Blue Willow

by Deborah Smith

  “A stranger?” He let go of her. He looked toward the shadowy cavern they had shared beneath the wisteria. His face was set in a hard mask. “You can lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.”

  Lily touched his arm. She was desperate to tell him how much she wanted to forgive, and trust—and love—him, but she couldn’t. Her mind was filled with specters of a future that would tear his family away from him, and self-respect from her. His siblings would never comprehend her bitterness toward Julia, because they hadn’t seen how their sister’s vindictive harassment had tormented Richard and the others.

  “For a few minutes we were invisible,” she told Artemas, the words whispered and hoarse.

  She walked past the fountains, past the broken teapot, down the stone stairs dropping to the slope below the mansion, and followed a muddy path to the lake and the woods beyond. When she reached them and was certain he couldn’t see her anymore, she sat down in the darkening forest and, crying, put her head in her hands.

  Twenty-three

  Cassandra was hungry, thinking of the bowl of consommé she’d had for lunch and wishing she’d eaten more. Paradise was a place where women with no cellulite ate mounds of buttered rolls without gaining weight. Their plastic surgeons and diet doctors were in a special hell, along with Jenny Craig and Richard Simmons and Jane Fonda, perpetually reaching for bags of cookies held by fat, grinning demons.

  She thought of Elizabeth, who had been slender and gotten plump but didn’t mind, and, with deep loneliness, of Julia, whose perfect weight had been maintained by frenetic energy. Julia.

  Brooding, she smoothed suntan lotion over her bare breasts, hitched up the sides of a shimmering red bikini bottom, then moved Princess Di off her stomach. “Does Mother’s little baby want to get out of the sun?” The Yorkie, a reddish ball of hair with eyes, panted and stretched out in the shade under the lounge chair. Cassandra fussed over her, cooing, then settled back and shut her eyes wearily Animals were trustworthy She trusted them and her family, and no one else. The lake water lapped softly at the pavilion’s stone deck, and birds made small sounds in the trees. The July heat scorched the air.

  Artemas was right about one thing—this secluded old estate made a person feel lost in a separate world. There were no self-serving men staring at her with greedy eyes, wondering what they’d have to do to curry her money and clout. There were no preening, ambitious artists sucking up to her to win her attention for their china designs, and no meetings to run for Colebrook International.

  She draped one hand onto the warm male body stretched on the lounge chair next to hers, tugged at the chest hair, then at the beard, and when that brought only a sleepy groan, planted her fingers over the soft bulge covered in tight black swim trunks. “Armande.” She wanted to stop thinking about Julia, and about the tension in the family these days, with Lily Porter living nearby

  Armande laughed in his careful, elegant way but sat up immediately. “Your wish is my command.” He yawned.

  He knelt beside her chair and began drawing his hands over her long torso from breasts to thighs. She smiled and arched her hips. Armande pulled her suit’s bottom off with his teeth.

  When he reached her feet, he slung the tiny bit of red material aside. Spreading her legs apart, he kissed his way back up, until finally his coyly moving head was twisting from one thigh to the other. He plunged his face into the center of the black hair between them. Cassandra laced her hands behind her head. Bingo.

  She had discovered Armande two years ago, when she’d come to Atlanta to select a house. Someone had invited her to a party, and there he was, dark eyes flashing at her, black hair slicked back above the diamond stud in one ear, tight jeans, too much chest hair showing above the buttoned yoke neck of his silk shirt. He was a record producer—silly New Age jazz performers with names such as Moon Lover and Raine Forrest—but she forgave him that. He was local. Convenient. She needed a bed warmer in this new city Artemas had coaxed the family to adopt.

  Ah, but Armande had become so much more than convenient. He was accommodating, polite, and always ready Eventually she’d invested in his business, to reward him. She didn’t trust Armande, but she depended on him.

  She pulled him up to her and kissed him. He made a sighing sound she took for pleasure, then kissed her back just as intimately. She pushed him onto the other lounge and stripped off his swimsuit. His erection was as reliable and accommodating as the rest of him, poking out grandly from his bearish brown fur. Cassandra drew her fingertips over it. Now she had him at her mercy. “Armande?”

  “Hmmm, my angel, what is it?”

  “Are you enjoying my brother’s estate?”

  “Yes, it’s a lovely old place.”

  “I’d like you to come here with me often.”

  “Whenever that’s possible, my darling.”

  “If my brother knew you have a wife, he’d never let you set foot here again.”

  “You should have told him long ago.”

  “He’s a little old-fashioned on the subject. The rest of my family is too.” She curled her hand around him and stroked expertly “I think it’s time you left your wife. I loathe sneaking around my family this way.”

  Armande gaped at her. “Leave my wife for you? Such an idea! Why would I do that? She would hate me.” He shrugged with European nonchalance. “I have a very nice wife.”

  She sat back on her chaise and stared at him. Humiliation soaked into her like the hot sun. Why did her relationships always end up in conversations such as this one? “Armande, I don’t care if you love me, but I expect consideration.”

  “You’re in a strange mood, my darling. Sometimes I see through your sophistication and think you’re naive. I’m very considerate to you. I do everything you ask. In return, you enjoy my, hmmm … attentive company.”

  “You seem to think that’s enough.”

  “This is funny, coming from a woman who wants men to be only ornaments.”

  “But look at what you get in return.”

  He laughed. “You’re over thirty, you’re skinny, you’re not beautiful, and you have the personality of one of those hot-tempered crazy racehorses you own in Kentucky. I enjoy your spirit, my angel, but I’d never trade my nice, normal wife for you.”

  She punched him in the gut. It was a good, solid punch, and he lurched upright, coughing. Cassandra got up and wrapped a long print sarong around herself, knotting it over her breasts, then jabbing her feet into black sandals.

  Armande shook his head and laughed harder. “Don’t be upset. Come here and have sex with me. That’s all you need. The rest would only make you nervous.”

  Princess Di’s yips and the patter of her manicured toe-nails scrambling on the blue slate distracted Cass. Whirling, she saw the tiny dog leap off the terrace’s edge and scurry into the forest. “Di! Di, come back!” Her innocent little dog would probably get mauled by a squirrel. “I’ll deal with you later,” she flung at Armande.

  Cassandra strode after Princess Di. The Yorkie shrieked with excitement, raced down an incline, and disappeared into a grove of laurel that stretched along the rim. Cassandra ducked into a narrow deer trail between the huge bushes, cursing and shoving at the branches. “I’ll skin you for earmuffs, you stubborn little—oh, my God.”

  A black bear was loping toward her up the narrow hollow.

  Princess Di circled it and yipped frantically. The bear, small and plump, crashed to a stop at the sight of Cassandra. Growling and turning, it poked at Princess Di with a paw as big as the Yorkie, then bolted away, disappearing over a knoll. Princess Di raced after it.

  “Di!” Cassandra screamed. She turned and ran back to the pavilion, where one of the estate’s Land Rovers sat in the paved lane that wound around one end of the lake, toward the mansion. As she leaped into the vehicle and slammed the door, she shouted to Armande to find his own way back to the estate house.

  To hell with him. She’d grown up being humiliated by her mother and ignored by her father, and s
he’d never let anyone have that power over her again.

  The loud rustle of leaves and tree branches and the sound of dogs barking in the distance made Lily look up quickly from mulching a bed of hostas she’d planted along the greenhouse wall. Whipping her hat off, she peered across the dirt road into the forest. At the same time she heard the approaching rumble of a car coming too fast down the road into the farm’s wide, flat hollow Huckleberry shrubs, honeysuckle, and small trees had turned the forest floor into an impenetrable wall of greenery for the summer; her gaze strained toward the swiftly rising sounds of dogs giving mad chase through it, then up the road. The animal and the car were on a collision course.

  Lily dropped her shovel and ran toward the road. One of the estate’s brown Land Rovers burst into view, slinging gravel and trailing a cloud of pink dust. At the same time a panting black bear broke through the forest’s undergrowth and galloped madly toward her clearing.

  Staring in amazement at the first bear she’d seen since childhood, Lily stumbled into the roadside ditch and halted. Tall daisies bobbed their yellow heads against her arms as she flung out her hands, shooing the small, terrified bear away. It shied off toward the woods at the farm’s perimeter.

  She would have laughed when the tiny, yipping ball of red hair with eyes shot out of the forest in pursuit, but the Land Rover was racing toward it. Lupa followed blindly, fat and big and determined to keep up.

  Lily felt her lungs caving in with horror. The Land Rover’s driver slammed on the brakes. The heavy vehicle slid sideways, slowing, but still plowing forward helplessly. Its front bumper caught Lupa behind one shoulder. Lily was already running forward, fixated on the dog’s yelp of terror and pain as the impact tumbled her into the ditch.

  Not like Sassy. Please, God, no. Lily shoved the jungle of daisies aside and dropped to her knees. Nettles stabbed at her skin beneath cutoff overalls. Their sting was lost in her desperate concentration.

  Lupa whined and huddled with one front leg hanging limp in the brambles. Lily crooned and ran frantic hands over her side. She was dimly aware of the errant driver hurrying up to her, feet crunching on the roads gravel. Lily turned with furious intent. “You stupid—”

  Cassandra Colebrook stared down at her, mouth open in distress. One long, tanned leg peeked from a saronglike wrap of gauzy, brightly colored material. She looked as if she belonged on an island with a pina colada in one hand.

  Lily shuddered. “You fucking idiot.”

  Cassandra sank to her knees beside her and put a trembling hand on Lupas head. “I swear I didn’t—my dog, Princess Di, I had to—I’m sorry.”

  “She’s all I have,” Lily said brokenly, turning back to Lupa. “She’s my son’s pet. She was, she is—God, can’t you people leave me alone? Isn’t anything safe from you?”

  “I adore animals. I wouldn’t—”

  “Get out of here. Get out of my sight.”

  “Come on. We’ll take her to a doctor.”

  Lily shoved her grasping hands away “I don’t want your help.”

  “Don’t argue. We can put her in the Land Rover right now. If she’s bleeding internally, she doesn’t have much time.”

  Acknowledging that was a swift and merciless defeat. Lily gathered Lupa into her arms. Cassandra cradled the dog’s head and front legs. Lupa cried and struggled. Together they carried her to the Land Rover and laid her in the backseat. Lily climbed in beside her. “Where’s the local veterinarian?” Cass demanded.

  “Just turn this thing around and drive. I’ll show you when we reach the main road.”

  The bedraggled little Princess Di trotted up. Cassandra tossed her into the front seat. “You’re a bad girl. Bad girl.” Her voice, filled with plaintive rebuke, wavered uncharacteristically.

  Lily stroked Lupa’s head and listened in disgusted wonder. Cassandra Colebrook cooing maternally to a lapdog was the last thing she’d expected.

  “I didn’t mean to hit your dog,” Cassandra said loudly, as she guided the Land Rover back up the lane, sliding around the curves. Her sarong fell, but she drove on heedlessly, naked from the waist up. “There was a bear—”

  “Don’t talk to me!” Lily snapped open the shoulder straps of her overalls, tugged her T-shirt over her head, and threw it over the seat. “Here. Even a Colebrook can’t run around town with her tits hanging out.”

  Dr. John Lee Sikes was settled in a respectable, fortyish bachelorhood in MacKenzie, with a lucrative veterinary practice, two junior partners, a piece of rolling land with handsome pastures and barns, a large stone house, and a dozen purebred quarter horses on which he doted. On some dark nights he still remembered Vietnam, but that had been more than twenty years ago, and the memories had mellowed with time. On one beefy forearm he bore a tattoo from an ass-kicking marine company, of which he was proud. In his wild days during veterinary school and for a few years afterward, he’d partied with bikers, and once, for a few heady months, he’d lived in a commune with women who wore gold studs in their noses.

  He’d seen a lot and enjoyed the majority of it.

  But here, in his examining room, huddling over him as he expertly probed the dog’s fractured shoulder, was a sight to rival everything. He knew Lily Porter, having given her ugly dog its shots and worming back in the spring. Never one to pass up a chance, he’d tried to excite her with a dose of the Sikes crotch-driven charm, thinking she’d be a nice change from women who stitched little beer emblems on their panties and collected posters of Garth Brooks.

  She had given him a firm but classy “No, thank you.” He liked her style.

  Now, she stood here, her face screwed into anguished lines, her curly red hair tangled sensually around her shoulders and arms, wearing cutoff overalls with only a white bra underneath. The big doll had a pair of fine, pink-skinned, freckled knockers, by God.

  But she wasn’t the main attraction. The bitchy, braless one with the thin T-shirt and the skewed, sheer whatever-it-was hanging jauntily from one hip was the winner. She looked like Morticia Adams on a cheap cruise. The way she kept sweeping her dark straight hair swept back from a widow’s peak, so that its blunt ends whipped the tops of her shoulders, made him think of a glossy mare tossing its head angrily. Her nipples made beautiful little points under the white shirt.

  He could take a woman like that home to Mother, but dear old Mother had long ago died of alcohol poisoning in the drunk tank of a two-bit Texas town. Still, it was a pleasant thought.

  “Are you waiting for mold to grow on your ass?” she asked suddenly.

  “Shut up and let him do his work,” Lily told her.

  John Lee arched a brow. As he continued to probe the dog’s shoulder, he scowled at the stranger. “How about I forge your name on a veterinary degree and let you take over?” Feisty, this one. Since Lily didn’t care whether he talked like a saint or a marine, he added, “You need your attitude poked.”

  Her eyes widened. “You balding, potbellied, tattooed prick.”

  “You noticed. I’m flattered.” John Lee turned his professional persona toward Lily and said, “I’ll take some X rays and make sure there are no internal injuries. This shoulder isn’t too bad, I think. The best thing for you to do is go home and give me a call in the morning.”

  Before Lily could answer, the other one popped her delicious mouth open and snapped, “I’m calling my veterinarian in New York. If this dog’s not cared for properly, I’ll close this little two-hole crapper of yours down and have your license revoked.”

  John Lee gaped at her. “You go ahead and call your private ass-wipe, lady, and see if I care.”

  “I’m Cassandra Colebrook. Don’t you dare talk to me this way.”

  “A Colebrook, hmmm? Well, keep quiet before I bite your tasty little rich-girl hiney off and hang it on my door for a trophy.”

  She formed a snarl like a cornered rat. Lily stepped between them. “Cassandra, I said shut up.” She bent over the dog and cradled its head in her hands. At the other end of the table t
he tip of its tail twitched with affection. “I’ll be back,” Lily whispered brokenly. “I love you, old dog.”

  Straightening and brushing at her eyes, she met John Lee’s gaze firmly. “Nobody’ll bother you. You do what you can.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Or else,” the other one warned.

  John Lee was already lifting Lupa into his arms. He shot her a wicked look. “Beat it, Cassandra Who-Gives-a-Shit Colebrook. I’ll deal with you later.”

  Lily had to drag her out the door.

  Artemas checked the old leather-bound watch on his wrist. When the family was together, they gathered for dinner promptly at six. Cassandra knew that. Family times were sacred. He’d ingrained that rule over the years. He left the others in white wicker chairs under the loggia’s pleasantly churning fans, sipping wine, and walked through a side door into an intimate little dining room. Its creamy, figured walls and old rosewood furniture were as he remembered them from his childhood, when he had taken meals there alone with his grandmother. His quiet pride was tortured by knowing that he wanted Lily to see this room and all the others, to sit with him here, gazing out the tall, narrow windows at the land they both loved.

  He went to an intercom on the wall near a service door and called LaMieux’s office downstairs. No, LaMieux said, Cassandra hadn’t phoned. Artemas frowned darkly and went back to the windows, looking toward the loggia, where the others were watching Elizabeth’s boys play with one of the estate’s black Labradors. He’d brought the dogs down from a farm he owned in Connecticut. He would also bring in cats, rabbits, birds—especially birds in the palm court, which hadn’t been finished yet—a friendly menagerie of creatures to fill the place.

  James was restless, glancing back at the loggia’s enormous glass doors, probably saying to the rest that Cassandra was late. They had pondered Armande’s sudden departure for Atlanta. They only tolerated the man and were pleased, like Artemas, that he and Cass had obviously had a fight.