor from the family estate near Kilmarnock in Scotland. Josiah had the whole structure dismantled and every piece marked. It was shipped across the ocean in crates, a proceeding that took several years to accomplish. The house was reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle right here on the shores of Okanagan Lake. All to please his darling Elizabeth.”
Both young people gazed at her, enchanted. Gina understood their rapt expressions, because she, too, always felt a little thrill whenever she thought about Josiah’s great venture.
If she could ever meet a man like that, a real man with a generous spirit and a strength to match her own, maybe then she wouldn’t be so reluctant to share her life…
“So what happened?” the girl asked. “Did Elizabeth come and live here with him? I hope she didn’t die on the ship coming over and leave him all heartbroken or anything.”
“She certainly didn’t,” Gina said cheerfully. “She arrived to find her manor house completely reproduced on the shores of a Canadian lake, right down to the chandeliers and the stained glass on the stair landings. She was so happy she gave Josiah a big hug and a kiss and settled right in to have babies.”
“How many?”
“Eight. Six girls and two boys. She became the queen of local society and a generous patron of the arts and charities, too. She lived in the house until she died more than seventy years later. That was about 1960, I believe.”
“What happened to the house after that?”
“It went through some pretty hard times,” Gina said. “None of Josiah Edgewood’s offspring wanted to live here, so they tried various money-making projects, like opening the manor up for day tourists and dividing it into apartments. Both the value and appearance declined rapidly, and about fifteen years ago they decided to put it on the market.”
“And?” the young man asked, toying absently with a strand of his wife’s long blond hair.
“And I bought it,” Gina said. “I’d just finished a degree course in hotel management. I was on my summer vacation, like you are. I came out to Azure Bay with a friend to spend a day swimming and lazing on the beach, saw this tumbledown old place and fell in love at first sight. I knew it would be perfect for a bed-and-breakfast, which was something I wanted to run.”
“But you must have been so young!” the bride said in awe. “Younger than we are, even. How could you ever buy a big place like this?”
“Well, for one thing, I had a small inheritance from my grandmother.” Gina’s voice was offhand, but her stomach tightened at the memory of that awful time. “And the bank was really impressed with my plans for restoring the building and developing a business.”
“Bankers aren’t all that easy to impress.” The young doctor looked at her with frank admiration. “Nowadays it seems they only lend money to people who already have lots.”
Gina gazed across the rippling turquoise waters of the lake. “I know. It all happened so long ago the details are pretty hard to remember. But I managed it somehow,” she said with forced casualness. “So, you two are off for a swim?”
“If the water’s warm enough. Yesterday it still felt like ice.”
Gina laughed at the girl’s expression. “Okanagan Lake is more than eighty miles long from one end to the other, you know, and it’s mostly fed by snow melting up in the mountains. The water doesn’t really warm up for another month or so. But with the hot weather we’ve been having, it should be getting tolerable.”
“Jenny’s just scared of the lake monster,” her husband said, ruffling his wife’s hair fondly. “What’s his name again?”
“Ogopogo,” Gina told him. “Lots of the local people say they’ve seen him. He’s supposed to be about sixty feet long, quite playful, with several humps and a head much like a horse.”
“Have you ever seen him?” Jenny asked.
Gina smiled. “Maybe,” she said. “But I’m not telling. Hurry up and go for your swim, or you won’t be back in time for tea.”
“I love teatime,” the husband said with enthusiasm.
“Forget the tea and cakes,” his wife teased. “The sherry’s what he really likes.”
The young man grinned, then ran off along the path to the beach, laughing as his wife came scrambling after him.
Gina watched them until they disappeared behind a rocky promontory. At last she turned and headed back up to the house, climbing the stairs to the gold room with its piles of wallpaper scraps.
SOON SHE WAS ABSORBED in her task again, lulled by the mechanics of the job, the careful measuring and fitting and the almost magical transformation as the fresh new paper covered the faded walls.
Gina hummed softly, thinking about curtains. The old lace panels looked limp and discolored against the new paper. Maybe she’d make a set of white priscillas for the window seat. Or some muslin panels on fling rods, trimmed with macramé lace…
She frowned, considering, and took a step closer to examine the window frame. In most of her decorating projects, she tried to stick to an authentic Victorian look, which was in keeping with the rest of the house. But window coverings, those were a real challenge.
She preferred a light fresh look in draperies, something that let in the marvelous scenery and the fragrant breezes from the garden and the lake. She hated the Victorian habit of swathing windows in yards and yards of heavy brocade and damask, often further cluttered with fringes and valances, all designed to keep the sun at bay. She paused to look out the window, pleased by the sights and sounds of her little world. Far below on the beach, she could see the honeymoon couple lying on the beach, stretched out on their dark blue Edgewood towels, their hands touching.
The elderly couple had left the sunroom and were strolling in the garden, admiring the geraniums. No other guests were in evidence, although five of Gina’s nine rooms were currently occupied. People tended to scatter after breakfast, off exploring the countryside or visiting one of the resort towns along the lake.
But they were usually careful to get back in time for afternoon tea, served with cakes and sherry in the wood-paneled library. This charming custom had been established with great success during Gina’s early years at Edgewood Manor, and was one of the features that brought people back year after year.
Through the open window, she could hear a gentle medley of sounds. Bees hummed drowsily among the flowers in the garden, Mary’s pudgy poodle whimpered somewhere nearby—obviously still suffering from hunger pangs—and sea gulls cried around the dock.
It was heaven, Gina thought, absently fingering one of the lace panels. The place was simply heaven.
“Hello?” a voice said behind her, startling her. “Are you Gina Mitchell?”
She dropped the curtain, whirled around—and found herself staring in confusion at one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ca7601d5-d5bc-5717-80d1-d87a75867f68)
GINA STUDIED the newcomer. He appeared to be about forty, no more than average height, but powerfully built. He wore casual pleated slacks and a white polo shirt, and had curly dark hair, heavily frosted with gray at the temples. His face, with its finely chiseled features and clear intelligent blue eyes, was severe in repose, despite the fullness of his lower lip. She thought his mouth hinted at a sensual nature, well controlled but very intense.
“I’m sorry if I startled you.” His tone was courteous. “My name’s Alex Colton. I phoned earlier to say I’d be coming out this afternoon.”
“Oh, that’s right. My housekeeper mentioned your call. But I’ve been so busy today I forgot all about it.”
Colton looked around at the wet scraps of paper littering the hardwood, then at the flowered walls, now almost completely covered. He turned back to Gina with a smile. “It looks great. You’re quite the decorator.”
The smile surprised her. It transformed his face, driving away the severity and making him seem happy, almost boyish. But as suddenly as it had appeared, the smile faded and the severity returned.
Or was it sadness? Gina wondered. If a woman lived with this man, she’d probably spend a lot of her time trying to make him smile.
Gina wiped her hands briskly on her shorts and moved past him to the door. “My housekeeper mentioned that you were interested in renting a room?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I wanted to discuss terms,” he said. “If you have a few minutes to spare.”
“I always have time to spare for business.”
Gina led the way down the stairs, conscious of Alex Colton just behind her. For such a powerfully built man, he had a tread as light as a cat.
“That window is magnificent,” he said, gazing upward. “Do you happen to know who did the stained glass?”
Gina paused in the foyer by the newel post, fingering an intricate carving of grape leaves in the polished oak. For the second time that afternoon, she told the story of Josiah Edgewood and his reluctant bride.
Colton stood above her on the stairs and listened in apparent fascination, emotions playing visibly across his face. The man was such a good audience that Gina had to force herself to stop talking. She felt as if she could go on for hours, telling him stories about the house and its history, enjoying the way his eyes lit up and that elusive smile touched his mouth.
“Well, it seems my wife was right, as usual,” he said at last. “I think this place is going to be perfect for us.”
His wife.
Gina was surprised and a little annoyed with herself for her swift surge of disappointment. After all, she was hardly the sort of woman who looked on every man as a romantic prospect.
She led the way across the foyer and into her office. Moving behind the broad oak desk, she gestured to one of the leather chairs nearby and reached into a drawer for the reservation book. Her guest settled in a chair and examined the placid scene beyond the window.
“When were you and your wife thinking of coming to stay with us, Mr. Colton?”
He glanced at her, looking startled and unhappy, and turned back to his study of the yard. “What’s wrong with that dog?” he asked.
Gina followed his gaze, watching as Mary’s fat white poodle lumbered past the window and settled near a clump of pink alyssum, whining piteously.
“She’s hungry,” Gina said. “Her name’s Annabel and I’m afraid she’s on a diet.”
“She certainly should be,” Colton said with another of those brief shining smiles. “But she doesn’t seem to have a lot of willpower, does she?”
“Not a lot,” Gina agreed. “Annabel doesn’t believe in suffering silently.”
She stole a glance at her visitor, who was still watching the dog. He looked so intrigued that once again she had to suppress the urge to keep talking, to tell him all about Mary and Roger and their running conflict over the care and feeding of Annabel.
“We’re getting a lot of bookings for the summer,” Gina said, studying her reservations again. “But we have a few weekend rooms left in June, and a fair number of openings in the fall, though Christmas is already—”
“I want the whole summer,” he said abruptly.
Gina looked at him in astonishment. “The whole summer?”
“That is, if the place looks as great under close inspection as it does on first impression.”
She fingered her pen nervously. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, Mr. Colton, that our prices are…somewhat higher than normal accommodation rates in the area.”
“About a hundred and fifty dollars a day,” he agreed calmly. “My wife had a brochure about the place, and I hope it isn’t too far out-of-date. Are those .prices still accurate?”
Gina nodded. “There’s quite a lot of variation from room to room,” she said. “Some of the smaller rooms are less than a hundred a day, but the attic suite, for instance, is two-fifty.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because of its size and the amenities. There’s a wood-burning fireplace, a king-size sleigh bed on a platform fitted with steps, a large antique bathroom with a two-person whirlpool tub and a covered balcony overlooking the lake.”
“Sounds like a honeymoon suite,” he said.
“Often it is.”
“And is the attic suite occupied at the moment?” he asked.
“There’s a young couple from Minnesota staying there for the weekend. They’ll be gone on Tuesday.”
“Well, it sounds beautiful, but probably not exactly what I’m looking for. What about that room you were working in?”
“That’s the gold room,” Gina said. “It’s about midrange. It has leaded-glass casement windows, a gas fireplace and a small balcony. It’s a hundred and seventy.”
“And if I took it for two months? Would I have to pay—” he paused a moment to think “—ten thousand dollars?”
“Of course not. I could offer a substantially decreased rate for a long-term stay. And all our guests are treated to a wonderful three-course breakfast and an afternoon tea in the library.”
Colton leaned back in his chair. “Would the gold room be free for the entire summer?”
“I think I could make arrangements to have it available,” Gina said, keeping her face carefully expressionless. She could never recall having a room booked for sixty consecutive days to the same person. A stay at Edgewood Manor was usually an expensive luxury for her guests. It was a chance to escape from the real world, to be pampered by the staff for a few days and swathed in the sumptuous elegance of a bygone era.
Sometimes travelers from faraway places such as Australia or Japan stayed for a week or more if they had a particular interest in the Okanagan region. But a booking of two months was simply unheard-of. It would require some juggling on her part and moving of guests to other rooms. But she had nothing on file to indicate that anybody had specifically requested the gold room, so it should be all right…
While she was examining the reservation book, Colton startled her again.
“Before you get too involved in that,” he said, “I probably should mention that I’ll be needing another room, as well.”
“Two rooms? For the entire summer?” Gina looked up at him sharply.
He was sitting in relaxed fashion in the leather chair and had returned his gaze to the window. The afternoon sunlight etched his profile softly with gold.
Gina felt a rising annoyance.
This had to be some kind of scam. Maybe he was a journalist, planning to do a sensationalist article on inflated accommodation prices in resort areas, without the slightest concept of how much it cost to operate a huge old place like this.
“Look,” she began stiffly, “if you’re trying to make some kind of point, I’m not sure I understand what it is.”
He turned in surprise. “What do you mean?”
Gina’s anger faded to uncertainty once more. His gaze was so clear and honest, his face quietly appealing. “We don’t normally have such extended bookings,” she said at last. “A stay at Edgewood Manor is a weekend luxury for most people, Mr. Colton. It’s not the kind of place where people tend to book a room for two whole months. And,” she added, looking down at her reservation book to avoid his thoughtful gaze, “certainly not two rooms.”
Colton sat forward in his chair. His face suddenly looked tired and drawn. “I see. But it’s allowed? I mean, you’ll still rent me the rooms if I want them?”
“Why do you need two rooms?” Gina asked bluntly.
“My daughter will be spending the summer here, as well. She’s fourteen.”
Gina still felt nervous and uncertain. She couldn’t seem to read the man, couldn’t determine if he was utterly sincere or merely feeding her a line for some obscure reason of his own.
She decided to play along and see what happened. Maybe he really was on the level. And renting two rooms for the whole summer was certainly profitable for her…“All right.” She consulted the book again. “But there’ll be a problem, I’m afraid, if. you want your daughter in a room adjoining yours. On the second floor we only have the blue and gold rooms and the Edgewood master suite, which is quite expensive and also heavily booked.”
“Well, what about the blue room?”
Gina shook her head. “A number of couples have strong emotional attachments to the blue room. It’s already reserved for quite a few weekends this summer. If your daughter stayed there, she’d have to move out at regular intervals to a different room while the blue room was being used.”
Colton shook his head. “Oh, she wouldn’t care for that, I’m afraid. Like most teenagers, Steffi travels with a lot of stuff. It takes a small army to move it.”
Gina examined the reservation book again. “Let’s see. Fourteen years old…” she murmured thoughtfully. “Maybe she’d like the patio room. It’s on the main floor, with a French door opening onto the terrace. It’s readily accessible to the beach path, and it’s also one of the smaller, less expensive rooms. You can see the door to it over there, in fact.”
She gestured out the window toward the side wing of the mansion. There was a door at ground level across the leafy yard, with leaded-glass panels set into rails of antique brass that winked brightly in the sunlight.
Colton’s eyes sparkled with interest. “May I see the room?”
“Of course.” Gina got up and led the way out of her office, conscious again of him following close behind. “It’s quicker to go out through the back,” she said, opening a door into a wide hallway floored in oak and smelling deliciously of fresh bread.
“What a heavenly aroma,” he said, sniffing in pleasure.
“Mary’s baking this afternoon. She’s the cook and housekeeper. That’s the kitchen,” Gina added as they passed a big airy room full of glass-fronted cabinets. “Guests are welcome to drop in and visit while Mary’s working. And she’s always very generous about sharing her recipes.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
Gina nodded. “I’ll introduce you on the way back. Hello, Roger,” she said as the caretaker passed them, carrying his freshly carved spindle and a can of wood stain.
Roger smiled at Gina and Alex Colton, his face creasing with warmth. “I have to match the wood stains,” he told them, brandishing the spindle. “It usually takes about seven attempts before I get it just right.”
“That’s Roger Appleby,” Gina told her visitor as the handyman vanished into the foyer. “He looks after things for me around the hotel. He also plays wonderful music on a hundred-year-old cello.”
“I’m liking this place more and more,” Alex Colton said, smiling down at her.
The two of them went out the back and down the broad steps to the yard. Annabel caught sight of them and trotted awkwardly across the lawn, gazing up at them with wretched appeal.
“She looks even fatter up close,” the man said, bending to pet her.
Gina watched, liking the way he caressed the dog. His hands looked strong and competent, but very gentle. She realized she was staring and turned away quickly to cross the yard, heading for the shaded flagstone terrace.
“Is all the landscaping authentic Victorian, too?” he asked.
“Most of it. Lady Edgewood had a lot of shrubs brought over from Scotland, and they do quite well in this climate. There’s even some heather growing on the slope up there. Of course, I’ve added other perennials, and Mary has a big garden that provides most of our vegetables during the summer. And we make all our own jams and preserves.”
“Enchanting,” Alex Colton said sincerely, looking around at the shimmering lake, the blue-shadowed mountains on both sides of the valley and the roofs of the little town of Azure Bay in the distance. “Really beautiful. I think this summer is going to be good for us.”
Gina watched him, struck by the sadness in his face. He looked utterly worn-out, she thought with a rush of sympathy, despite his obvious physical strength.
“I was sure,” she muttered, rummaging in the pocket of her shorts, “I had a master key somewhere. Now what did I…”
Gina felt a growing embarrassment as he watched her place the contents of her pockets, item by item, on a stone retaining wall. There were two polished stones that she’d found on the beach that morning after her swim, as well as a piece of flint that could possibly be a chipped arrowhead, and a length of bent wire she planned to use on the shed door until Roger could find a lock.
But the key didn’t emerge. She went on lining things up on the wall, ignoring his amused glance.
A lottery ticket she hadn’t found the time to check on yet, two feathers, a recipe for peach chutney jotted on a table napkin, a couple of pieces of toffee wrapped in gold foil, a tiny plastic replica of Batman, a pocketknife with a wooden handle, a miniature compass in a gold case—
“A compass!” he exclaimed, picking up the little object. “Does it work?”
“Of course,” Gina said briskly. “Ah, here’s the key,” she said in relief, sweeping the other things back into her pockets.
“Why do you carry a compass?”
“You never know when you might get lost in the woods around here. A compass is a really handy thing to have.”
His eyes sparkled. “You’re just like a ten-year-old boy. Pockets full of interesting stuff. I like that, Miss Mitchell.”
He handed Gina the compass and she returned it to her pocket, trying hard to look like the mature and professional manager of a successful business. But it had been so unnerving to have him examining that row of objects.
She resolved to clean out all the junk from her pockets as soon as Alex Colton left and to try harder in future to refrain from picking up every interesting thing that caught her eye.
“Is the patio room occupied at the moment?” Colton asked. “I’d hate to barge in on somebody.”
Gina shook her head. “There was a couple here for two days, but they left yesterday morning. I’m afraid they complained to Roger that Annabel was making a lot of noise,” she added.
“Steffi is going to love Annabel,” Colton said with a fleeting grin. “Although,” he added, “there’s a very real danger she might be tempted to sneak some food to the poor thing.”
“Oh, goodness, I hope not.” Gina unlocked the door. “Roger does that all the time. Mary gets very upset with him.”
“I think,” he repeated, following her into the room, “I’m really going to like this place.”
He was immediately charmed by the patio room, which had a curtained window seat, a walk-in closet and a small en suite bathroom.
“Perfect,” he declared. “I’ll take this room, as well as the gold room, all right?”
“You haven’t even asked about the price,” Gina said, leading the way back into the yard.
“I’m sure you’ll be fair.”
Gina paused by the retaining wall and looked up at him. “How can you be sure of that?”
He hoisted himself onto the stone ledge and smiled at her. “Because you carry feathers and a compass in your pocket.”
She hesitated, feeling awkward.
“Sit here with me, Miss Mitchell,” he said, patting the sun-warmed stone beside him. “I do have a few more questions about the hotel.”
“Gina,” she said automatically, settling on the ledge a couple of feet away from him. “We’re all on a first-name basis here.”
“Gina,” he repeated. “And I’m Alex.”
He extended his hand. She shook it, pleased by the strength of his grip.
“It’s nice to meet you, Alex,” she said formally. “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay at Edgewood Manor.”
“Yes,” he said, leaning back, his hands braced against the stone. “So do I. We could certainly use a holiday.”
He closed his eyes in the sunlight. Gina stole a glance at him, once again struck by his look of strain and weariness.
“When will you be arriving?” she asked.
“On the first of July, right at the beginning of the long weekend. I’ll book both rooms for all of July and August, but Steffi might choose to visit a school friend for the first week or two of July, so she’ll arrive later than I do.”
“I see.” Gina wondered why he didn’t say “we.” Maybe his wife would also be staying home until their daughter was ready to travel to Azure Bay. But it seemed odd that he would come by himself, ahead of his family.
“What’s the daily routine here?” he asked, bending to pet Annabel again as she huddled by their feet, nibbling one of her paws disconsolately.
“Well, there aren’t any rules. We serve breakfast at eight o’clock, and Mary leaves fruit and baked goods in the dining room all day for guests who like to nibble. Tea is set out in the library from about four o’clock on. Guests are welcome to build a fire in the drawing room or the library on chilly nights and go anywhere on the property that’s not marked exclusively for staff.”
“How large a staff do you have?”
“Mostly just Mary and Roger and me. But in July and August, our busiest months, I also hire a couple of college girls from town to help out.”
“What about the evening meal?” Alex asked.
“The staff eats here, but we don’t serve anything to the guests. They usually choose to walk or drive into town for dinner. It’s less than half a mile, and there are several restaurants catering to tourists, including a really good seafood place. They also have a Chinese restaurant and a pizza place that both deliver, if you prefer to stay and eat at the hotel.”
“Sounds great.” He glanced up at the vine-covered facade of the old mansion’s other wing. “Can we see the room where you were working from here?”
Gina pointed. “The gold room’s that second-floor balcony up there under the dormer.”
Alex squinted into the sunlight. “Ah, yes. Would there be an electrical outlet on the balcony?”
“No, but there’s an outlet just inside the door. I particularly remember,” she added, “because I had to take the plate off today to paper around it.”
“Good. I’ll probably work out there most days if the weather’s nice.”
“What kind of work?” Gina asked.
“Computer,” he said briefly.
She nodded, not pressing for further details. He seemed reluctant to divulge more.
But then to her surprise he said, “I teach economics at a private college near Vancouver. I plan to do some writing this summer.”
“Will your wife and daughter be able to amuse themselves all day?” she asked. “I’m afraid there’s not a lot going on in the town of Azure Bay—though Kelowna is less than half an hour away, and it’s a good-size resort city.”
“Steffi’s an outdoor girl,” Alex said. “She loves hiking and swimming, and she’s a pretty fair amateur photographer. She’s not the type to hang around malls or video arcades.”
“I see.” Gina paused, thinking about the reality of a two-month stay at Edgewood Manor for anyone unaccustomed to this kind of rural existence. “How about your wife? Is she—”
“My wife is dead,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry.” Gina glanced at him. He was staring across the lake, his profile cold and unrevealing. “I thought…I was sure you spoke of this holiday as her idea.”
“In a way it was.” He continued to look at the shimmering expanse of blue-green water. “My wife died three months ago after a lengthy illness. When I was going through her papers, I found the brochure about Edgewood Manor.”
“I see.”
“My wife was the one who planned our vacations,” he went on. “I was always too busy to bother with details like that. Besides, she had a flair for finding the perfect place and organizing quirky off-beat holidays that were perfect for us. So when I found that brochure in her desk, I looked on it as a sort of message from her.” He gave Gina a tired smile. “And it seems she was right again.”
“I hope so,” Gina said with gentle sincerity. “I hope you and your daughter enjoy the summer.”
“It’s been hard for Steffi,” he said. “Really hard. I’m worried about her.”
Gina was silent, recognizing his difficulty with talking about his family’s trauma. He was a man who didn’t share his feelings easily.
“She’s at an age where a girl needs her mother,” he went on in a low voice. “It was bad enough for Steffi to lose her, but to watch how terribly Janice suffered at the end…”
He fell silent.
Gina glanced at him again, wanting to reach over and squeeze his hand, or put her arm around him and give him a sympathetic hug. But she kept her hands folded tightly in her lap.
“What…what was your wife’s illness?” she inquired hesitantly. She knew she was prying, but something about the man compelled her to ask.
“She had Huntington’s,” he said, still staring at the lake.
“Oh,” Gina murmured, wrung with sympathy. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
She was silent a moment, trying to remember what she’d heard about the condition. “I always thought…” she began.
He turned to face her. “Yes?”
“About Huntington’s. I thought it didn’t affect people until quite late in life.”
“Usually it doesn’t,” Alex said. “But it can strike in the early thirties. That’s when my wife first started to develop symptoms—about ten or eleven years ago. Her father and an uncle both died of it,” he added, “so we knew what to expect. But the children of people with Huntington’s still have a fifty percent chance of escaping it.”
“And until the symptoms appear…”
“You keep hoping,” he said bitterly. “You cling to hope until the last minute. You tell yourself maybe the tremors are just fatigue, and the dizziness is some kind of allergy. You grasp at straws as long as you can.”
“But hasn’t a test been developed recently? I thought there was some kind of genetic marker that can be isolated and identified.”
“That’s true,” he said, looking at Gina in surprise. “You’re very well-informed.”
“I watch public television,” she said, “and read a lot. I’ve always had an interest in scientific things.”
“Of course you have,” he said with a quick smile. “Anybody can tell that by looking at the things you carry in your pockets.”
She smiled back. “My mother was a chemistry teacher until she retired a few years ago. She always encouraged me to have an inquiring mind.”
“What about your father?”
Gina tensed, reluctant to get into a personal discussion. But he’d told her about his own family tragedy, so it seemed graceless not to respond to his questions.
“My father was in sales,” she said. “He traveled a lot. When I was about eleven, he left on a trip to Ontario and wound up staying there. My mother raised us all alone.”
“Us?”
“I have a sister who’s ten years younger than I am. She and my mother live in New Brunswick. I came out here almost twenty years ago to go to college, fell in love with the province and never left.”
“Why did you decide to go to school so far from home?”
“I have an aunt who lives in Vancouver near the university,” Gina said. “It was cheaper to stay with her than in a dormitory somewhere. And UBC offered a really good course on hotel management, which was always my career choice.”
“I see.”
Alex leaned back again, lifting his face gratefully to the warm rays of sunlight.
“In answer to your question about testing,” he said after a brief silence, “it was something my wife never wanted to do, even after the test became more readily available. She said she refused to live with a death penalty over her head. As it happened, the disease progressed a lot more rapidly than is usual once the symptoms appeared, so maybe she was wise.”
Maybe, Gina thought. But it wouldn’t have been her own choice. She always preferred to know what she was dealing with, to confront the reality head-on no matter how awful it might be. She wondered about Alex’s daughter, though. Had she been tested? Surely—
Alex suddenly got to his feet, then waited courteously while she did likewise. “We’d better get this deal concluded,” he said. “I have to be back in Vancouver before nightfall.”
She walked with him back into the hotel, relieved that their painful conversation was ended.
But as they strolled through the hallway with Annabel at their heels and paused in the kitchen to greet Mary, Gina was alarmed to realize she was already counting the days until the first of July…
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_1273feb9-0258-5cfe-8ca0-258efdb6cf36)
ROGER STROLLED into the kitchen and patted Gina’s shoulder as she worked at a little side table near the window.
Outside, the late-evening sun was setting behind the mountains, casting long purple shadows across the yard. The lake glistened with fiery streaks of orange, and the twilight air was warm and murmurous with crickets and the music of bullfrogs by the water’s edge.
“What’s this one?” he asked.
Gina squinted at the scrap of wire and golden feathers in her vise. “A yellow nymph,” she said. “Like the ones I made last year, but with some minor improvements.”
“Those yellow nymphs were great flies. Remember the big trout I caught, Gina?”
“How could I forget? You’ve mentioned it practically every day for the last year.”
“You’re just jealous,” he said placidly. “We should try to get up to Bear Creek again. We’ve hardly been fishing at all this spring, and June’s almost over.”
Gina sighed, winding her thread carefully. “It’s always so busy around here.”
“Well,” Roger said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter, “if we wait till we’re not busy, we’ll never go.”
“That’s certainly true.” Gina frowned at the partly shaped fishing fly on her vise, then rummaged in a tackle box full of colored feathers, scraps of fur and spools of thread. “I think I’m going to add some black antennae,” she said. “Something that wobbles a bit.”
“Do nymphs have antennae?” Roger asked.
He crossed the room to the big oak table, the antique lights overhead reflecting on his bald pate with its scant fringe of silver.
“Who cares?” Gina said cheerfully. “Never question an artist. I’m the one who tied the fly that caught your prizewinning trout, remember?”
Roger sat at the table, stirring cream into his coffee. “I remember, all right. Speaking of being busy,” he said thoughtfully, “when do Mr. Colton and his daughter arrive?”
“Next week. At least, that’s when the rooms are booked, but he’s going to be arriving on his own. He faxed a confirmation last week. I gather she’s going to be coming a week or two later.”
“It seems strange,” Roger said. “I mean, booking the patio room just to have it available, even though the girl won’t be here for maybe two weeks. At a cost of more than a hundred dollars a day, too. Isn’t that a real waste of money?”
“It appears,” Gina said, “that money isn’t a problem for Mr. Alex Colton.”
“I didn’t think college professors made that kind of income.”
“Neither did I. But, you know, he seemed so casual about the cost. He was perfectly willing to accept my terms. In fact, I could probably have charged him twice as much and he would have agreed without an argument.”
Roger sipped his coffee and looked out the window at the glowing sunset colors reflected in the waters of the lake. “Well, it’s sure an advantage to have those rooms booked full-time. No turnover. Less work for you.”
“Maybe.” Gina snipped at the colored thread. “And maybe not.”
Roger glanced at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”
Gina selected a bit of black wire, wrinkling her brow thoughtfully. “What if they’re awful guests?” she asked. “What if we find after a while that we can’t stand them, like that Kimmer family last summer, but we’re stuck with them for two whole months?”
Roger grinned. “Remember how Mrs. Kimmer demanded a computer printout of the fat and cholesterol content in every breakfast?”
“And Mr. Kimmer kicked Annabel, and he and Mary almost came to blows over it?”
“And—” Roger grimaced “—the way they kept letting those awful kids of theirs slide down the banisters all the way from the attic, and take their towels outside to play in the mud.”
“Oh, they were a charming group, all right,” Gina said dryly. “That’s my point.” She put the wire down and turned to look at her caretaker. “What if these two are horrible like the Kimmers and turn out to be really disruptive? We’ve never had somebody here for two whole months, Roger.”
“I’m not worried,” he said calmly. “I met Alex Colton and had a talk with him that day he booked the rooms. He struck me as a decent sort of fellow. I liked him.”
Gina was silent, idly flexing her pliers.
“His daughter sounded nice, too,” Roger went on. “In fact, Colton told me she’s a real outdoors type. I was wondering,” he added almost shyly, “if maybe she’d want to go fishing with us sometime. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a kid along, Gina? Somebody young and enthusiastic?”
Gina considered this, startled by the idea. “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “I don’t know much about teenage girls.”
“Didn’t you grow up with a little sister?”
“Sure,” Gina said. “But Claudia’s ten years younger than I am, Roger. She was eight when I left home, and I’ve hardly seen her at all since. It’s too expensive to travel between here and the Maritimes.”
“How long ago was it that time she came out here? Five or six years ago?”
Gina considered. “It would have been eight years, I guess. That trip was my gift to Claudia the year she graduated from high school, when she was eighteen. My goodness—” Gina sighed “—I can’t get over the way the years fly past.”
“Does she still have that trouble with her leg?”
“Not much. She hardly limps at all anymore.” Gina turned to stare out the window. “But it’s taken years of hard work and therapy.”
“What happened exactly?” Roger asked. “I don’t think you ever told me the whole story, just that she’d been in some kind of an accident.”
“It was after I’d been out West a couple of years, when Claudia was ten. I was in Vancouver when I heard.” Gina shuddered. “My mother decided to take Claudia with her for a summer holiday in New England. She’d been driving all day and was exhausted, but I guess she didn’t realize how exhausted. She dozed off on the freeway in Maine and drove under a semitrailer parked by an off-ramp.”
Roger took another sip of his coffee and listened in sympathy.
“It was so awful,” Gina went on. “Mom’s injuries were mostly superficial, but Claudia’s right leg was almost severed just above the knee. They rushed her to the hospital and used all kinds of microsurgery techniques to reattach the nerves and tendons, then did bone grafts to restructure the leg.”
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” Roger said. “What they can do with medical science these days.”
“Oh, it’s wonderful, all right,” Gina said gloomily. “Really wonderful.”
“Gina?” he asked, puzzled.
She met Roger’s gaze, thinking about the nightmare her family had been forced to endure. “My mother’s kind of an absentminded professor, Roger. Not practical at all. She didn’t think to buy medical insurance for herself or Claudia before traveling out of the country.”
His eyes widened. “My God,” he breathed. “So how much did a procedure like that cost?”
Gina brushed a hand across her forehead. “Some of the surgeons donated their time, and we had Claudia transferred back to the Maritimes as soon as she could travel. But the bill for her treatment was already over forty thousand dollars by the time she was moved.”
“Could your mother afford that?”
“My mother could hardly afford to put meals on the table,” Gina said bleakly. “She was about to lose her little house, her teaching job, and any possibility of earning enough in the future to pay for the years of extended therapy that Claudia was going to need.”
“So what did you do?”
“We managed.” Gina stared at the lake. The sun had completely retreated behind the mountains now, and the black still depths of the lake seemed to echo the void in her heart, the aching sorrow and yearning that never went away. “We managed somehow. We all made some…pretty big sacrifices.”
Roger studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “Your sister is a real stunner, as I recall,” he said at last.
“She certainly is.” Gina gathered herself together. “Claudia looks a lot like our mother. I wasn’t lucky enough to get the red hair or the peaches-and-cream complexion.”
“Well, you’re a beauty in your own way, Gina,” he said gallantly. “Red hair or not.”
She smiled at him. “And you’re a sweetie. But I’m realistic about myself, Roger. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are.”
“I’m not sure you do. I don’t know if you’ve ever been fully aware of your strengths.”
Gina shook her bead. She and Roger had been friends for almost twelve years, but except for some casual teasing, they usually tended to avoid this kind of personal discussion.
“Speaking of strengths and weaknesses,” she said, removing the completed fly from her vise and picking up another bit of wire, “do you ever regret moving .here, Roger? Do you miss having a desk and an expense account and a brass nameplate on your door?”
“Not a bit. I live alone, and I’m sixty-two years old. Why would I want to sit behind a desk all day? I want to enjoy my days, because if I can’t, what’s the sense in living?”
“But do you really enjoy it here?” she asked, suddenly anxious to hear his answer. “I mean, looking after the hotel for me and keeping things running smoothly, is that enough of a challenge for you?”
“At my age, I don’t want challenges anymore, Gina. What I want is comfort. And I find my life here very comfortable.”
“Good,” she said in relief. “Sometimes I’m afraid you’re getting restless.”
“You’re supposed to quit saying things like that,” he reminded her, then pushed his chair back and got up to open a cupboard door. “What happened to the banana loaf Mary baked this morning?”
“The guests gobbled every last crumb with afternoon tea.”
“Too bad,” he muttered, still peering moodily into the cupboard. “Where is the woman, anyhow?”
“She’s at choir practice. You’ll get as fat as Annabel if you keep eating Mary’s baking,” Gina warned him, though from the look of his long angular body she doubted there was much fear of that.
She paused suddenly and narrowed her eyes. There was something different about Roger tonight.
“Why are you here now?” she asked. “You don’t usually come over after supper.”
“I needed to pick up something.”
“What?”
“Just some tools,” he said evasively.
“Why?” Gina asked.
“I’m working on something.”
“But you don’t even have a workbench at your house, do you? I thought you did all your woodwork here at the hotel.”
“What is this?” Roger asked mildly. “An inquisition? Am I not free to drop by the hotel after hours if I want to?”
“Of course you are,” Gina said. “But you look…different tonight, that’s all.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know.” She studied him. “Maybe you’ve changed your hairstyle.”
He chuckled. “And you, young lady, are becoming far too impertinent.”
Gina smiled and returned to her task, while Roger poured himself a second cup of coffee. For a while there was a companionable silence in the kitchen.
But after a few minutes the peace was broken by the closing of a door, a noisy storm of barking and a gentle tread in the hallway. Mary entered the room, laden with books. Annabel tumbled at her heels and yelped hysterically.
“For God’s sake,” Roger said. “Feed that animal, won’t you? She’s being even more annoying than usual.”
Mary lowered her books onto the table and gave him a level stare. Then she sniffed dismissively and turned away. Gina smiled to herself.
“How was your choir practice, Mary?” she asked.
“It was exciting.” Mary crossed the kitchen and took a can of dog food from the cupboard. She opened it and measured the contents into a bowl with calm deliberation, while Annabel writhed on the hardwood floor in an agony of anticipation.
“Choir practice was exciting?” Roger asked.
Mary washed her hands at the sink and continued to address Gina as if he hadn’t spoken. “Mr. Bedlow gave the soprano solo to Marianna Turner.”
Gina’s eyes widened. “No kidding. Even though everybody knows?”
“What does everybody know?” Roger asked, watching with a bemused expression as Mary put Annabel’s bowl on the floor and the animal began to wolf it down as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“About Mr. Bedlow and Marianna Turner,” Gina explained.
“What about them?”
“Oh, Roger,” Gina said. “How could you have possibly missed such a juicy tidbit of gossip?”
His look of surprise was almost comical. “Dried-up old Cecil Bedlow? And that plump young schoolteacher? There’s gossip about those two?”
Mary forgot she was no longer on speaking terms with the caretaker. “There certainly is,” she told him, tying on her apron, then began opening doors and cabinets, assembling the ingredients to prepare batter for the next morning’s fruit crepes.
“Was Marianna embarrassed?” Gina asked.
“I think so. Whatever’s happening, it’s more on his side than hers, in my opinion. I think poor Marianna just doesn’t know what to do about him.”
“You’re always so generous, Mary,” Roger said. “Other women would probably be catty about a situation like that.”
Mary ignored the compliment. “So we didn’t get much of anything else done,” she concluded, “except for the opening bars of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ We’re singing it at the Canada Day picnic next weekend.”
“Well, of course,” Roger said solemnly. “That’s a rousing picnic song. Handel should blend right in with the fried chicken and the kids’ sack races.”
Mary gave him a stern glance. “Well, that’s good. Because your chamber-music group is booked to do four sets of Elizabethan madrigals on the entertainment stage by the hamburger tent.”
“Elizabethan madrigals!” he exclaimed, recoiling in alarm. “You’re joking.”
“It’s right there on the program, next to the Tiny Tots Highland Dancing.”
Roger subsided behind his coffee mug again. “This town is a mad, mad place,” he said sadly. “Utterly insane.”
“Oh, come on,” Gina said. She left the worktable to get herself a mug of coffee, pausing on the way to drop a kiss on the top of Roger’s shiny bald head. “You love living here. And you have lots of fun at the picnic every year, no matter how much you complain and make fun.”
“My goodness.” Mary paused with a sifter of flour in her hand. “I almost forgot,” she said, staring at Gina. “The choir practice wasn’t the only exciting thing this afternoon.”
Gina carried her mug back to her table and began construction of another yellow nymph. “So what else happened, Mary?”
“I got some library books.”
“How does the woman ever survive her days?” Roger asked with a grin. “Fraught as they are with such drama and excitement.” He rolled his eyes eloquently in Gina’s direction, making her giggle. Unruffled by his teasing, Mary began to mix the batter for her crepes in a big blue enamel bowl.
“I went to the library,” she repeated, “and picked out a lot of books for myself. I also got some new books on gardening and furniture restoration for you, Gina, in case you ever have time to read.”
“Thanks,” Gina told her. “That was thoughtful of you, Mary.”
“How about me?” Roger asked. “Did you get any books for me?”
“Two political biographies and a new mystery,” Mary replied calmly. “Although I probably needn’t have bothered, since you seem to be so busy these days.”
The words were innocent enough, but Gina was surprised by the unusual edge in Mary’s voice and the way Roger seemed to duck his head in embarrassment.
Suddenly the room was full of tense undercurrents. Confused, Gina looked from one to the other, about to ask what was going on, when Mary resumed her story.
“And while I was browsing through the newspapers, I discovered the most amazing thing.”
“An appropriate location to make amazing discoveries,” Roger murmured, his equilibrium apparently restored. “Among the well-stocked shelves of the Azure Bay Library.”
Mary ignored him and addressed Gina. “Remember the day you brought that man into the kitchen and introduced him to me? The one who’s staying all summer with his daughter?”
Gina nodded. “Alex Colton. He’s arriving in a few days.”
“And remember how I told you after he left…” Mary paused to add more milk to her batter. “I told you I was absolutely positive I’d seen him somewhere, and you said I was probably wrong because he’d never been in the valley before?”
Gina nodded, baffled. “I remember. Why?”
“Well, I was right,” Mary said, crossing the kitchen to rummage through the pile of books and magazines.
Gina got up again and crossed to the big central table, cradling her coffee mug in her hands and sitting down next to Roger.
Mary opened a recent copy of a newspaper and laid it out on the table in front of them. “See?” She stood back with an air of triumph.
Gina gazed in astonishment. Alex Colton’s picture appeared at the top of a newspaper column on the financial pages. She studied the image, struck once again by the man’s appealing masculine look, and the contradictory mixture of sensuality and asceticism in his face.
“I’ll be damned!” Roger exclaimed. “Alex Colton is a columnist? I thought he was a college professor.”
“Not just any columnist. He’s Alexander Waring.” The usually reserved Mary clearly enjoyed the sensation she was causing. “He writes this column about investment and personal finance,” she told Gina. “It’s syndicated, and Roger and I read it all the time. His column’s in a lot of the big papers, but it never used to have his picture at the top. He also has four or five books in the library.”
Roger leaned closer to examine the paper. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he repeated. “Alexander Waring. I have two of his books at home, you know. He has terrific money sense.” Roger shook his head in amazement. “And to think I talked with the man about woodwork and cello music, and didn’t even know who he was.”
“Well, I don’t know as much about the world of high finance as you two obviously do.” Gina took the paper from Roger and studied the picture. “Is he really good?”
“He’s one of the best,” Roger said. “His books give down-to-earth advice on investing and money management, things an ordinary person can actually use. And sometimes,” he added with a smile, “they’re really funny. The man must have a great sense of humor.”
“Can I borrow one of them?” Gina asked. “It’s probably…it’s time for me to start learning something about money management,” she said lamely when the other two looked at her in surprise.
Roger’s eyes were bright with teasing. “That’s all you want to learn?”
“Of course,” Gina said. “You know, I just remembered—he did say that he planned to do some writing this summer. He asked me about electrical outlets on the gold-room balcony for his computer.”
“I suppose he has to keep writing even during the holidays,” Mary said. “He could hardly take two whole months off, after all. A lot of people swear by that column of his.”
“Really? You think he’ll still be doing the column?” Gina asked with sudden excitement. “Maybe he’ll mention the hotel. Anything that brings us to the attention of the public is good for business.”
“As long as he writes about how good the food is,” Mary observed placidly.
“And doesn’t devote whole columns to disruptive pets.” Roger glanced at Annabel, who’d emptied her dish and was now clattering it noisily around on the floor in a vain attempt to discover stray morsels clinging to the sides or bottom.
Mary glared at him. “Most people,” she said coldly, “have better things to do with their time than sit around insulting poor defenseless animals.”
“Ah, yes. My cue to depart.”
Roger got to his feet, smiled at the two women and strolled from the room. They could hear the sound of a truck starting outside, followed by the slow rumble of his departure along the lakeshore road.
“He isn’t going home,” Gina said, leaning forward to peer out the window. “He must be going into town.”
She seated herself at the worktable again, setting the newspaper down carefully next to her tackle box. Mary continued to work at the central table, mixing batter in the bowl with fierce strokes.
“Mary?” Gina said.
“What?”
Mary bent down to take Annabel’s feeding dish away. The poodle sank onto her fat haunches and watched with a comical look of dismay.
“Did you notice something different about Roger tonight?”
“Of course I did,” Mary said curtly.
“What is it?”
“He’s all dressed up. He’s wearing his second-best pants, those gray pleated corduroys, and the new sweater I gave him for Christmas.”
Gina’s eyes widened. “You’re right,” she said, putting down her pliers. “I remember when he got that sweater, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wearing it before.”
Mary murmured something to the poodle, then returned to her task.
“Why would he be all dressed up?” Gina said, puzzled. “This is just an ordinary Saturday night, isn’t it? I mean, their chamber group isn’t playing anywhere. He always tells me when they have a concert in case I want to go along.”
“Oh, it’s certainly not a concert,” Mary said.
Gina pushed her chair back, completely intrigued by now. “Mary, I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing very important. Roger has a lady friend, that’s all.”
“You’re kidding.” Gina gaped at the cook, astounded, while Mary continued to whip the batter. “How could Roger possibly have a girlfriend without me knowing?”
Mary remained silent and tipped the contents of the blue bowl into a pitcher, then stored it away in one of the two oversize fridges along the wall.
“Look,” Gina persisted, “are you serious? I mean, about Roger having a lady friend?”
Mary poured herself a mug of coffee and sat wearily at the table. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m quite serious.”
“I can’t imagine,” Gina said, “who the woman could be. I don’t think there’s anybody in town who’d be even faintly eligible. Although—” she frowned thoughtfully “—when one considers Cecil Bedlow and Marianna Turner, I guess anything’s possible.”
“It’s not somebody from town,” Mary said, bending to stroke Annabel. “It’s a stranger. A woman who’s staying at Fred’s motel out near the winery.”
“How did Roger meet her?”
“Apparently she came to one of their chamber concerts and struck up a conversation with him. Roger’s taken her out several times since then for drives and coffee.”
“Why,” Gina said plaintively, “does nobody ever tell me anything?”
Mary shrugged. “I thought it was no big deal at first. Apparently this woman is one of the shareholders in the winery, and she wanted to come out and look at her investment firsthand. At least, that’s what Fred says.”
“Well, Fred should know. He runs the motel, after all.”
“Fred’s not all that bright,” Mary said sadly. “Even if he is my second cousin.”
“So how long has this woman been staying at the motel?”
“About two weeks.”
“Have you met her, Mary?”
“Annabel, stop that whining!” the housekeeper warned with unusual sharpness. “Stop it this instant!”
The poodle slunk away into the hallway, casting a bitter glance over her shoulder as she did so.
“Mary?” Gina prodded.
“Yes,” the housekeeper said, rubbing the back of her neck with a weary sigh. “I’ve met her, all right. She was in the drugstore yesterday, and Maybelle introduced us. I knew the woman was interested in Roger, so I took a real good look at her.”
“What’s her name?”
“Lacey Franks.”
“And how old is she?” Gina asked.
“Probably about fifty, but she looks ten years younger than she is. Dyed hair,” Mary said. “Bright clothes and lots of makeup, but she’s careful with it so you can’t tell.”
Gina wound another fishing fly onto her vise, gripping the pliers in silence.
“She’s very stylish.” Mary looked down ruefully at her cotton dress and brown cardigan. “And she dresses to show off her figure, too. Yesterday when Maybelle introduced us, she was wearing a little yellow tennis dress with a sweater tied over her shoulders like the women in the television ads.”
Gina shook her head in amazement. “And our Roger is interested in her? He’s actually taken her out on a date?”
“More than once,” Mary said darkly. “Maybelle told me she saw them sitting in a booth at the Clamshell eating lobster, holding hands and laughing together like teenagers.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake,” Gina said, pleased by this image. “Isn’t that nice.”
Mary folded a plastic covering over one of the mixing bowls.
“Where does this Lacey Franks live?” Gina asked. “Does the local gossip network know anything about her?”
“Only that she’s supposed to be rich and her home address is somewhere in West Vancouver.”
“That’s a pretty posh area, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Mary said. “I really wouldn’t know.”
The cook got up, removed her apron and hung it in the pantry. With a softly worded good-night, she made her way out of the kitchen, leaving Gina sitting alone at the window, gazing thoughtfully out at the darkness.
ALEX COLTON, TOO, was gazing into the darkness through the window in his study. The sun had vanished below the horizon in a fiery ball of orange, and the light across the waters of English Bay had faded quickly.
At last he got up and prowled restlessly around the little room, picking up papers and setting them down again, scanning the shelves for a book to take up to his room later. But nothing looked interesting.
“Lord, how I need a holiday,” he muttered, returning to the window. “Or at least a change of scene.”
He thought about the vine-covered mansion in the Okanagan, and the newly papered room where he would soon be staying. The place was enormously appealing, especially with that air of bygone elegance that so perfectly suited the peaceful drowsy warmth of its rural setting.
It was odd, Alex mused, that Janice had never mentioned the hotel to him. She’d obviously learned about it years ago and set aside that brochure in anticipation of a time when they could travel there on a family vacation.
But for the past two years, Jan hadn’t been well enough to travel anywhere. And in the final months of her life, she often hadn’t even been able to remember her husband’s name or their daughter’s face, let alone the address of a resort hotel.
Alex gazed blindly out the window at the dark silvered water, trying to fight off the image of Janice’s twisted face, her body ravaged by an illness so brutal that in the end, it destroyed every vestige of dignity and composure. With a little shock of alarm, he realized he could no longer remember her as she’d looked before the illness. He picked up a photograph from his desk and studied the smiling image in the gold frame.
Jan had been slim and blond, with a delicate, almost angelic beauty that belied her determined nature. When they were first married all those years ago, he’d been surprised and a little taken aback to learn just how formidable—and stubborn—a woman she really was.
But even Jan’s strength had been no match for the crippling illness that was hidden in her body, biding its time, waiting to claim her.
He shook his head moodily, still watching as the last of the twilight glow faded beyond the horizon and the first stars began to glimmer over the waters of the bay. He found his mind returning to the old hotel on the lake and the young woman who apparently owned it. She’d been in his thoughts a lot these days, more than he liked to admit.
Slowly Alex sank into an armchair by the window and allowed himself to reconstruct the image of Gina Mitchell’s face. Everything about the woman was appealing. He liked the open frankness of her expression, the level brows and calm hazel eyes, her dusting of freckles and that cropped curly mass of dark hair. He even admired the boyish athletic look of her body.
He smiled, recalling the way she’d emptied her pockets and solemnly lined up those delightful little objects along the top of the stone wall. At that moment he’d been completely enchanted by her. He would have liked to reach out and touch the skin of her bare arm, ruffle her hair, maybe—
Alex shook his head abruptly, the smile fading.
Not a very attractive line of thought, he told himself, for a man whose wife had been dead for little more than three months.
But Jan had been lost to him for a long, long time. When her symptoms had become too obvious to ignore and she’d finally allowed herself to be examined, the diagnosis itself had been a sentence of death. Both of them knew it. But before death had finally claimed her, the illness had been lingering, so excruciatingly painful both physically and mentally that it had drained every bit of strength from all three of them.
For the last three years, Alex and his wife had no physical relationship apart from the care he gave her and the comfort he could sometimes provide by holding her in his arms. Toward the end, even his touch was too painful for her to endure.
Alex didn’t like to dwell on his own suffering, because he knew that his daughter had endured far more pain. As a girl just entering adolescence, growing into the knowledge of her own womanhood, Steffi had watched her mother fade from strength and beauty to utter dependence. She’d witnessed the deterioration of that lovely body and powerful mind, and gradually come to understand that nobody in her life, not even her father, could protect them from this horror.
He and Steffi had once been so close. Alex was desperately concerned about his daughter’s moody silence and increasing withdrawal. No matter what he did, she seemed to retreat farther from him every day into a place he couldn’t follow.
He put the worried thoughts from his mind and returned to his computer, forcing himself to spend a couple of hours in concentrated work on the final column before his trip to Azure Bay.
At last, when he was too tired to see the computer screen clearly, he got up and pulled the draperies across the darkened window, then went into the kitchen to make coffee and help himself from the bowl of cold pasta salad left in the fridge by his housekeeper. Finally he cleaned up the table and climbed the stairs, stopping outside a closed door in the upper hallway.
“Steffi?” he called softly. “Are you awake?”
No answer. After a moment he pushed the door open and went inside, pausing by his daughter’s bed to look down at her. She was in her long plaid nightshirt and sleeping soundly. Her lips were parted, hands curled under her chin like a small child, and she was bathed in the soft pink glow of a night-light shaped in the form of a rosebud, which had been in her room since she was a baby.
Alex smiled at the delicate cluster of glass petals. Every year or so, Steffi declared that she was old enough to sleep without a light. But after a couple of days the rosebud would reappear, and nobody would comment until her next attempt to leave it behind.
Nowadays he cherished any little habits of childhood that still clung to her. They helped to reassure him that he hadn’t completely lost her. At fourteen his daughter almost had the face and body of a woman. Only when she was sleeping like this could he see traces of the enchanting little girl she’d been.
There were people who’d considered them irresponsible for having a baby when they were aware of Janice’s illness. But those people, of course, didn’t know the truth about Steffi’s birth.
He felt a painful lump in his throat as he remembered how he’d adored that red-haired baby they’d brought home from the hospital all those years ago. What a miracle she’d been to him and his wife. Their lives had been transformed. The growing tensions between him and Janice had almost disappeared, replaced by happy sun-flooded years of laughter and absorption in the growing child they both so dearly loved.
A few years of heaven, Alex thought grimly, followed by years of utter hell. Life had a harsh way of balancing things out.
He could bear it for himself. But he hated his daughter’s having to endure those cruel checks and balances, Steffi, who had never done anything to deserve the kind of suffering inflicted on her family. During all her growing-up years, Steffi had been a pure delight, a ray of sunshine. How he missed that happy generous loving little girl.
Now she was as tall as her mother had been, with a curving figure and a sulky hostile expression that chilled him. Her lips, which were exactly like his own, were usually pressed together in a taut line, and her smiles were rare. He hardly knew what to say to this beautiful stranger, how to fight his way past her anger and pain to the child still living in there.
He reached down gently to brush a strand of hair back from her sleeping face, then adjusted the blankets. As he did so, he saw that Steffi had gone to sleep clutching her old stuffed bunny.
This favorite toy had once been soft pink plush, with a yellow velvet waistcoat and a jaunty expression. But years of love had worn the plush almost bare in places, and the long ears were limp and droopy from constant handling.
As far as he knew, she hadn’t slept with the bunny for eight or nine years. The sight of it now, cradled in her arms, was almost unbearably painful to him.
How lonely and distressed she must be feeling!
If only she would talk to him, even yell at him. Maybe then, Alex and his daughter could start to breach this grim wall of silences and be a family again. But Steffi was so cold and remote. After school and on weekends, she hiked by herself along the trails near their home, fished for hours down in the cove, tramped alone through the woods or sat up in her room with a book.
He should probably be glad she was spending the first two weeks of the summer with Angela Sanders and her parents on a long-planned trip to Disneyland.
As far as Alex knew, his daughter had almost as little to do with her school friends these days as she did with him. Steffi had once been such a bubbly gregarious child, but now she was usually solitary. Maybe a couple of weeks with her friend would be a good thing, though he yearned to have her with him at Edgewood Manor.
But she’d be home from California in a couple of weeks, and then they’d have the rest of the summer together.
Again he thought of the old hotel on the shore of Okanagan Lake. Alex hoped that the tranquillity of that lovely old house and the beauty of its setting would work a miracle, that somewhere within the sun-dappled walls of Edgewood Manor, he would find the touch of magic that would bring his daughter back to him.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_25d66269-d7a0-5cf3-a384-34b02654c952)
“WHY DO YOU KEEP looking down the road?”
“What road?” Gina burrowed among the strawberries. “You know, some of these are really huge.” She held up a fat strawberry for Roger’s inspection.
He nodded, leaning on his hoe in the sunshine among the neat little hills of potatoes. “How many roads are there leading to this place?”
“One,” Gina mumbled. “Last time I looked.”
“Which was about four seconds ago.”
Gina sat back on her heels and gave her caretaker a stern glance. “Roger, you’ve got to quit teasing me about that man, or…”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll wrap a shovel around your neck,” Gina said cheerfully.
Roger rolled his eyes and plied the hoe on a patch of weeds near the fence. “Half the time she worries and frets about me leaving, and the other half she’s threatening to attack me. Women are so hard to understand.”
Gina crawled along the row, digging more plump strawberries out from under their sheltering dark green leaves. “Mary tells me you’ve been learning a whole lot about women these days,” she said casually.
Roger grunted and removed his baseball cap to scratch his head. “And how would Mary know? When she’s not working in that kitchen, she spends all her time at choir practice or buried in the library.”
“Mary knows a lot of things.” Gina stood up and carried her plastic bucket to the next row of strawberries. “Roger…”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your new friend? You know I’d be interested. I’d love to meet her.”
“What friend?” he asked, scraping busily with his hoe.
“You know.” Gina knelt and started on the next row. “Lacey Franks. The city lady who’s been staying over at Fred’s motel. Apparently the two of you are getting really…well acquainted.”
Roger straightened his lanky body and leaned on the hoe, resting his chin on the handle and staring gloomily across the lake. “This town is the damnedest place for gossip.”
“Of course it is. All small towns are the same way. So?” She looked up at him expectantly.
“So what?”
“Tell me about her,” Gina said, exasperated.
“Nothing to tell. Are any of those wax beans ready yet?”
Gina gave up, knowing it was hopeless to press him further. She reached over to examine a long yellow pod on one of the bean plants nearby.
“Yes, I think they are. A few of them, anyway.”
“Could we pick enough for our supper?”
Gina checked the plants again. “I think so. You’d better tell Mary before she plans something else.”
“You tell her. She hardly speaks to me anymore.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Gina said. “I get so tired of all the squabbling you two do.”
But her annoyance was immediately overcome by pleasure at the idea of fresh-cooked buttery beans for their evening meal in the kitchen. She was still riffling through the laden bean plants when a shadow fell across the garden.
Roger looked up with a cordial smile.
“Hello there,” he said, leaning on his hoe again to address someone behind Gina. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Gina’s heart began to pound. She got up, holding her plastic pail, and brushed dirt from the knees of her jeans.
Alex Colton smiled and extended his hand. “Hello, Gina. Nice to see you again.”
He looked happier today, Gina thought, examining him closely as she shook his hand. His face was still tired and worn, but he seemed much more relaxed than on his first visit. Today he wore jeans, a yellow cotton shirt and a jaunty straw fedora, and was the image of a man embarking on a long holiday in the country.
“So, Alex, are you ready to settle in and be pampered for a whole summer?” she asked.
“More than ready. I feel like I’ve finally arrived in heaven.” Alex gestured at the lush garden, the stone mansion within its screen of vines and flowers, the shimmering lake and sleepy town in the distance. “I’ve been waiting for this day.”
“So have we,” Roger said with a teasing glance at Gina, who bent hastily to collect her bucket of strawberries.
“I’ll get you registered and show you to your room,” she said. “Unless Mary’s already helped you?”
Alex shook his head. “I just drove up and saw you two out in the garden, so I came right over. What’s in the pail?”
Gina fell into step beside him, heading across the lawn toward the back door. She held out the pail so he could see. “Mary’s planning to make strawberry waffles for breakfast tomorrow.”
“I am in heaven. Real whipped cream with them, I suppose?”
“Absolutely. And it’s fresh, too. We get all our dairy products from a farm up the road.”
Alex smiled down at her, one of those transforming smiles that tended to leave her at a loss for words.
“I have to drop this off in the kitchen,” Gina said at last, pausing by the back steps. “Roger will help you with your luggage, but first I need to check you in at the front desk. If you don’t mind waiting a couple of minutes while I wash my hands…”
“May I come to the kitchen with you? I’d like to say hello to Mary.”
“Of course. Come in.”
He climbed the steps lightly and held the screen door for her, then removed his bat and followed her into the cool wood-paneled interior of the house, with its pleasant scent of spices and fresh bread, flowers and furniture polish.
Gina was conscious of his quick intake of breath and the admiration in his eyes as he looked around.
“Well, is everything as nice as you remembered?” she asked, pushing open the door to the kitchen.
“Even nicer, if that’s possible. You don’t know how much I’ve been needing this holiday. Hello, Mary,” he said, smiling at the cook, who was lifting a tray of raisin-filled scones from the oven.
Mary straightened and smiled almost shyly, self-consciously rubbing a hand across the smear of flour on her cheek. “Hello, Mr. Colton. It’s nice to see you again.”
“Please. Call me Alex.”
Mary ducked her head and said, “All right…Alex.” She gestured at her baking. “And you’ve arrived just in time to have scones with your tea this afternoon.”
“He still has to unload his luggage and get registered,” Gina said, putting her bucket of strawberries on the table.
Mary looked at the berries with approval and carried them to the big enameled sink for washing. “Are the wax beans ready, Gina?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Some of them are. Enough for tonight, anyway. Roger said I should tell you.”
“Couldn’t tell me himself, I suppose.” Mary began to run water over the strawberries.
Alex and Gina exchanged a glance and moved toward the door.
“Still at odds, are they?” Alex murmured when they reached the hall, bending so close that his hair brushed her cheek.
“I’m afraid so,” Gina whispered. “And not just over Annabel’s diet, either. There are all kinds of new complications.”
His eyes danced. “Like what?”
Gina was tempted to confide the details about Roger’s glamorous new girlfriend. But just at that moment Roger came through the front door and into the reception area, carrying a couple of well-traveled leather suitcases, a garment bag and a small case.
“Thanks, Roger,” Alex said. “I could have looked after those.”
“No problem. I might as well take them right up to the gold room.”
“All right.” Alex reached for his wallet, but Gina touched his arm and shook her head.
“No tipping,” she told him quietly. “We don’t believe in it around here. As soon as you’ve registered, you become a welcome guest in our home, not a paying customer.”
He relaxed and nodded. “Thank you, Roger. Be careful with the smaller case, all right? I’ve got a laptop computer in there. Most of my life is on that hard drive.”
Roger paused at the foot of the staircase. “I read your column all the time. It’s really good.”
Alex gave Gina a look of comical dismay. “I guess I’ve been discovered.”
“Mary found your picture in one of the newspapers at the library. Do you mind?”
“Not really. The pseudonym used to give me some privacy, but now that they’ve started attaching a picture to the column, I get recognized a lot.”
“Would you prefer that we keep your identity to ourselves while you’re here?”
“Yes, if it’s possible,” Alex said gratefully. “This is my holiday, after all, and I’d just as soon not have other guests asking me for stock tips during breakfast.”
Roger paused halfway up the steps and peered over the carved banister with a cheerful grin. “How about the staff? Would you mind slipping us a few investment tips?”
“Roger!” Gina said.
Alex winked up at him. The caretaker chuckled and vanished into the depths of the upper landing.
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Margot Dalton
Margot Dalton's creativity dazzles…–Bethany Campbell, bestselling author of See How They RunShe "sold" her baby…Fifteen years ago desperate circumstances had forced Gina Mitchell to do the unthinkable. Give up her baby daughter hours after the birth.Now Alex Colton–a man she's never met–has checked in to Gina's bed-and-breakfast with his rebellious teenage daughter. One look at the girl and Gina knows she can no longer escape her past.Alex is a good father, but he's never told his daughter the circumstances of her birth, and he has no idea that his child–Gina's child–is living a nightmare. A nightmare only her birth mother can end."Margot Dalton's creativity dazzles. She's a writer who always delivers probing characterization, ingenious plotting, riveting pace and impeccable craft. She can completely engage both the reader's mind and emotion. She's superb."–Bethany Campbell, bestselling author of See How They Run
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u1b64f16f-7669-55af-9e32-60e991a86521)
Excerpt (#u71ba6974-2936-591c-944a-cbdfc423569d)
About The Author (#ub365999b-0c62-5a4b-ab9a-8979c070bac4)
Title Page (#u2db3d484-edf9-5c49-9aa4-edd73ab58508)
CHAPTER ONE (#uda248c9a-6aaf-5860-949f-c7c79720cf11)
CHAPTER TWO (#u077fa7f2-4076-5a9c-8c55-db09b400e305)
CHAPTER THREE (#ua5ecac6f-62f1-5f31-85da-965c68f0b0c1)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u2aff7180-9038-537a-b519-1f171b4bb714)
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)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Alex, I have something to tell
you about your daughter.
“I should have told you before, but I was…” Gina’s voice broke. She rummaged in the pocket of her jeans, took out her billfold and extracted a photograph from one of the side pockets. Wordlessly, she handed it to Alex.
He studied the smiling girl in the picture, his eyes widening. “It’s Steffi,” he said at last, then hesitated. “Isn’t it? She looks older.”
“It’s not Steffi. It’s my sister, Claudia, when she was Steffi’s age. You can see a difference in her mouth. Steffi has your mouth.”
“I don’t understand. How can they look so alike?”
“Because they’re related. Claudia is Steffi’s aunt”
“Her aunt? What are you saying, Gina?”
“I’m Steffi’s biological mother.…”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A Family Likeness, Margot Dalton’s sixteenth Superromance novel, is set in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, Canada, where the author has lived for the past seven years and been inspired by the spectacular beauty and natural wildness of her surroundings.
This bestselling author has also written seven books in Harlequin’s popular CRYSTAL CREEK series, two mainstream titles for MIRA Books, and has contributed to two anthologies.
A Family Likeness
Margot Dalton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_83f52616-34bf-5b2b-9599-2cc84329bb3c)
“NOW, LET’S SEE…it’s seven inches down to this little bunch of flowers, and four and a half inches up from the bottom…”
Gina made a pencil mark at one end of the strip of wallpaper stretched out on the floor, then crawled briskly over the hardwood, pencil clamped between her teeth, to make a corresponding mark farther down on the roll.
“Did I say four and a half inches?” she muttered, pausing to frown at the paper. “Or did I say four?”
“Who are you talking to?”
Gina glanced up at the doorway, then gestured toward the wall behind her. “Hi, Mary. Isn’t this pretty?”
Her housekeeper strolled into the room, wiping her hands on her apron, and looked at the strips of new wallpaper that partly framed an upholstered window seat.
“You were right,” she said in surprise. “I thought it was too yellow, but it looks really nice on the wall.”
“I knew it would. This paper is exactly what I wanted.”
“Listen to her,” Mary said indulgently. “The girl who always knows what she wants. You’re too young to be talking to yourself.”
Gina crawled back around to measure the strip again. “Four and a half inches,” she said. “I thought so.”
Mary dabbed with her dishcloth at a tiny soiled patch near the edge of the window seat. “I’ve got to find the time to clean all these before the summer rush,” she murmured.
“Now you’re doing it.” Gina held the ruler in place to make a pencil line, then started cutting.
“Doing what?”
“Talking to yourself.”
“I’m sixty years old,” Mary said placidly, smiling and looking out the window as a pair of white butterflies danced an aerial ballet near the lilacs. “I can talk to myself anytime I want.”
“Well, I’ll be thirty-six next week.”
Gina rolled the strip of wallpaper and plunged it into a narrow plastic trough. She stood erect, holding the dripping sheet of paper over the trough, and glanced at the other woman.
“You know, Mary,” she said, “there are times when I can hardly believe it.”
“What?” Mary sat down on the window seat, fingering the yellow chintz upholstery with a dreamy faraway look.
“That I’m almost thirty-six years old. Where have all the years gone? It seems like yesterday that I bought this place.”
“There’ve been a lot of yesterdays,” Mary said in her gentle voice. “And you’re right, they’re really flying by.”
“Well, I guess that means we’re having fun, right?” Gina said dryly. “Even though it doesn’t always feel like it.”
“You love this place,” Mary said.
Gina carried the wet length of paper across the room and climbed the ladder. She frowned in concentration as she fitted the strip into place, matching the pattern carefully. “You’re right,” she said. “This was the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. But that doesn’t mean I don’t find it pretty frustrating sometimes.”
She took a sponge from the tray on the step-ladder and began to smooth the paper. Mary asked, “The only thing?”
“Beg pardon?” Gina was still wiping briskly at the damp paper.
“Gina, you’ve got a big wrinkle there on the edge, right under that yellow basket.”
Gina smoothed the wallpaper while Mary watched her with a thoughtful eye. “I just wondered,” the housekeeper went on, leaning back against the broad oak window frame, “whether that’s really true. I mean, that running this business is the only thing you ever wanted.”
“Of course it’s true. What else have I ever wanted to do?”
“That’s what I’m asking.”
Gina’s face shadowed and she turned away quickly. “If you mean a husband and babies, I’ve never wanted them. You and Roger are my family.”
Mary smiled. “Some family,” she said.
“It makes me happy.” Gina climbed down from the ladder to smooth the bottom of the wallpaper, then trimmed it above the wide baseboard. “Families come in all shapes and sizes, you know.”
“I know.” Mary got to her feet and headed for the door. “But you and me and Roger, we’re a mighty strange family by anyone’s standards.”
Still kneeling at the baseboard, Gina looked over her shoulder. “Speaking of Roger, don’t forget to tell him about that cracked toilet seat in the blue room, all right?”
Mary’s cheeks turned pink with distress. “You’ll have to tell him yourself,” she said. “I’m still not speaking to him.”
Gina sighed and got to her feet. “Now what are you two fighting about?” It seemed the housekeeper and the handyman/caretaker were always at odds over something.
“The man keeps insisting on sneaking food to Annabel, even though I’ve specifically asked him not to.”
“But Roger loves Annabel. You know he does.”
“She’s my dog,” Mary said firmly. “And the vet says she’s too fat. She needs a low-calorie diet. How can she lose weight if that man insists on giving table scraps to her behind my back?”
“Roger’s just too softhearted. He can’t stand to hear the way Annabel whimpers in the pantry during every meal. It really is a heartbreaking sound, you know.”
“She’s my dog,” Mary repeated with uncharacteristic stubbornness. “I guess I know what’s best for her.”
“I’m sure you do.” Gina gave up the argument. “I’ll talk to Roger, all right?”
Mary nodded, looking somewhat mollified, and paused in the doorway. “Oh, by the way, I just remembered what I came up here to tell you. A man called a few minutes ago.”
“What man?”
“Name’s Alex Colton. Said he wanted to talk to you about a room.”
“Did you get his number?”
Mary shook her head. “He’s in town. I gave him directions and he said he’d drive out this afternoon to make arrangements with you in person.”
Gina looked at the messy scraps of wallpaper and the damp floor. “Well, I hope he doesn’t get here until I’ve had time to finish this,” she said. “I was really hoping for just one day when I could work without any interruptions.”
“There’s no such day in this business.” Mary smiled, her sunny nature apparently restored. “After fourteen years, you should know that, dear. It looks real nice,” she added, gesturing at the wall. “You’re doing a lovely job.” Then she was gone, vanishing down the gleaming oak staircase that descended to the lower foyer past a wall of stained glass.
Gina stood in the doorway and watched, thinking about her housekeeper. Mary Schick was worth her weight in gold. She’d been here almost since Gina had first opened the old mansion as a bed-and-breakfast. It was hard to imagine the place without her. A small spare woman with graying hair worn in a careless perm, the housekeeper was the kind of quiet efficient person upon whom people seemed automatically to depend. In fact, she’d spent her entire life looking after others. She’d settled in right after high school to run her family’s restaurant and look after her parents. She’d never married, had never even left Azure Bay. When her mother died and her father soon afterward, she’d sold the restaurant, happy to be free of the responsibility, and come to work as a cook and housekeeper for Gina Mitchell.
A few months later, Mary had sold her parents’ little house in the village, as well, and moved into the bed-and-breakfast as a permanent resident. She and Gina had been together ever since.
Fourteen years, Gina thought as she walked back into the guest room shaking her head in disbelief. She knelt to measure the next strip of wallpaper, then squinted up at the wall to determine the pattern match.
But Mary’s visit had set Gina’s thoughts on another track, and keeping her mind on the job at hand became increasingly difficult.
“Almost thirty-six years old,” she said, sitting back on her heels. “Lord, I can’t believe it. Where has the time gone?”
She got up, the pencil in her hand forgotten, and wandered over to look out the window. Beyond the leaded-glass panels, a willow tree swayed and rustled in the warm breeze, partially obscuring her view of the lake. Gina stared into the trailing green branches, thinking about the swift passage of time.
Framed by the window, she could have been a boy. She wore loose denim shorts, a white cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up and frayed sneakers. Her body was slim and sun-browned from hours of working outside in the yard and garden, and her curly dark hair was cropped short. She had hazel eyes, high cheekbones dusted with freckles, and a sober level gaze that belied the boyishness of her face and body.
Fourteen years, she thought again, opening the casement window and leaning out to look across the lake. Almost half her life had been poured into this place.
But Gina had no regrets. Edgewood Manor was her life; it was her passion, her dream come true. Few people ever had the chance to live out a fantasy the way she had, right from the beginning.
She remembered the first time she’d seen the old mansion, and the powerful visceral surge of yearning she’d felt when she looked at its stately facade, its spacious grounds. From that moment, at the edge of twenty-one, she’d wanted the place for herself, and she would have done anything to get enough money to make the down payment.
In fact, what she had done to raise the money had been almost unthinkable…
Gina’s face tightened. Those were memories she never allowed herself to dwell on. They were buried deep in the past, and she intended to leave them hidden there forever. It was enough to know that Edgewood Manor was hers. As long as she could keep her business operating at a modest profit and make the mortgage payments on time, nobody could ever take the house away from her.
Nobody, she thought fiercely, gripping the window frame.
She swung her gaze to the orchard. It was early June, and the blossoms on the fruit trees had vanished, replaced by a drift of fresh green leaves. Soon the fruit would ripen, and they’d pick baskets of apples and pears and luscious apricots, and Mary would make jam and preserves. Then the frost would come and the leaves would fall. Snow would drift across the mountains, hiding the lake in shrouds of mist.
And another year would pass, and another…
Gina caught sight of a solitary figure down in the side yard, under one of the apple trees.
“Roger!” she called, leaning out the window. “What are you doing?”
The caretaker looked up and waved a length of wood he appeared to be whittling.
“Don’t go away,” Gina said. “I’m coming down.”
She glanced at the unfinished wall, the partial roll of wallpaper on the floor and the untidy clutter of scissors, rulers and paper scraps. With a rueful shake of her head, she left the room and ran lightly down the stairs.
An elderly couple were in the plant-filled sunroom when she passed, reclining in wicker chairs among the ferns and reading peacefully. Gina paused to smile at them.
“Hello,” she said. “Are you enjoying our Okanagan sunshine?”
“It’s heaven,” the woman said, lowering her book. “We came all the way from Pennsylvania to stay at this place, you know. Friends of ours were here two years ago, and they never stopped talking about how wonderful it was.”
“Really?” Gina said, pleased. “From Pennsylvania?”
The man nodded. “The Piedmonts,” he said. “Allan and Sheila.”
“Oh, I remember them,” Gina said. “They were here in the fall, I think. In fact, I seem to recall that Mr. Piedmont spent most of his time outside taking pictures of the autumn foliage.”
“Allan’s a real camera nut,” the woman said. “Sheila gets so annoyed with him.”
Gina lingered for a moment, exchanging pleasantries with the guests, then excused herself and went out through the French doors.
She crossed the flagstone courtyard, where a young honeymoon couple shared one of the wrought-iron benches near a rose-covered trellis, talking in low tones.
They looked up at Gina with shy smiles as she passed, then returned immediately to their conversation, heads close together and fingers intertwined. Gina ignored the tiny pang of envy she felt. The young couple had a closeness, an almost palpable aura of love that shut the rest of the world out.
She moved to the gate set in the honeysuckle hedge, then trotted across the clipped grass to the orchard.
“Hi, Roger,” she said, approaching the tall man in a plaid shirt and denim overalls who sat under the apple tree whittling. “What’s that?”
“One of the spindles on the back stairway is warped. I’m carving a new one.”
Gina looked in awe at the length of oak, which had been partially turned on the lathe in Roger’s workshop at the back of the house and was now being hand-finished to match the other spindles.
“It’s amazing,” she said, bending to run her fingers along the wooden shaft. “When you’re done, I probably won’t know which spindle you replaced unless you point it out to me.”
“Well, I certainly hope not,” Roger said placidly. He returned to his carving while Gina leaned against the tree and considered how to tell him that his habit of sneaking food to Annabel was a source of great distress to Mary.
It was funny about this pair. Roger and Mary were about the same age, and Roger, like the housekeeper, had wandered into Gina’s life just when she’d needed him most.
She’d still been fairly new in the business then, struggling to make a success of her bed-and-breakfast operation and cope with the mortgage payments. Mary had helped a lot in those early years, with her housekeeping skills and her genius in the kitchen. But Gina was still crushed by the constant repairs that needed to be done, and the prohibitive expense of getting tradespeople out from the city.
Then, one mellow autumn day, Roger had dropped into her world like a gift from the gods, and things had begun to run smoothly.
Roger hadn’t arrived looking for work. He’d actually been a paying guest, an executive from a Vancouver-based lumber company trying to deal with burnout and job stress by taking a holiday in British Columbia’s lovely Okanagan Valley.
Despite his desk job, Roger was a man who could turn his hand to almost anything. He’d entertained himself during his vacation by helping Gina with leaky pipes, ill-fitting windows and warped doors.
When it was time for his holiday to end, he decided he didn’t want to leave. So he simply mailed in his resignation, moved his accounts to the bank in Azure Bay, bought a snug little house and property just down the road from the hotel and stayed on as Gina’s handyman and caretaker.
“I don’t know how I ever ran this place without you,” she told him now, watching as he carved neat grooves into the bottom portion of the spindle. “What on earth would I ever do if you left?”
“You’d manage,” Roger said comfortably. “You’re not a girl who needs help from anybody, Gina. You’re a real survivor.”
She thought about that, enjoying the way the long curls of wood fell away from the oak shaft under his hands. “Everybody thinks I’m so tough and independent,” she said at last. “But lots of times I don’t feel that way at all.”
He smiled up at her. Roger was nearly bald, with a tall angular body and eyes that were blue and tranquil under silvered brows.
Gina sometimes wondered how he’d adapted so readily to this life-style, which must have been, after all, a radical departure from his old existence.
Roger never talked about his past. Apparently he had no family or emotional entanglements, and seemed to be financially independent. At least, he managed without apparent discomfort on the small salary that was all Gina could afford, ate most of his meals with Gina and Mary in the hotel kitchen and passed his free time happily in his little farmhouse. For hobbies, he had his woodworking and a lovely old cello he played with surprising skill in a local chamber-music group.
“Mary’s upset with you again,” Gina said at last. “I promised I’d talk to you.”
Roger sighed. “What did I do this time?”
“It seems you’ve been sabotaging Annabel’s diet.”
Roger looked up, feigning innocence. “Is Annabel on a diet?”
“Roger, you know she’s too fat.”
“She certainly is. She’s probably the most obese poodle in the province.”
“So why do you insist on feeding her table scraps?”
Roger grinned and began to carve another neat groove. “That animal was howling so loud yesterday the couple in the patio room were complaining about the noise. I just gave her an old soup bone to chew on, that’s all.”
“With a bit of meat on it?” Gina asked wryly.
“Maybe a little,” he admitted.
She chuckled, then sobered. “You’re a sweetie, Roger, and you know how much I love you. But you’ve got to stop upsetting Mary that way. Someday this will escalate to the point where I’ll lose one of you, and then I’ll probably have to close the business.”
“Nobody’s indispensable,” Roger said mildly. “Always remember that, Gina. You could get along perfectly well without either one of us. We’re just a habit, you know. A well-worn groove.”
Gina glanced at him sharply, caught by something in his tone. “You keep saying things like that.”
“Do I?”
“Lately you’re always talking about how capable I am, and how perfectly well I could manage on my own. Are you setting me up, Roger? Is there something you want to tell me?”
He shook his head and went back to his careful whittling. “I don’t like hearing you say you’d have to close the place down if one of us left, that’s all. It doesn’t sound like you, Gina. You’re a fighter, not a quitter.”
“I know. But I’ve grown used to having companions in the battle, that’s all. I’d really hate to be all alone again.”
“So why don’t you find some nice young man to work at your side?”
Gina kicked his leg gently with the toe of her sneaker.
“Stop that,” she said. “Immediately.”
Roger moved his leg slightly. “I mean it,” he said, holding the shaft of wood to his eye like a rifle and squinting down its length. “You’re not that bad-looking, and still reasonably young. Aren’t there any decent prospects out there who don’t mind a skinny, freckled, hot-tempered girl with a will of iron?”
Gina relented and sank onto the grass, sitting cross-legged next to him and frowning at a ragged tear in the hem of her shorts. “All the men I meet fall roughly into two categories,” she said.
“Okay.” He put the wood down and rubbed his knife on a small whetstone, then tested the blade with his thumb. “I’ll bite. What are they?”
Gina plucked a stem of grass and chewed on it thoughtfully. “Well, there’s the kind of man who feels really threatened by a woman living alone and running her own successful business. Those men seem to need to put me down in all kinds of subtle ways just to prove they’re still dominant.”
“Mmm. That’s attractive,” Roger said. “What’s the other kind?”
“The ones who think what I’m doing is great, because they could move in with me and have a nice free ride on my efforts.”
“Equally attractive. So which category’s worse?”
“I don’t know,” Gina said gloomily, throwing the grass away. “I hate them both.”
“Not an attitude that’s going to get your dance card filled, my dear.”
She grinned and got to her feet. “Oh, there are a whole lot of openings in my social calendar, all right. And it’s probably a good thing, because I never have .enough time to get my work done as it is.”
“Speaking of work, what are you doing in the gold room this afternoon?”
“Putting up new wallpaper. You should come and see it, Roger. It looks terrific, especially around the window seat.”
“Isn’t that the paper Mary thought was going to be too yellow?”
“Yes, but now she admits she was wrong.”
“She does?” Roger’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “Now, there’s a first. For such a timid little thing, Mary can be pretty hardheaded in her opinions, you know.”
“You be nice,” Gina told him severely.
She left him under the tree with his whittling, strolled across the grass and let herself through the gate into the courtyard, recalling, too late, that she still hadn’t told Roger about the cracked toilet seat in the blue room.
No rush, she decided. Roger was busy with other things at the moment, and the blue room wasn’t booked for at least a week.
She paused inside the hedge and looked up at the house. Even after all these years, the sight of its massive vine-covered bulk against the distant violet of the mountains and the cloudless blue sky was enough to make her heart beat faster.
“It’s really beautiful, isn’t it?” a feminine voice said at her elbow, echoing her thoughts. “Like a scene out of Sleeping Beauty or something.”
Gina turned and smiled at the honeymoon couple who, dressed in bathing suits now and carrying towels, were on their way down the path to the beach. They were an attractive pair, both medical students from Minnesota who’d just completed their residencies before their June wedding. This Canadian honeymoon had been a gift from the groom’s parents.
“The house is more than a hundred years old, fairly ancient by local standards,” Gina told them. “Actually it’s quite a romantic story.”
“Tell us,” the girl commanded, leaning against her young husband and gazing up at him. “We’re in the mood for romance these days.”
Gina smiled, thinking about their cozy love nest up in the rose pink dormer room with its little stone fireplace.
“The house was built by Josiah Edgewood,” she began. “Josiah was a Scottish nobleman and adventurer who came out to Canada when he was a young man and discovered gold up north in the Caribou region. Josiah made a fortune at his mine and fell in love with the area. He picked the Okanagan Valley for its spectacular scenery and mild winters, and started trying to convince his new wife to come and join him here.”
“But she wouldn’t?” the young bride asked, still looking up at her husband as if unable to believe that any woman would be reluctant to follow her man to the ends of the earth. He dropped a kiss on her nose.
“She was afraid. Poor little Lady Edgewood,” Gina said. “She was barely out of her teens and quite frail, and she thought this whole country was overrun with wolves and grizzly bears. She refused even to consider living in the wilderness unless Josiah could provide her with some decent accommodation.”
“So he built this big house?” the groom asked.
Gina smiled. “Wait till you hear the story. Josiah moved the house. Most of this is the original Edgewood Manor from the family estate near Kilmarnock in Scotland. Josiah had the whole structure dismantled and every piece marked. It was shipped across the ocean in crates, a proceeding that took several years to accomplish. The house was reassembled like a huge jigsaw puzzle right here on the shores of Okanagan Lake. All to please his darling Elizabeth.”
Both young people gazed at her, enchanted. Gina understood their rapt expressions, because she, too, always felt a little thrill whenever she thought about Josiah’s great venture.
If she could ever meet a man like that, a real man with a generous spirit and a strength to match her own, maybe then she wouldn’t be so reluctant to share her life…
“So what happened?” the girl asked. “Did Elizabeth come and live here with him? I hope she didn’t die on the ship coming over and leave him all heartbroken or anything.”
“She certainly didn’t,” Gina said cheerfully. “She arrived to find her manor house completely reproduced on the shores of a Canadian lake, right down to the chandeliers and the stained glass on the stair landings. She was so happy she gave Josiah a big hug and a kiss and settled right in to have babies.”
“How many?”
“Eight. Six girls and two boys. She became the queen of local society and a generous patron of the arts and charities, too. She lived in the house until she died more than seventy years later. That was about 1960, I believe.”
“What happened to the house after that?”
“It went through some pretty hard times,” Gina said. “None of Josiah Edgewood’s offspring wanted to live here, so they tried various money-making projects, like opening the manor up for day tourists and dividing it into apartments. Both the value and appearance declined rapidly, and about fifteen years ago they decided to put it on the market.”
“And?” the young man asked, toying absently with a strand of his wife’s long blond hair.
“And I bought it,” Gina said. “I’d just finished a degree course in hotel management. I was on my summer vacation, like you are. I came out to Azure Bay with a friend to spend a day swimming and lazing on the beach, saw this tumbledown old place and fell in love at first sight. I knew it would be perfect for a bed-and-breakfast, which was something I wanted to run.”
“But you must have been so young!” the bride said in awe. “Younger than we are, even. How could you ever buy a big place like this?”
“Well, for one thing, I had a small inheritance from my grandmother.” Gina’s voice was offhand, but her stomach tightened at the memory of that awful time. “And the bank was really impressed with my plans for restoring the building and developing a business.”
“Bankers aren’t all that easy to impress.” The young doctor looked at her with frank admiration. “Nowadays it seems they only lend money to people who already have lots.”
Gina gazed across the rippling turquoise waters of the lake. “I know. It all happened so long ago the details are pretty hard to remember. But I managed it somehow,” she said with forced casualness. “So, you two are off for a swim?”
“If the water’s warm enough. Yesterday it still felt like ice.”
Gina laughed at the girl’s expression. “Okanagan Lake is more than eighty miles long from one end to the other, you know, and it’s mostly fed by snow melting up in the mountains. The water doesn’t really warm up for another month or so. But with the hot weather we’ve been having, it should be getting tolerable.”
“Jenny’s just scared of the lake monster,” her husband said, ruffling his wife’s hair fondly. “What’s his name again?”
“Ogopogo,” Gina told him. “Lots of the local people say they’ve seen him. He’s supposed to be about sixty feet long, quite playful, with several humps and a head much like a horse.”
“Have you ever seen him?” Jenny asked.
Gina smiled. “Maybe,” she said. “But I’m not telling. Hurry up and go for your swim, or you won’t be back in time for tea.”
“I love teatime,” the husband said with enthusiasm.
“Forget the tea and cakes,” his wife teased. “The sherry’s what he really likes.”
The young man grinned, then ran off along the path to the beach, laughing as his wife came scrambling after him.
Gina watched them until they disappeared behind a rocky promontory. At last she turned and headed back up to the house, climbing the stairs to the gold room with its piles of wallpaper scraps.
SOON SHE WAS ABSORBED in her task again, lulled by the mechanics of the job, the careful measuring and fitting and the almost magical transformation as the fresh new paper covered the faded walls.
Gina hummed softly, thinking about curtains. The old lace panels looked limp and discolored against the new paper. Maybe she’d make a set of white priscillas for the window seat. Or some muslin panels on fling rods, trimmed with macramé lace…
She frowned, considering, and took a step closer to examine the window frame. In most of her decorating projects, she tried to stick to an authentic Victorian look, which was in keeping with the rest of the house. But window coverings, those were a real challenge.
She preferred a light fresh look in draperies, something that let in the marvelous scenery and the fragrant breezes from the garden and the lake. She hated the Victorian habit of swathing windows in yards and yards of heavy brocade and damask, often further cluttered with fringes and valances, all designed to keep the sun at bay. She paused to look out the window, pleased by the sights and sounds of her little world. Far below on the beach, she could see the honeymoon couple lying on the beach, stretched out on their dark blue Edgewood towels, their hands touching.
The elderly couple had left the sunroom and were strolling in the garden, admiring the geraniums. No other guests were in evidence, although five of Gina’s nine rooms were currently occupied. People tended to scatter after breakfast, off exploring the countryside or visiting one of the resort towns along the lake.
But they were usually careful to get back in time for afternoon tea, served with cakes and sherry in the wood-paneled library. This charming custom had been established with great success during Gina’s early years at Edgewood Manor, and was one of the features that brought people back year after year.
Through the open window, she could hear a gentle medley of sounds. Bees hummed drowsily among the flowers in the garden, Mary’s pudgy poodle whimpered somewhere nearby—obviously still suffering from hunger pangs—and sea gulls cried around the dock.
It was heaven, Gina thought, absently fingering one of the lace panels. The place was simply heaven.
“Hello?” a voice said behind her, startling her. “Are you Gina Mitchell?”
She dropped the curtain, whirled around—and found herself staring in confusion at one of the most attractive men she’d ever seen.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_ca7601d5-d5bc-5717-80d1-d87a75867f68)
GINA STUDIED the newcomer. He appeared to be about forty, no more than average height, but powerfully built. He wore casual pleated slacks and a white polo shirt, and had curly dark hair, heavily frosted with gray at the temples. His face, with its finely chiseled features and clear intelligent blue eyes, was severe in repose, despite the fullness of his lower lip. She thought his mouth hinted at a sensual nature, well controlled but very intense.
“I’m sorry if I startled you.” His tone was courteous. “My name’s Alex Colton. I phoned earlier to say I’d be coming out this afternoon.”
“Oh, that’s right. My housekeeper mentioned your call. But I’ve been so busy today I forgot all about it.”
Colton looked around at the wet scraps of paper littering the hardwood, then at the flowered walls, now almost completely covered. He turned back to Gina with a smile. “It looks great. You’re quite the decorator.”
The smile surprised her. It transformed his face, driving away the severity and making him seem happy, almost boyish. But as suddenly as it had appeared, the smile faded and the severity returned.
Or was it sadness? Gina wondered. If a woman lived with this man, she’d probably spend a lot of her time trying to make him smile.
Gina wiped her hands briskly on her shorts and moved past him to the door. “My housekeeper mentioned that you were interested in renting a room?” she asked over her shoulder.
“I wanted to discuss terms,” he said. “If you have a few minutes to spare.”
“I always have time to spare for business.”
Gina led the way down the stairs, conscious of Alex Colton just behind her. For such a powerfully built man, he had a tread as light as a cat.
“That window is magnificent,” he said, gazing upward. “Do you happen to know who did the stained glass?”
Gina paused in the foyer by the newel post, fingering an intricate carving of grape leaves in the polished oak. For the second time that afternoon, she told the story of Josiah Edgewood and his reluctant bride.
Colton stood above her on the stairs and listened in apparent fascination, emotions playing visibly across his face. The man was such a good audience that Gina had to force herself to stop talking. She felt as if she could go on for hours, telling him stories about the house and its history, enjoying the way his eyes lit up and that elusive smile touched his mouth.
“Well, it seems my wife was right, as usual,” he said at last. “I think this place is going to be perfect for us.”
His wife.
Gina was surprised and a little annoyed with herself for her swift surge of disappointment. After all, she was hardly the sort of woman who looked on every man as a romantic prospect.
She led the way across the foyer and into her office. Moving behind the broad oak desk, she gestured to one of the leather chairs nearby and reached into a drawer for the reservation book. Her guest settled in a chair and examined the placid scene beyond the window.
“When were you and your wife thinking of coming to stay with us, Mr. Colton?”
He glanced at her, looking startled and unhappy, and turned back to his study of the yard. “What’s wrong with that dog?” he asked.
Gina followed his gaze, watching as Mary’s fat white poodle lumbered past the window and settled near a clump of pink alyssum, whining piteously.
“She’s hungry,” Gina said. “Her name’s Annabel and I’m afraid she’s on a diet.”
“She certainly should be,” Colton said with another of those brief shining smiles. “But she doesn’t seem to have a lot of willpower, does she?”
“Not a lot,” Gina agreed. “Annabel doesn’t believe in suffering silently.”
She stole a glance at her visitor, who was still watching the dog. He looked so intrigued that once again she had to suppress the urge to keep talking, to tell him all about Mary and Roger and their running conflict over the care and feeding of Annabel.
“We’re getting a lot of bookings for the summer,” Gina said, studying her reservations again. “But we have a few weekend rooms left in June, and a fair number of openings in the fall, though Christmas is already—”
“I want the whole summer,” he said abruptly.
Gina looked at him in astonishment. “The whole summer?”
“That is, if the place looks as great under close inspection as it does on first impression.”
She fingered her pen nervously. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, Mr. Colton, that our prices are…somewhat higher than normal accommodation rates in the area.”
“About a hundred and fifty dollars a day,” he agreed calmly. “My wife had a brochure about the place, and I hope it isn’t too far out-of-date. Are those .prices still accurate?”
Gina nodded. “There’s quite a lot of variation from room to room,” she said. “Some of the smaller rooms are less than a hundred a day, but the attic suite, for instance, is two-fifty.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Because of its size and the amenities. There’s a wood-burning fireplace, a king-size sleigh bed on a platform fitted with steps, a large antique bathroom with a two-person whirlpool tub and a covered balcony overlooking the lake.”
“Sounds like a honeymoon suite,” he said.
“Often it is.”
“And is the attic suite occupied at the moment?” he asked.
“There’s a young couple from Minnesota staying there for the weekend. They’ll be gone on Tuesday.”
“Well, it sounds beautiful, but probably not exactly what I’m looking for. What about that room you were working in?”
“That’s the gold room,” Gina said. “It’s about midrange. It has leaded-glass casement windows, a gas fireplace and a small balcony. It’s a hundred and seventy.”
“And if I took it for two months? Would I have to pay—” he paused a moment to think “—ten thousand dollars?”
“Of course not. I could offer a substantially decreased rate for a long-term stay. And all our guests are treated to a wonderful three-course breakfast and an afternoon tea in the library.”
Colton leaned back in his chair. “Would the gold room be free for the entire summer?”
“I think I could make arrangements to have it available,” Gina said, keeping her face carefully expressionless. She could never recall having a room booked for sixty consecutive days to the same person. A stay at Edgewood Manor was usually an expensive luxury for her guests. It was a chance to escape from the real world, to be pampered by the staff for a few days and swathed in the sumptuous elegance of a bygone era.
Sometimes travelers from faraway places such as Australia or Japan stayed for a week or more if they had a particular interest in the Okanagan region. But a booking of two months was simply unheard-of. It would require some juggling on her part and moving of guests to other rooms. But she had nothing on file to indicate that anybody had specifically requested the gold room, so it should be all right…
While she was examining the reservation book, Colton startled her again.
“Before you get too involved in that,” he said, “I probably should mention that I’ll be needing another room, as well.”
“Two rooms? For the entire summer?” Gina looked up at him sharply.
He was sitting in relaxed fashion in the leather chair and had returned his gaze to the window. The afternoon sunlight etched his profile softly with gold.
Gina felt a rising annoyance.
This had to be some kind of scam. Maybe he was a journalist, planning to do a sensationalist article on inflated accommodation prices in resort areas, without the slightest concept of how much it cost to operate a huge old place like this.
“Look,” she began stiffly, “if you’re trying to make some kind of point, I’m not sure I understand what it is.”
He turned in surprise. “What do you mean?”
Gina’s anger faded to uncertainty once more. His gaze was so clear and honest, his face quietly appealing. “We don’t normally have such extended bookings,” she said at last. “A stay at Edgewood Manor is a weekend luxury for most people, Mr. Colton. It’s not the kind of place where people tend to book a room for two whole months. And,” she added, looking down at her reservation book to avoid his thoughtful gaze, “certainly not two rooms.”
Colton sat forward in his chair. His face suddenly looked tired and drawn. “I see. But it’s allowed? I mean, you’ll still rent me the rooms if I want them?”
“Why do you need two rooms?” Gina asked bluntly.
“My daughter will be spending the summer here, as well. She’s fourteen.”
Gina still felt nervous and uncertain. She couldn’t seem to read the man, couldn’t determine if he was utterly sincere or merely feeding her a line for some obscure reason of his own.
She decided to play along and see what happened. Maybe he really was on the level. And renting two rooms for the whole summer was certainly profitable for her…“All right.” She consulted the book again. “But there’ll be a problem, I’m afraid, if. you want your daughter in a room adjoining yours. On the second floor we only have the blue and gold rooms and the Edgewood master suite, which is quite expensive and also heavily booked.”
“Well, what about the blue room?”
Gina shook her head. “A number of couples have strong emotional attachments to the blue room. It’s already reserved for quite a few weekends this summer. If your daughter stayed there, she’d have to move out at regular intervals to a different room while the blue room was being used.”
Colton shook his head. “Oh, she wouldn’t care for that, I’m afraid. Like most teenagers, Steffi travels with a lot of stuff. It takes a small army to move it.”
Gina examined the reservation book again. “Let’s see. Fourteen years old…” she murmured thoughtfully. “Maybe she’d like the patio room. It’s on the main floor, with a French door opening onto the terrace. It’s readily accessible to the beach path, and it’s also one of the smaller, less expensive rooms. You can see the door to it over there, in fact.”
She gestured out the window toward the side wing of the mansion. There was a door at ground level across the leafy yard, with leaded-glass panels set into rails of antique brass that winked brightly in the sunlight.
Colton’s eyes sparkled with interest. “May I see the room?”
“Of course.” Gina got up and led the way out of her office, conscious again of him following close behind. “It’s quicker to go out through the back,” she said, opening a door into a wide hallway floored in oak and smelling deliciously of fresh bread.
“What a heavenly aroma,” he said, sniffing in pleasure.
“Mary’s baking this afternoon. She’s the cook and housekeeper. That’s the kitchen,” Gina added as they passed a big airy room full of glass-fronted cabinets. “Guests are welcome to drop in and visit while Mary’s working. And she’s always very generous about sharing her recipes.”
“I look forward to meeting her.”
Gina nodded. “I’ll introduce you on the way back. Hello, Roger,” she said as the caretaker passed them, carrying his freshly carved spindle and a can of wood stain.
Roger smiled at Gina and Alex Colton, his face creasing with warmth. “I have to match the wood stains,” he told them, brandishing the spindle. “It usually takes about seven attempts before I get it just right.”
“That’s Roger Appleby,” Gina told her visitor as the handyman vanished into the foyer. “He looks after things for me around the hotel. He also plays wonderful music on a hundred-year-old cello.”
“I’m liking this place more and more,” Alex Colton said, smiling down at her.
The two of them went out the back and down the broad steps to the yard. Annabel caught sight of them and trotted awkwardly across the lawn, gazing up at them with wretched appeal.
“She looks even fatter up close,” the man said, bending to pet her.
Gina watched, liking the way he caressed the dog. His hands looked strong and competent, but very gentle. She realized she was staring and turned away quickly to cross the yard, heading for the shaded flagstone terrace.
“Is all the landscaping authentic Victorian, too?” he asked.
“Most of it. Lady Edgewood had a lot of shrubs brought over from Scotland, and they do quite well in this climate. There’s even some heather growing on the slope up there. Of course, I’ve added other perennials, and Mary has a big garden that provides most of our vegetables during the summer. And we make all our own jams and preserves.”
“Enchanting,” Alex Colton said sincerely, looking around at the shimmering lake, the blue-shadowed mountains on both sides of the valley and the roofs of the little town of Azure Bay in the distance. “Really beautiful. I think this summer is going to be good for us.”
Gina watched him, struck by the sadness in his face. He looked utterly worn-out, she thought with a rush of sympathy, despite his obvious physical strength.
“I was sure,” she muttered, rummaging in the pocket of her shorts, “I had a master key somewhere. Now what did I…”
Gina felt a growing embarrassment as he watched her place the contents of her pockets, item by item, on a stone retaining wall. There were two polished stones that she’d found on the beach that morning after her swim, as well as a piece of flint that could possibly be a chipped arrowhead, and a length of bent wire she planned to use on the shed door until Roger could find a lock.
But the key didn’t emerge. She went on lining things up on the wall, ignoring his amused glance.
A lottery ticket she hadn’t found the time to check on yet, two feathers, a recipe for peach chutney jotted on a table napkin, a couple of pieces of toffee wrapped in gold foil, a tiny plastic replica of Batman, a pocketknife with a wooden handle, a miniature compass in a gold case—
“A compass!” he exclaimed, picking up the little object. “Does it work?”
“Of course,” Gina said briskly. “Ah, here’s the key,” she said in relief, sweeping the other things back into her pockets.
“Why do you carry a compass?”
“You never know when you might get lost in the woods around here. A compass is a really handy thing to have.”
His eyes sparkled. “You’re just like a ten-year-old boy. Pockets full of interesting stuff. I like that, Miss Mitchell.”
He handed Gina the compass and she returned it to her pocket, trying hard to look like the mature and professional manager of a successful business. But it had been so unnerving to have him examining that row of objects.
She resolved to clean out all the junk from her pockets as soon as Alex Colton left and to try harder in future to refrain from picking up every interesting thing that caught her eye.
“Is the patio room occupied at the moment?” Colton asked. “I’d hate to barge in on somebody.”
Gina shook her head. “There was a couple here for two days, but they left yesterday morning. I’m afraid they complained to Roger that Annabel was making a lot of noise,” she added.
“Steffi is going to love Annabel,” Colton said with a fleeting grin. “Although,” he added, “there’s a very real danger she might be tempted to sneak some food to the poor thing.”
“Oh, goodness, I hope not.” Gina unlocked the door. “Roger does that all the time. Mary gets very upset with him.”
“I think,” he repeated, following her into the room, “I’m really going to like this place.”
He was immediately charmed by the patio room, which had a curtained window seat, a walk-in closet and a small en suite bathroom.
“Perfect,” he declared. “I’ll take this room, as well as the gold room, all right?”
“You haven’t even asked about the price,” Gina said, leading the way back into the yard.
“I’m sure you’ll be fair.”
Gina paused by the retaining wall and looked up at him. “How can you be sure of that?”
He hoisted himself onto the stone ledge and smiled at her. “Because you carry feathers and a compass in your pocket.”
She hesitated, feeling awkward.
“Sit here with me, Miss Mitchell,” he said, patting the sun-warmed stone beside him. “I do have a few more questions about the hotel.”
“Gina,” she said automatically, settling on the ledge a couple of feet away from him. “We’re all on a first-name basis here.”
“Gina,” he repeated. “And I’m Alex.”
He extended his hand. She shook it, pleased by the strength of his grip.
“It’s nice to meet you, Alex,” she said formally. “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay at Edgewood Manor.”
“Yes,” he said, leaning back, his hands braced against the stone. “So do I. We could certainly use a holiday.”
He closed his eyes in the sunlight. Gina stole a glance at him, once again struck by his look of strain and weariness.
“When will you be arriving?” she asked.
“On the first of July, right at the beginning of the long weekend. I’ll book both rooms for all of July and August, but Steffi might choose to visit a school friend for the first week or two of July, so she’ll arrive later than I do.”
“I see.” Gina wondered why he didn’t say “we.” Maybe his wife would also be staying home until their daughter was ready to travel to Azure Bay. But it seemed odd that he would come by himself, ahead of his family.
“What’s the daily routine here?” he asked, bending to pet Annabel again as she huddled by their feet, nibbling one of her paws disconsolately.
“Well, there aren’t any rules. We serve breakfast at eight o’clock, and Mary leaves fruit and baked goods in the dining room all day for guests who like to nibble. Tea is set out in the library from about four o’clock on. Guests are welcome to build a fire in the drawing room or the library on chilly nights and go anywhere on the property that’s not marked exclusively for staff.”
“How large a staff do you have?”
“Mostly just Mary and Roger and me. But in July and August, our busiest months, I also hire a couple of college girls from town to help out.”
“What about the evening meal?” Alex asked.
“The staff eats here, but we don’t serve anything to the guests. They usually choose to walk or drive into town for dinner. It’s less than half a mile, and there are several restaurants catering to tourists, including a really good seafood place. They also have a Chinese restaurant and a pizza place that both deliver, if you prefer to stay and eat at the hotel.”
“Sounds great.” He glanced up at the vine-covered facade of the old mansion’s other wing. “Can we see the room where you were working from here?”
Gina pointed. “The gold room’s that second-floor balcony up there under the dormer.”
Alex squinted into the sunlight. “Ah, yes. Would there be an electrical outlet on the balcony?”
“No, but there’s an outlet just inside the door. I particularly remember,” she added, “because I had to take the plate off today to paper around it.”
“Good. I’ll probably work out there most days if the weather’s nice.”
“What kind of work?” Gina asked.
“Computer,” he said briefly.
She nodded, not pressing for further details. He seemed reluctant to divulge more.
But then to her surprise he said, “I teach economics at a private college near Vancouver. I plan to do some writing this summer.”
“Will your wife and daughter be able to amuse themselves all day?” she asked. “I’m afraid there’s not a lot going on in the town of Azure Bay—though Kelowna is less than half an hour away, and it’s a good-size resort city.”
“Steffi’s an outdoor girl,” Alex said. “She loves hiking and swimming, and she’s a pretty fair amateur photographer. She’s not the type to hang around malls or video arcades.”
“I see.” Gina paused, thinking about the reality of a two-month stay at Edgewood Manor for anyone unaccustomed to this kind of rural existence. “How about your wife? Is she—”
“My wife is dead,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry.” Gina glanced at him. He was staring across the lake, his profile cold and unrevealing. “I thought…I was sure you spoke of this holiday as her idea.”
“In a way it was.” He continued to look at the shimmering expanse of blue-green water. “My wife died three months ago after a lengthy illness. When I was going through her papers, I found the brochure about Edgewood Manor.”
“I see.”
“My wife was the one who planned our vacations,” he went on. “I was always too busy to bother with details like that. Besides, she had a flair for finding the perfect place and organizing quirky off-beat holidays that were perfect for us. So when I found that brochure in her desk, I looked on it as a sort of message from her.” He gave Gina a tired smile. “And it seems she was right again.”
“I hope so,” Gina said with gentle sincerity. “I hope you and your daughter enjoy the summer.”
“It’s been hard for Steffi,” he said. “Really hard. I’m worried about her.”
Gina was silent, recognizing his difficulty with talking about his family’s trauma. He was a man who didn’t share his feelings easily.
“She’s at an age where a girl needs her mother,” he went on in a low voice. “It was bad enough for Steffi to lose her, but to watch how terribly Janice suffered at the end…”
He fell silent.
Gina glanced at him again, wanting to reach over and squeeze his hand, or put her arm around him and give him a sympathetic hug. But she kept her hands folded tightly in her lap.
“What…what was your wife’s illness?” she inquired hesitantly. She knew she was prying, but something about the man compelled her to ask.
“She had Huntington’s,” he said, still staring at the lake.
“Oh,” Gina murmured, wrung with sympathy. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
She was silent a moment, trying to remember what she’d heard about the condition. “I always thought…” she began.
He turned to face her. “Yes?”
“About Huntington’s. I thought it didn’t affect people until quite late in life.”
“Usually it doesn’t,” Alex said. “But it can strike in the early thirties. That’s when my wife first started to develop symptoms—about ten or eleven years ago. Her father and an uncle both died of it,” he added, “so we knew what to expect. But the children of people with Huntington’s still have a fifty percent chance of escaping it.”
“And until the symptoms appear…”
“You keep hoping,” he said bitterly. “You cling to hope until the last minute. You tell yourself maybe the tremors are just fatigue, and the dizziness is some kind of allergy. You grasp at straws as long as you can.”
“But hasn’t a test been developed recently? I thought there was some kind of genetic marker that can be isolated and identified.”
“That’s true,” he said, looking at Gina in surprise. “You’re very well-informed.”
“I watch public television,” she said, “and read a lot. I’ve always had an interest in scientific things.”
“Of course you have,” he said with a quick smile. “Anybody can tell that by looking at the things you carry in your pockets.”
She smiled back. “My mother was a chemistry teacher until she retired a few years ago. She always encouraged me to have an inquiring mind.”
“What about your father?”
Gina tensed, reluctant to get into a personal discussion. But he’d told her about his own family tragedy, so it seemed graceless not to respond to his questions.
“My father was in sales,” she said. “He traveled a lot. When I was about eleven, he left on a trip to Ontario and wound up staying there. My mother raised us all alone.”
“Us?”
“I have a sister who’s ten years younger than I am. She and my mother live in New Brunswick. I came out here almost twenty years ago to go to college, fell in love with the province and never left.”
“Why did you decide to go to school so far from home?”
“I have an aunt who lives in Vancouver near the university,” Gina said. “It was cheaper to stay with her than in a dormitory somewhere. And UBC offered a really good course on hotel management, which was always my career choice.”
“I see.”
Alex leaned back again, lifting his face gratefully to the warm rays of sunlight.
“In answer to your question about testing,” he said after a brief silence, “it was something my wife never wanted to do, even after the test became more readily available. She said she refused to live with a death penalty over her head. As it happened, the disease progressed a lot more rapidly than is usual once the symptoms appeared, so maybe she was wise.”
Maybe, Gina thought. But it wouldn’t have been her own choice. She always preferred to know what she was dealing with, to confront the reality head-on no matter how awful it might be. She wondered about Alex’s daughter, though. Had she been tested? Surely—
Alex suddenly got to his feet, then waited courteously while she did likewise. “We’d better get this deal concluded,” he said. “I have to be back in Vancouver before nightfall.”
She walked with him back into the hotel, relieved that their painful conversation was ended.
But as they strolled through the hallway with Annabel at their heels and paused in the kitchen to greet Mary, Gina was alarmed to realize she was already counting the days until the first of July…
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_1273feb9-0258-5cfe-8ca0-258efdb6cf36)
ROGER STROLLED into the kitchen and patted Gina’s shoulder as she worked at a little side table near the window.
Outside, the late-evening sun was setting behind the mountains, casting long purple shadows across the yard. The lake glistened with fiery streaks of orange, and the twilight air was warm and murmurous with crickets and the music of bullfrogs by the water’s edge.
“What’s this one?” he asked.
Gina squinted at the scrap of wire and golden feathers in her vise. “A yellow nymph,” she said. “Like the ones I made last year, but with some minor improvements.”
“Those yellow nymphs were great flies. Remember the big trout I caught, Gina?”
“How could I forget? You’ve mentioned it practically every day for the last year.”
“You’re just jealous,” he said placidly. “We should try to get up to Bear Creek again. We’ve hardly been fishing at all this spring, and June’s almost over.”
Gina sighed, winding her thread carefully. “It’s always so busy around here.”
“Well,” Roger said, pouring himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the counter, “if we wait till we’re not busy, we’ll never go.”
“That’s certainly true.” Gina frowned at the partly shaped fishing fly on her vise, then rummaged in a tackle box full of colored feathers, scraps of fur and spools of thread. “I think I’m going to add some black antennae,” she said. “Something that wobbles a bit.”
“Do nymphs have antennae?” Roger asked.
He crossed the room to the big oak table, the antique lights overhead reflecting on his bald pate with its scant fringe of silver.
“Who cares?” Gina said cheerfully. “Never question an artist. I’m the one who tied the fly that caught your prizewinning trout, remember?”
Roger sat at the table, stirring cream into his coffee. “I remember, all right. Speaking of being busy,” he said thoughtfully, “when do Mr. Colton and his daughter arrive?”
“Next week. At least, that’s when the rooms are booked, but he’s going to be arriving on his own. He faxed a confirmation last week. I gather she’s going to be coming a week or two later.”
“It seems strange,” Roger said. “I mean, booking the patio room just to have it available, even though the girl won’t be here for maybe two weeks. At a cost of more than a hundred dollars a day, too. Isn’t that a real waste of money?”
“It appears,” Gina said, “that money isn’t a problem for Mr. Alex Colton.”
“I didn’t think college professors made that kind of income.”
“Neither did I. But, you know, he seemed so casual about the cost. He was perfectly willing to accept my terms. In fact, I could probably have charged him twice as much and he would have agreed without an argument.”
Roger sipped his coffee and looked out the window at the glowing sunset colors reflected in the waters of the lake. “Well, it’s sure an advantage to have those rooms booked full-time. No turnover. Less work for you.”
“Maybe.” Gina snipped at the colored thread. “And maybe not.”
Roger glanced at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”
Gina selected a bit of black wire, wrinkling her brow thoughtfully. “What if they’re awful guests?” she asked. “What if we find after a while that we can’t stand them, like that Kimmer family last summer, but we’re stuck with them for two whole months?”
Roger grinned. “Remember how Mrs. Kimmer demanded a computer printout of the fat and cholesterol content in every breakfast?”
“And Mr. Kimmer kicked Annabel, and he and Mary almost came to blows over it?”
“And—” Roger grimaced “—the way they kept letting those awful kids of theirs slide down the banisters all the way from the attic, and take their towels outside to play in the mud.”
“Oh, they were a charming group, all right,” Gina said dryly. “That’s my point.” She put the wire down and turned to look at her caretaker. “What if these two are horrible like the Kimmers and turn out to be really disruptive? We’ve never had somebody here for two whole months, Roger.”
“I’m not worried,” he said calmly. “I met Alex Colton and had a talk with him that day he booked the rooms. He struck me as a decent sort of fellow. I liked him.”
Gina was silent, idly flexing her pliers.
“His daughter sounded nice, too,” Roger went on. “In fact, Colton told me she’s a real outdoors type. I was wondering,” he added almost shyly, “if maybe she’d want to go fishing with us sometime. Wouldn’t it be fun to have a kid along, Gina? Somebody young and enthusiastic?”
Gina considered this, startled by the idea. “I’m not sure,” she said at last. “I don’t know much about teenage girls.”
“Didn’t you grow up with a little sister?”
“Sure,” Gina said. “But Claudia’s ten years younger than I am, Roger. She was eight when I left home, and I’ve hardly seen her at all since. It’s too expensive to travel between here and the Maritimes.”
“How long ago was it that time she came out here? Five or six years ago?”
Gina considered. “It would have been eight years, I guess. That trip was my gift to Claudia the year she graduated from high school, when she was eighteen. My goodness—” Gina sighed “—I can’t get over the way the years fly past.”
“Does she still have that trouble with her leg?”
“Not much. She hardly limps at all anymore.” Gina turned to stare out the window. “But it’s taken years of hard work and therapy.”
“What happened exactly?” Roger asked. “I don’t think you ever told me the whole story, just that she’d been in some kind of an accident.”
“It was after I’d been out West a couple of years, when Claudia was ten. I was in Vancouver when I heard.” Gina shuddered. “My mother decided to take Claudia with her for a summer holiday in New England. She’d been driving all day and was exhausted, but I guess she didn’t realize how exhausted. She dozed off on the freeway in Maine and drove under a semitrailer parked by an off-ramp.”
Roger took another sip of his coffee and listened in sympathy.
“It was so awful,” Gina went on. “Mom’s injuries were mostly superficial, but Claudia’s right leg was almost severed just above the knee. They rushed her to the hospital and used all kinds of microsurgery techniques to reattach the nerves and tendons, then did bone grafts to restructure the leg.”
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” Roger said. “What they can do with medical science these days.”
“Oh, it’s wonderful, all right,” Gina said gloomily. “Really wonderful.”
“Gina?” he asked, puzzled.
She met Roger’s gaze, thinking about the nightmare her family had been forced to endure. “My mother’s kind of an absentminded professor, Roger. Not practical at all. She didn’t think to buy medical insurance for herself or Claudia before traveling out of the country.”
His eyes widened. “My God,” he breathed. “So how much did a procedure like that cost?”
Gina brushed a hand across her forehead. “Some of the surgeons donated their time, and we had Claudia transferred back to the Maritimes as soon as she could travel. But the bill for her treatment was already over forty thousand dollars by the time she was moved.”
“Could your mother afford that?”
“My mother could hardly afford to put meals on the table,” Gina said bleakly. “She was about to lose her little house, her teaching job, and any possibility of earning enough in the future to pay for the years of extended therapy that Claudia was going to need.”
“So what did you do?”
“We managed.” Gina stared at the lake. The sun had completely retreated behind the mountains now, and the black still depths of the lake seemed to echo the void in her heart, the aching sorrow and yearning that never went away. “We managed somehow. We all made some…pretty big sacrifices.”
Roger studied her thoughtfully for a moment. “Your sister is a real stunner, as I recall,” he said at last.
“She certainly is.” Gina gathered herself together. “Claudia looks a lot like our mother. I wasn’t lucky enough to get the red hair or the peaches-and-cream complexion.”
“Well, you’re a beauty in your own way, Gina,” he said gallantly. “Red hair or not.”
She smiled at him. “And you’re a sweetie. But I’m realistic about myself, Roger. I know what my strengths and weaknesses are.”
“I’m not sure you do. I don’t know if you’ve ever been fully aware of your strengths.”
Gina shook her bead. She and Roger had been friends for almost twelve years, but except for some casual teasing, they usually tended to avoid this kind of personal discussion.
“Speaking of strengths and weaknesses,” she said, removing the completed fly from her vise and picking up another bit of wire, “do you ever regret moving .here, Roger? Do you miss having a desk and an expense account and a brass nameplate on your door?”
“Not a bit. I live alone, and I’m sixty-two years old. Why would I want to sit behind a desk all day? I want to enjoy my days, because if I can’t, what’s the sense in living?”
“But do you really enjoy it here?” she asked, suddenly anxious to hear his answer. “I mean, looking after the hotel for me and keeping things running smoothly, is that enough of a challenge for you?”
“At my age, I don’t want challenges anymore, Gina. What I want is comfort. And I find my life here very comfortable.”
“Good,” she said in relief. “Sometimes I’m afraid you’re getting restless.”
“You’re supposed to quit saying things like that,” he reminded her, then pushed his chair back and got up to open a cupboard door. “What happened to the banana loaf Mary baked this morning?”
“The guests gobbled every last crumb with afternoon tea.”
“Too bad,” he muttered, still peering moodily into the cupboard. “Where is the woman, anyhow?”
“She’s at choir practice. You’ll get as fat as Annabel if you keep eating Mary’s baking,” Gina warned him, though from the look of his long angular body she doubted there was much fear of that.
She paused suddenly and narrowed her eyes. There was something different about Roger tonight.
“Why are you here now?” she asked. “You don’t usually come over after supper.”
“I needed to pick up something.”
“What?”
“Just some tools,” he said evasively.
“Why?” Gina asked.
“I’m working on something.”
“But you don’t even have a workbench at your house, do you? I thought you did all your woodwork here at the hotel.”
“What is this?” Roger asked mildly. “An inquisition? Am I not free to drop by the hotel after hours if I want to?”
“Of course you are,” Gina said. “But you look…different tonight, that’s all.”
“In what way?”
“I don’t know.” She studied him. “Maybe you’ve changed your hairstyle.”
He chuckled. “And you, young lady, are becoming far too impertinent.”
Gina smiled and returned to her task, while Roger poured himself a second cup of coffee. For a while there was a companionable silence in the kitchen.
But after a few minutes the peace was broken by the closing of a door, a noisy storm of barking and a gentle tread in the hallway. Mary entered the room, laden with books. Annabel tumbled at her heels and yelped hysterically.
“For God’s sake,” Roger said. “Feed that animal, won’t you? She’s being even more annoying than usual.”
Mary lowered her books onto the table and gave him a level stare. Then she sniffed dismissively and turned away. Gina smiled to herself.
“How was your choir practice, Mary?” she asked.
“It was exciting.” Mary crossed the kitchen and took a can of dog food from the cupboard. She opened it and measured the contents into a bowl with calm deliberation, while Annabel writhed on the hardwood floor in an agony of anticipation.
“Choir practice was exciting?” Roger asked.
Mary washed her hands at the sink and continued to address Gina as if he hadn’t spoken. “Mr. Bedlow gave the soprano solo to Marianna Turner.”
Gina’s eyes widened. “No kidding. Even though everybody knows?”
“What does everybody know?” Roger asked, watching with a bemused expression as Mary put Annabel’s bowl on the floor and the animal began to wolf it down as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks.
“About Mr. Bedlow and Marianna Turner,” Gina explained.
“What about them?”
“Oh, Roger,” Gina said. “How could you have possibly missed such a juicy tidbit of gossip?”
His look of surprise was almost comical. “Dried-up old Cecil Bedlow? And that plump young schoolteacher? There’s gossip about those two?”
Mary forgot she was no longer on speaking terms with the caretaker. “There certainly is,” she told him, tying on her apron, then began opening doors and cabinets, assembling the ingredients to prepare batter for the next morning’s fruit crepes.
“Was Marianna embarrassed?” Gina asked.
“I think so. Whatever’s happening, it’s more on his side than hers, in my opinion. I think poor Marianna just doesn’t know what to do about him.”
“You’re always so generous, Mary,” Roger said. “Other women would probably be catty about a situation like that.”
Mary ignored the compliment. “So we didn’t get much of anything else done,” she concluded, “except for the opening bars of the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’ We’re singing it at the Canada Day picnic next weekend.”
“Well, of course,” Roger said solemnly. “That’s a rousing picnic song. Handel should blend right in with the fried chicken and the kids’ sack races.”
Mary gave him a stern glance. “Well, that’s good. Because your chamber-music group is booked to do four sets of Elizabethan madrigals on the entertainment stage by the hamburger tent.”
“Elizabethan madrigals!” he exclaimed, recoiling in alarm. “You’re joking.”
“It’s right there on the program, next to the Tiny Tots Highland Dancing.”
Roger subsided behind his coffee mug again. “This town is a mad, mad place,” he said sadly. “Utterly insane.”
“Oh, come on,” Gina said. She left the worktable to get herself a mug of coffee, pausing on the way to drop a kiss on the top of Roger’s shiny bald head. “You love living here. And you have lots of fun at the picnic every year, no matter how much you complain and make fun.”
“My goodness.” Mary paused with a sifter of flour in her hand. “I almost forgot,” she said, staring at Gina. “The choir practice wasn’t the only exciting thing this afternoon.”
Gina carried her mug back to her table and began construction of another yellow nymph. “So what else happened, Mary?”
“I got some library books.”
“How does the woman ever survive her days?” Roger asked with a grin. “Fraught as they are with such drama and excitement.” He rolled his eyes eloquently in Gina’s direction, making her giggle. Unruffled by his teasing, Mary began to mix the batter for her crepes in a big blue enamel bowl.
“I went to the library,” she repeated, “and picked out a lot of books for myself. I also got some new books on gardening and furniture restoration for you, Gina, in case you ever have time to read.”
“Thanks,” Gina told her. “That was thoughtful of you, Mary.”
“How about me?” Roger asked. “Did you get any books for me?”
“Two political biographies and a new mystery,” Mary replied calmly. “Although I probably needn’t have bothered, since you seem to be so busy these days.”
The words were innocent enough, but Gina was surprised by the unusual edge in Mary’s voice and the way Roger seemed to duck his head in embarrassment.
Suddenly the room was full of tense undercurrents. Confused, Gina looked from one to the other, about to ask what was going on, when Mary resumed her story.
“And while I was browsing through the newspapers, I discovered the most amazing thing.”
“An appropriate location to make amazing discoveries,” Roger murmured, his equilibrium apparently restored. “Among the well-stocked shelves of the Azure Bay Library.”
Mary ignored him and addressed Gina. “Remember the day you brought that man into the kitchen and introduced him to me? The one who’s staying all summer with his daughter?”
Gina nodded. “Alex Colton. He’s arriving in a few days.”
“And remember how I told you after he left…” Mary paused to add more milk to her batter. “I told you I was absolutely positive I’d seen him somewhere, and you said I was probably wrong because he’d never been in the valley before?”
Gina nodded, baffled. “I remember. Why?”
“Well, I was right,” Mary said, crossing the kitchen to rummage through the pile of books and magazines.
Gina got up again and crossed to the big central table, cradling her coffee mug in her hands and sitting down next to Roger.
Mary opened a recent copy of a newspaper and laid it out on the table in front of them. “See?” She stood back with an air of triumph.
Gina gazed in astonishment. Alex Colton’s picture appeared at the top of a newspaper column on the financial pages. She studied the image, struck once again by the man’s appealing masculine look, and the contradictory mixture of sensuality and asceticism in his face.
“I’ll be damned!” Roger exclaimed. “Alex Colton is a columnist? I thought he was a college professor.”
“Not just any columnist. He’s Alexander Waring.” The usually reserved Mary clearly enjoyed the sensation she was causing. “He writes this column about investment and personal finance,” she told Gina. “It’s syndicated, and Roger and I read it all the time. His column’s in a lot of the big papers, but it never used to have his picture at the top. He also has four or five books in the library.”
Roger leaned closer to examine the paper. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he repeated. “Alexander Waring. I have two of his books at home, you know. He has terrific money sense.” Roger shook his head in amazement. “And to think I talked with the man about woodwork and cello music, and didn’t even know who he was.”
“Well, I don’t know as much about the world of high finance as you two obviously do.” Gina took the paper from Roger and studied the picture. “Is he really good?”
“He’s one of the best,” Roger said. “His books give down-to-earth advice on investing and money management, things an ordinary person can actually use. And sometimes,” he added with a smile, “they’re really funny. The man must have a great sense of humor.”
“Can I borrow one of them?” Gina asked. “It’s probably…it’s time for me to start learning something about money management,” she said lamely when the other two looked at her in surprise.
Roger’s eyes were bright with teasing. “That’s all you want to learn?”
“Of course,” Gina said. “You know, I just remembered—he did say that he planned to do some writing this summer. He asked me about electrical outlets on the gold-room balcony for his computer.”
“I suppose he has to keep writing even during the holidays,” Mary said. “He could hardly take two whole months off, after all. A lot of people swear by that column of his.”
“Really? You think he’ll still be doing the column?” Gina asked with sudden excitement. “Maybe he’ll mention the hotel. Anything that brings us to the attention of the public is good for business.”
“As long as he writes about how good the food is,” Mary observed placidly.
“And doesn’t devote whole columns to disruptive pets.” Roger glanced at Annabel, who’d emptied her dish and was now clattering it noisily around on the floor in a vain attempt to discover stray morsels clinging to the sides or bottom.
Mary glared at him. “Most people,” she said coldly, “have better things to do with their time than sit around insulting poor defenseless animals.”
“Ah, yes. My cue to depart.”
Roger got to his feet, smiled at the two women and strolled from the room. They could hear the sound of a truck starting outside, followed by the slow rumble of his departure along the lakeshore road.
“He isn’t going home,” Gina said, leaning forward to peer out the window. “He must be going into town.”
She seated herself at the worktable again, setting the newspaper down carefully next to her tackle box. Mary continued to work at the central table, mixing batter in the bowl with fierce strokes.
“Mary?” Gina said.
“What?”
Mary bent down to take Annabel’s feeding dish away. The poodle sank onto her fat haunches and watched with a comical look of dismay.
“Did you notice something different about Roger tonight?”
“Of course I did,” Mary said curtly.
“What is it?”
“He’s all dressed up. He’s wearing his second-best pants, those gray pleated corduroys, and the new sweater I gave him for Christmas.”
Gina’s eyes widened. “You’re right,” she said, putting down her pliers. “I remember when he got that sweater, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wearing it before.”
Mary murmured something to the poodle, then returned to her task.
“Why would he be all dressed up?” Gina said, puzzled. “This is just an ordinary Saturday night, isn’t it? I mean, their chamber group isn’t playing anywhere. He always tells me when they have a concert in case I want to go along.”
“Oh, it’s certainly not a concert,” Mary said.
Gina pushed her chair back, completely intrigued by now. “Mary, I want you to tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing very important. Roger has a lady friend, that’s all.”
“You’re kidding.” Gina gaped at the cook, astounded, while Mary continued to whip the batter. “How could Roger possibly have a girlfriend without me knowing?”
Mary remained silent and tipped the contents of the blue bowl into a pitcher, then stored it away in one of the two oversize fridges along the wall.
“Look,” Gina persisted, “are you serious? I mean, about Roger having a lady friend?”
Mary poured herself a mug of coffee and sat wearily at the table. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I’m quite serious.”
“I can’t imagine,” Gina said, “who the woman could be. I don’t think there’s anybody in town who’d be even faintly eligible. Although—” she frowned thoughtfully “—when one considers Cecil Bedlow and Marianna Turner, I guess anything’s possible.”
“It’s not somebody from town,” Mary said, bending to stroke Annabel. “It’s a stranger. A woman who’s staying at Fred’s motel out near the winery.”
“How did Roger meet her?”
“Apparently she came to one of their chamber concerts and struck up a conversation with him. Roger’s taken her out several times since then for drives and coffee.”
“Why,” Gina said plaintively, “does nobody ever tell me anything?”
Mary shrugged. “I thought it was no big deal at first. Apparently this woman is one of the shareholders in the winery, and she wanted to come out and look at her investment firsthand. At least, that’s what Fred says.”
“Well, Fred should know. He runs the motel, after all.”
“Fred’s not all that bright,” Mary said sadly. “Even if he is my second cousin.”
“So how long has this woman been staying at the motel?”
“About two weeks.”
“Have you met her, Mary?”
“Annabel, stop that whining!” the housekeeper warned with unusual sharpness. “Stop it this instant!”
The poodle slunk away into the hallway, casting a bitter glance over her shoulder as she did so.
“Mary?” Gina prodded.
“Yes,” the housekeeper said, rubbing the back of her neck with a weary sigh. “I’ve met her, all right. She was in the drugstore yesterday, and Maybelle introduced us. I knew the woman was interested in Roger, so I took a real good look at her.”
“What’s her name?”
“Lacey Franks.”
“And how old is she?” Gina asked.
“Probably about fifty, but she looks ten years younger than she is. Dyed hair,” Mary said. “Bright clothes and lots of makeup, but she’s careful with it so you can’t tell.”
Gina wound another fishing fly onto her vise, gripping the pliers in silence.
“She’s very stylish.” Mary looked down ruefully at her cotton dress and brown cardigan. “And she dresses to show off her figure, too. Yesterday when Maybelle introduced us, she was wearing a little yellow tennis dress with a sweater tied over her shoulders like the women in the television ads.”
Gina shook her head in amazement. “And our Roger is interested in her? He’s actually taken her out on a date?”
“More than once,” Mary said darkly. “Maybelle told me she saw them sitting in a booth at the Clamshell eating lobster, holding hands and laughing together like teenagers.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake,” Gina said, pleased by this image. “Isn’t that nice.”
Mary folded a plastic covering over one of the mixing bowls.
“Where does this Lacey Franks live?” Gina asked. “Does the local gossip network know anything about her?”
“Only that she’s supposed to be rich and her home address is somewhere in West Vancouver.”
“That’s a pretty posh area, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Mary said. “I really wouldn’t know.”
The cook got up, removed her apron and hung it in the pantry. With a softly worded good-night, she made her way out of the kitchen, leaving Gina sitting alone at the window, gazing thoughtfully out at the darkness.
ALEX COLTON, TOO, was gazing into the darkness through the window in his study. The sun had vanished below the horizon in a fiery ball of orange, and the light across the waters of English Bay had faded quickly.
At last he got up and prowled restlessly around the little room, picking up papers and setting them down again, scanning the shelves for a book to take up to his room later. But nothing looked interesting.
“Lord, how I need a holiday,” he muttered, returning to the window. “Or at least a change of scene.”
He thought about the vine-covered mansion in the Okanagan, and the newly papered room where he would soon be staying. The place was enormously appealing, especially with that air of bygone elegance that so perfectly suited the peaceful drowsy warmth of its rural setting.
It was odd, Alex mused, that Janice had never mentioned the hotel to him. She’d obviously learned about it years ago and set aside that brochure in anticipation of a time when they could travel there on a family vacation.
But for the past two years, Jan hadn’t been well enough to travel anywhere. And in the final months of her life, she often hadn’t even been able to remember her husband’s name or their daughter’s face, let alone the address of a resort hotel.
Alex gazed blindly out the window at the dark silvered water, trying to fight off the image of Janice’s twisted face, her body ravaged by an illness so brutal that in the end, it destroyed every vestige of dignity and composure. With a little shock of alarm, he realized he could no longer remember her as she’d looked before the illness. He picked up a photograph from his desk and studied the smiling image in the gold frame.
Jan had been slim and blond, with a delicate, almost angelic beauty that belied her determined nature. When they were first married all those years ago, he’d been surprised and a little taken aback to learn just how formidable—and stubborn—a woman she really was.
But even Jan’s strength had been no match for the crippling illness that was hidden in her body, biding its time, waiting to claim her.
He shook his head moodily, still watching as the last of the twilight glow faded beyond the horizon and the first stars began to glimmer over the waters of the bay. He found his mind returning to the old hotel on the lake and the young woman who apparently owned it. She’d been in his thoughts a lot these days, more than he liked to admit.
Slowly Alex sank into an armchair by the window and allowed himself to reconstruct the image of Gina Mitchell’s face. Everything about the woman was appealing. He liked the open frankness of her expression, the level brows and calm hazel eyes, her dusting of freckles and that cropped curly mass of dark hair. He even admired the boyish athletic look of her body.
He smiled, recalling the way she’d emptied her pockets and solemnly lined up those delightful little objects along the top of the stone wall. At that moment he’d been completely enchanted by her. He would have liked to reach out and touch the skin of her bare arm, ruffle her hair, maybe—
Alex shook his head abruptly, the smile fading.
Not a very attractive line of thought, he told himself, for a man whose wife had been dead for little more than three months.
But Jan had been lost to him for a long, long time. When her symptoms had become too obvious to ignore and she’d finally allowed herself to be examined, the diagnosis itself had been a sentence of death. Both of them knew it. But before death had finally claimed her, the illness had been lingering, so excruciatingly painful both physically and mentally that it had drained every bit of strength from all three of them.
For the last three years, Alex and his wife had no physical relationship apart from the care he gave her and the comfort he could sometimes provide by holding her in his arms. Toward the end, even his touch was too painful for her to endure.
Alex didn’t like to dwell on his own suffering, because he knew that his daughter had endured far more pain. As a girl just entering adolescence, growing into the knowledge of her own womanhood, Steffi had watched her mother fade from strength and beauty to utter dependence. She’d witnessed the deterioration of that lovely body and powerful mind, and gradually come to understand that nobody in her life, not even her father, could protect them from this horror.
He and Steffi had once been so close. Alex was desperately concerned about his daughter’s moody silence and increasing withdrawal. No matter what he did, she seemed to retreat farther from him every day into a place he couldn’t follow.
He put the worried thoughts from his mind and returned to his computer, forcing himself to spend a couple of hours in concentrated work on the final column before his trip to Azure Bay.
At last, when he was too tired to see the computer screen clearly, he got up and pulled the draperies across the darkened window, then went into the kitchen to make coffee and help himself from the bowl of cold pasta salad left in the fridge by his housekeeper. Finally he cleaned up the table and climbed the stairs, stopping outside a closed door in the upper hallway.
“Steffi?” he called softly. “Are you awake?”
No answer. After a moment he pushed the door open and went inside, pausing by his daughter’s bed to look down at her. She was in her long plaid nightshirt and sleeping soundly. Her lips were parted, hands curled under her chin like a small child, and she was bathed in the soft pink glow of a night-light shaped in the form of a rosebud, which had been in her room since she was a baby.
Alex smiled at the delicate cluster of glass petals. Every year or so, Steffi declared that she was old enough to sleep without a light. But after a couple of days the rosebud would reappear, and nobody would comment until her next attempt to leave it behind.
Nowadays he cherished any little habits of childhood that still clung to her. They helped to reassure him that he hadn’t completely lost her. At fourteen his daughter almost had the face and body of a woman. Only when she was sleeping like this could he see traces of the enchanting little girl she’d been.
There were people who’d considered them irresponsible for having a baby when they were aware of Janice’s illness. But those people, of course, didn’t know the truth about Steffi’s birth.
He felt a painful lump in his throat as he remembered how he’d adored that red-haired baby they’d brought home from the hospital all those years ago. What a miracle she’d been to him and his wife. Their lives had been transformed. The growing tensions between him and Janice had almost disappeared, replaced by happy sun-flooded years of laughter and absorption in the growing child they both so dearly loved.
A few years of heaven, Alex thought grimly, followed by years of utter hell. Life had a harsh way of balancing things out.
He could bear it for himself. But he hated his daughter’s having to endure those cruel checks and balances, Steffi, who had never done anything to deserve the kind of suffering inflicted on her family. During all her growing-up years, Steffi had been a pure delight, a ray of sunshine. How he missed that happy generous loving little girl.
Now she was as tall as her mother had been, with a curving figure and a sulky hostile expression that chilled him. Her lips, which were exactly like his own, were usually pressed together in a taut line, and her smiles were rare. He hardly knew what to say to this beautiful stranger, how to fight his way past her anger and pain to the child still living in there.
He reached down gently to brush a strand of hair back from her sleeping face, then adjusted the blankets. As he did so, he saw that Steffi had gone to sleep clutching her old stuffed bunny.
This favorite toy had once been soft pink plush, with a yellow velvet waistcoat and a jaunty expression. But years of love had worn the plush almost bare in places, and the long ears were limp and droopy from constant handling.
As far as he knew, she hadn’t slept with the bunny for eight or nine years. The sight of it now, cradled in her arms, was almost unbearably painful to him.
How lonely and distressed she must be feeling!
If only she would talk to him, even yell at him. Maybe then, Alex and his daughter could start to breach this grim wall of silences and be a family again. But Steffi was so cold and remote. After school and on weekends, she hiked by herself along the trails near their home, fished for hours down in the cove, tramped alone through the woods or sat up in her room with a book.
He should probably be glad she was spending the first two weeks of the summer with Angela Sanders and her parents on a long-planned trip to Disneyland.
As far as Alex knew, his daughter had almost as little to do with her school friends these days as she did with him. Steffi had once been such a bubbly gregarious child, but now she was usually solitary. Maybe a couple of weeks with her friend would be a good thing, though he yearned to have her with him at Edgewood Manor.
But she’d be home from California in a couple of weeks, and then they’d have the rest of the summer together.
Again he thought of the old hotel on the shore of Okanagan Lake. Alex hoped that the tranquillity of that lovely old house and the beauty of its setting would work a miracle, that somewhere within the sun-dappled walls of Edgewood Manor, he would find the touch of magic that would bring his daughter back to him.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_25d66269-d7a0-5cf3-a384-34b02654c952)
“WHY DO YOU KEEP looking down the road?”
“What road?” Gina burrowed among the strawberries. “You know, some of these are really huge.” She held up a fat strawberry for Roger’s inspection.
He nodded, leaning on his hoe in the sunshine among the neat little hills of potatoes. “How many roads are there leading to this place?”
“One,” Gina mumbled. “Last time I looked.”
“Which was about four seconds ago.”
Gina sat back on her heels and gave her caretaker a stern glance. “Roger, you’ve got to quit teasing me about that man, or…”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll wrap a shovel around your neck,” Gina said cheerfully.
Roger rolled his eyes and plied the hoe on a patch of weeds near the fence. “Half the time she worries and frets about me leaving, and the other half she’s threatening to attack me. Women are so hard to understand.”
Gina crawled along the row, digging more plump strawberries out from under their sheltering dark green leaves. “Mary tells me you’ve been learning a whole lot about women these days,” she said casually.
Roger grunted and removed his baseball cap to scratch his head. “And how would Mary know? When she’s not working in that kitchen, she spends all her time at choir practice or buried in the library.”
“Mary knows a lot of things.” Gina stood up and carried her plastic bucket to the next row of strawberries. “Roger…”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your new friend? You know I’d be interested. I’d love to meet her.”
“What friend?” he asked, scraping busily with his hoe.
“You know.” Gina knelt and started on the next row. “Lacey Franks. The city lady who’s been staying over at Fred’s motel. Apparently the two of you are getting really…well acquainted.”
Roger straightened his lanky body and leaned on the hoe, resting his chin on the handle and staring gloomily across the lake. “This town is the damnedest place for gossip.”
“Of course it is. All small towns are the same way. So?” She looked up at him expectantly.
“So what?”
“Tell me about her,” Gina said, exasperated.
“Nothing to tell. Are any of those wax beans ready yet?”
Gina gave up, knowing it was hopeless to press him further. She reached over to examine a long yellow pod on one of the bean plants nearby.
“Yes, I think they are. A few of them, anyway.”
“Could we pick enough for our supper?”
Gina checked the plants again. “I think so. You’d better tell Mary before she plans something else.”
“You tell her. She hardly speaks to me anymore.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Gina said. “I get so tired of all the squabbling you two do.”
But her annoyance was immediately overcome by pleasure at the idea of fresh-cooked buttery beans for their evening meal in the kitchen. She was still riffling through the laden bean plants when a shadow fell across the garden.
Roger looked up with a cordial smile.
“Hello there,” he said, leaning on his hoe again to address someone behind Gina. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Gina’s heart began to pound. She got up, holding her plastic pail, and brushed dirt from the knees of her jeans.
Alex Colton smiled and extended his hand. “Hello, Gina. Nice to see you again.”
He looked happier today, Gina thought, examining him closely as she shook his hand. His face was still tired and worn, but he seemed much more relaxed than on his first visit. Today he wore jeans, a yellow cotton shirt and a jaunty straw fedora, and was the image of a man embarking on a long holiday in the country.
“So, Alex, are you ready to settle in and be pampered for a whole summer?” she asked.
“More than ready. I feel like I’ve finally arrived in heaven.” Alex gestured at the lush garden, the stone mansion within its screen of vines and flowers, the shimmering lake and sleepy town in the distance. “I’ve been waiting for this day.”
“So have we,” Roger said with a teasing glance at Gina, who bent hastily to collect her bucket of strawberries.
“I’ll get you registered and show you to your room,” she said. “Unless Mary’s already helped you?”
Alex shook his head. “I just drove up and saw you two out in the garden, so I came right over. What’s in the pail?”
Gina fell into step beside him, heading across the lawn toward the back door. She held out the pail so he could see. “Mary’s planning to make strawberry waffles for breakfast tomorrow.”
“I am in heaven. Real whipped cream with them, I suppose?”
“Absolutely. And it’s fresh, too. We get all our dairy products from a farm up the road.”
Alex smiled down at her, one of those transforming smiles that tended to leave her at a loss for words.
“I have to drop this off in the kitchen,” Gina said at last, pausing by the back steps. “Roger will help you with your luggage, but first I need to check you in at the front desk. If you don’t mind waiting a couple of minutes while I wash my hands…”
“May I come to the kitchen with you? I’d like to say hello to Mary.”
“Of course. Come in.”
He climbed the steps lightly and held the screen door for her, then removed his bat and followed her into the cool wood-paneled interior of the house, with its pleasant scent of spices and fresh bread, flowers and furniture polish.
Gina was conscious of his quick intake of breath and the admiration in his eyes as he looked around.
“Well, is everything as nice as you remembered?” she asked, pushing open the door to the kitchen.
“Even nicer, if that’s possible. You don’t know how much I’ve been needing this holiday. Hello, Mary,” he said, smiling at the cook, who was lifting a tray of raisin-filled scones from the oven.
Mary straightened and smiled almost shyly, self-consciously rubbing a hand across the smear of flour on her cheek. “Hello, Mr. Colton. It’s nice to see you again.”
“Please. Call me Alex.”
Mary ducked her head and said, “All right…Alex.” She gestured at her baking. “And you’ve arrived just in time to have scones with your tea this afternoon.”
“He still has to unload his luggage and get registered,” Gina said, putting her bucket of strawberries on the table.
Mary looked at the berries with approval and carried them to the big enameled sink for washing. “Are the wax beans ready, Gina?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Some of them are. Enough for tonight, anyway. Roger said I should tell you.”
“Couldn’t tell me himself, I suppose.” Mary began to run water over the strawberries.
Alex and Gina exchanged a glance and moved toward the door.
“Still at odds, are they?” Alex murmured when they reached the hall, bending so close that his hair brushed her cheek.
“I’m afraid so,” Gina whispered. “And not just over Annabel’s diet, either. There are all kinds of new complications.”
His eyes danced. “Like what?”
Gina was tempted to confide the details about Roger’s glamorous new girlfriend. But just at that moment Roger came through the front door and into the reception area, carrying a couple of well-traveled leather suitcases, a garment bag and a small case.
“Thanks, Roger,” Alex said. “I could have looked after those.”
“No problem. I might as well take them right up to the gold room.”
“All right.” Alex reached for his wallet, but Gina touched his arm and shook her head.
“No tipping,” she told him quietly. “We don’t believe in it around here. As soon as you’ve registered, you become a welcome guest in our home, not a paying customer.”
He relaxed and nodded. “Thank you, Roger. Be careful with the smaller case, all right? I’ve got a laptop computer in there. Most of my life is on that hard drive.”
Roger paused at the foot of the staircase. “I read your column all the time. It’s really good.”
Alex gave Gina a look of comical dismay. “I guess I’ve been discovered.”
“Mary found your picture in one of the newspapers at the library. Do you mind?”
“Not really. The pseudonym used to give me some privacy, but now that they’ve started attaching a picture to the column, I get recognized a lot.”
“Would you prefer that we keep your identity to ourselves while you’re here?”
“Yes, if it’s possible,” Alex said gratefully. “This is my holiday, after all, and I’d just as soon not have other guests asking me for stock tips during breakfast.”
Roger paused halfway up the steps and peered over the carved banister with a cheerful grin. “How about the staff? Would you mind slipping us a few investment tips?”
“Roger!” Gina said.
Alex winked up at him. The caretaker chuckled and vanished into the depths of the upper landing.
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Margot Dalton
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Margot Dalton′s creativity dazzles…–Bethany Campbell, bestselling author of See How They RunShe «sold» her baby…Fifteen years ago desperate circumstances had forced Gina Mitchell to do the unthinkable. Give up her baby daughter hours after the birth.Now Alex Colton–a man she′s never met–has checked in to Gina′s bed-and-breakfast with his rebellious teenage daughter. One look at the girl and Gina knows she can no longer escape her past.Alex is a good father, but he′s never told his daughter the circumstances of her birth, and he has no idea that his child–Gina′s child–is living a nightmare. A nightmare only her birth mother can end."Margot Dalton′s creativity dazzles. She′s a writer who always delivers probing characterization, ingenious plotting, riveting pace and impeccable craft. She can completely engage both the reader′s mind and emotion. She′s superb."–Bethany Campbell, bestselling author of See How They Run