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And then somehow, as if she’d gone into a fugue and missed the wrap-up, the service was over. The boyish minister had picked up her hand, but she couldn’t feel her fingers sandwiched between his two consoling palms.
“Ms. Watson. Hayley. I’m sorry I didn’t know your father better, but—”
Don’t be.
The words were on the tip of her tongue. But why say them? Why say anything except the most basic conversational conventions? She wasn’t here to make friends or right wrongs. She wouldn’t be attending this man’s church or seeking his counsel. She was here to sell the neglected vineyard, if anyone was dumb enough to buy it, pocket the money and go home.
Home to Florida, where she had a life, and new dreams. The best dream of all was waiting for her there.
“It’s all right, Pastor Donny.” He’d asked her to call him that. He must not realize how silly it sounded. “You did a wonderful job. It was lovely.”
He beamed. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too, that the day was so…” He waved at the restless trees, as if they were an added insult. “And the fog—if we’d held the service later in the morning…”
“It probably won’t lift before noon,” she said.
The sudden certainty shocked her. She hadn’t set foot in Sonoma County for seventeen years. She’d made a home an entire country away, in the flatlands of Florida. So why did she remember this fog so clearly? Why did she remember its tickling intimacy against her ankles? Why did she know, in her bones, that it wouldn’t disperse for hours?
“I guess not.” Pastor Donny shook his head. “Well, I should let you talk to your friends. I’m glad so many people came. It’s good that you’re not alone today.”
She heard his unspoken disapproval of whoever had let her make this trip alone. She wondered who he thought she should have brought. Her mother died several years ago. Just two weeks ago, she’d broken off her relationship with Greg Valmont, the only serious boyfriend she’d had since leaving Sonoma. Genevieve had recently been promoted at her CPA firm, and was working eighty-hour weeks.
After that, there was no one else to ask. The kind of life the Watson women had lived since they ran away didn’t exactly encourage intimate friendships. Her coworkers at the dress shop where she did the books would have been shocked to hear she even had family back in California.
She followed the pastor’s gaze toward the cluster of people who stood awkwardly by, clearly waiting to offer her their final condolences. She’d greeted them briefly at the funeral home, but the number had swelled since then. God knew who all had arrived while she was lost in thought.
When she’d decided to attend the funeral—and not just let the prepaid package carry on, like a bad play, without her—she’d known she’d have to cope with this.
So she put a smile on her face, just the appropriate amount of lip curve, and turned toward them. She’d practiced this expression in the mirror of the airplane bathroom a mere three hours ago. She wanted to convey gratitude, and a sense of the solemnity due at the burial of any human being.
Even Ben Watson.
But she had no intention of pretending grief. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. And besides, a few of these people undoubtedly already knew her story and were here purely for the lip-smacking entertainment of seeing how she handled herself.
She caught a glimpse of a small, thin man moving toward her. Roland Eliot—definitely not one of the gawkers. He had worked for her father since she was a little girl. When she’d arrived at the funeral home this morning, a full half hour late, she’d been shocked to see him here, waiting patiently with the others. She thought surely he’d retired or come to his senses years ago.
“Miss Hayley,” Roland said, his voice somber and his round gray eyes shining. “It is a joy to my heart to see you again. I thought I would never—”
“Roland,” she responded with her first real emotion of the day. The week. The decade? She reached out and hugged him. He smelled the same as ever, soap and earth. “It’s wonderful to see you, too.”
“This is my granddaughter, Elena.” With nudging palms, he ushered forth a preschooler who had black curls and his round gray eyes. She couldn’t be more than four. “Elena, this is Miss Hayley, the girl who sleeps in the treetops.”
The little girl’s eyes grew even wider. She nodded gravely, but she didn’t speak.
Hayley wasn’t sure she could speak, either. She had forgotten that Roland used to call her that. Suddenly she felt the wind in her hair, and the rough oak bark of her favorite perch against her cheek. She could almost see the blues and greens and browns of Foggy Valley Vineyard spreading out below her, the hills dipping and swelling and the rain on the green leaves sparkling under the summer sun.
She shook herself free of the trance. Old memories, even this one, were like ghosts. They would float in front of your eyes, and bring sights and smells and pains. But in the end, they were not real. Phantoms, with no more power than this fog.
“Would you come by the house and visit us later, Miss Hayley?” Roland’s face was more lined now, but as sweet as ever. “Later, when you’ve had time to rest? We could talk. Miranda has made a casserole.”
“Of course,” she said. “I’d love to catch up.”
Other people were waiting, so she contented herself with that. She pressed his hand and smiled her goodbye. And, touching his callused fingers, she felt a little stronger.
Over the next few minutes, she greeted half a dozen well-wishers. Some were vaguely familiar. Others were people who must have entered her father’s life long after she left it. She found her rhythm, and luckily everyone was on his best manners. No one asked overly personal questions. A couple of glances were full of pity, and she caught whiffs of the expected curiosity, but overall nothing she couldn’t handle.
Then she heard a voice so familiar it made her heart skip.
“Hayley?”
She looked to the left, and stopped breathing. She’d been doing so well. But now the facade of calm dignity fell from her shoulders like an unzipped, oversize dress.
There he was, the ghost of all ghosts, the man who had haunted her dreams for at least a decade—and still strolled into a stray one occasionally, even now.
Colby Malone.
A barrage of images assaulted her. Black-haired and blue-eyed. Expensive and dangerous and divine.
Seventeen years older, of course—thirty-five now, though it was hard to believe. But he was somehow shockingly the same. Tall, athletic, still not an inch of fat. Shoulders broader than before, broader than a dream could capture. The faint prettiness he’d possessed in youth had made way for a powerful virility.
“Hello, Hayley,” Colby said. His voice was deeper, too, more polished and yet more intense. And his jaw, though freshly shaven, hinted of a sexy stubble he’d have to work hard to repress.
He was, in some ways, a stranger. And yet, even under all this new virility, he was still the boy she’d known. He put out his hand. She twitched, as if she needed to avoid an invisible slap. A weak sensation passed liquidly through her knees—and her first truly coherent thought was, how could she ever have believed that what she felt for Greg Valmont was love?
Somehow, she held herself rigid. She was tougher than this. Naturally, she had considered the possibility of running into Colby Malone while she was here. But she hadn’t really believed he’d bother to drive forty minutes to attend the funeral of a man he had despised.
She’d told herself she would be fine, no matter what. She’d loved him, and then she’d hated him, and now she simply didn’t give a damn.
“Hello, Colby,” she said politely. She gave him exactly the same measured tone, practiced smile and cool hand she planned to give everyone here today. “How nice of you to come.”
He shook her hand. It pleased her to note that he seemed more uncomfortable than she was. As he should be.
She let go in precisely the correct number of seconds.
“How are you?” Her tone implied the question was perfunctory and didn’t require an answer. She didn’t leave time for one. “How is your grandmother? And Red and Matt? I know you must need to get back to San Francisco, but I do hope you’ll give them my best.”
And then she turned to the next person, who thankfully had begun to push closer, eager to be recognized.
She took a split second to be sure of the identification, then smiled. It was her music teacher, the kindhearted martyr who had listened to her murder scales every Tuesday afternoon for five years. A “frivolous” expenditure her mother had insisted on, like Gen’s ballet lessons—no matter how their father had roared.
“Ms. Blythe! I’m so glad to see you. You’ll be relieved to know I’ve given up the piano entirely, for the good of mankind.”
Ms. Blythe smiled, as if she might accept the light joke as the truth of Hayley’s feelings. But then she shook her head. With tears spilling down her plump cheeks, she wordlessly reached in and scooped Hayley into a hug.
With her chin pressed against Ms. Blythe’s fleshy shoulder, Hayley shut her eyes. It was so strange, being welcomed by these old acquaintances, almost as if she’d never left. But seventeen years. Didn’t they know seventeen years was too long, and she wasn’t the same person at all?
Didn’t Colby Malone know that? What could he possibly have hoped to gain by coming here? Didn’t he know that, if she’d wanted to see him, she could have called or written or come back to San Francisco anytime? If you wanted to communicate indifference, was there a more convincing method than seventeen years of silence?
Eyes still shut, she counted to three, telling herself that when she opened them, Colby Malone would be gone.
One. He had to know how she felt. The Malone boys had always been smart, all of them. Good judges of people—able to make you feel utter bliss or abject misery, with just a well-chosen word. Colby, especially, as the oldest, was the gang leader. Witty and caustic and clever.
Two. Surely someone that sharp could easily read between the lines and grasp how unwelcome he was here. He had to know.
Three. She opened her eyes.
He was gone.
CHAPTER TWO
COLBY GOT BACK to the house at Belvedere Cove just before dark. On a Wednesday evening, he expected to find his grandmother in the kitchen, whipping up the Diamondberry cheesecake that was her signature dessert at Diamante. The restaurant served it only straight from her kitchen, only Friday and Saturday nights.
They could have sold each piece a hundred times over, but Nana Lina knew better than to cheapen it by glutting the market. This way, every customer who succeeded in getting a slice felt as if he’d won the lottery.
But when Colby arrived, the kitchen was dim and undisturbed. The row of copper-bottomed pots lined up on the wall burned in the fading light that filtered in through the big back window. He glanced into the kitchen garden, but no figure, no shadow moved through the sunset-tinted herbs and grasses.
Surprised and slightly unsettled, he moved to the foyer and took the curving staircase two steps at a time. When he got to his grandmother’s door, it stood ajar, but he knocked anyway, softly, in case she was sleeping.
“Come in,” she called. “I’m just resting.”
When he pushed the door open, he was met by cool, dark shadows, which surprised him. Nana Lina’s room—once Grandpa Colm’s room, too—was always brightly lit and welcoming. Powdery blue drapes framed a picture window that overlooked the bay, and the view was so dazzling no one ever pulled them shut. Even while she slept, moonlight spilled in, making the silver picture frames and perfume bottles glow, and redoubling itself in the mirror over her vanity.
He’d spent many an hour in this room. Maybe because he was the first grandchild, he and Nana Lina had a special bond, even before his parents died. He’d always brought her his treasures, whether they were rocks with interesting fossils or cloudy shards of sea glass. She had always seemed to understand why a little boy would find these bits of debris fascinating.
“You sleeping?” He tried to sound casual, though he knew it was futile. She had a sixth sense about her family. Even the best lies set off her internal alarm.
“What an absurd question. Since when have you known me to sleep during the day?”
She had a point. She might be nearing eighty, but she would always be the heart and soul of Diamante. She might not always be the first in and the last out every day, as she once was. But she was still a force.
As his eyes adjusted, he realized she wasn’t in bed. She was sitting on a comfortable armchair, her feet propped on an upholstered ottoman. She reached up and twisted the knob of her table lamp, which immediately covered her in honey light.
“Don’t try to smooth-talk me, Colby Malone.” Her brown eyes twinkled at him. “What you really want to know is whether I’m sick.”
“Mind reader.” With a smile, he raised one eyebrow. “Well, are you?”
“I don’t know. I might be.”
His shoulders braced, and his chest tightened. He’d asked for an answer, and he’d received one. He should have known she wouldn’t sugarcoat it.
“What makes you think so?”
Her robe was made of silk, a pattern of elegant blue roses against a silvery background that matched her hair. She leaned forward from the waist and lifted the hem, which had puddled softly on the floor around the ottoman. She settled the fabric more demurely around her ankles, then repeated the motion with the other side.
Even that much activity seemed to leave her slightly breathless. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed sooner that her condition had grown this much worse.
He’d observed that she tired easily. That she stayed in bed later, turned in earlier. He’d asked her to get a second opinion about the A-fib, but she’d waved it off. Sometimes she seemed absolutely fine. Just Sunday afternoon, at Red’s engagement party, she’d played dolls with Sarah for hours....
But she hadn’t played chase or hopscotch, or pushed anyone in the swing—all activities she ordinarily loved. He frowned, wondering how long she’d been compensating for…
For what? God forbid it was something serious. He suddenly realized how impossible it was to imagine a world in which Nana Lina didn’t rule with an affectionate iron fist.
“Nana Lina, what’s really going on here? I know you’ve resisted seeing a new doctor, but clearly the meds aren’t working. I think it’s time to call—”
“I’m a little short of breath, that’s all,” she said, folding her hands in her lap and giving him her most regal look, which commanded him to remain calm. “Occasionally I get dizzy, and I don’t always have the stamina I should. Perhaps you boys and your ever-expanding offspring have finally worn me out.”
He chuckled. “It’s not us. You could handle us and the Holy Roman Army, too. With one hand.” He moved to her side, not the least bit intimidated by her scolding tone. “Look. I don’t like this. Like it or not, you’re going to see Dr.—”
“Dr. Douglas?” She tapped his arm. “Don’t you start adopting a bossy tone with me, young man. I am perfectly capable of recognizing when it’s time to consult a doctor. I have an appointment with him next Tuesday morning, in fact.” She squared her shoulders. “Sidney will drive me, so don’t get any ideas about coming along to babysit.”
Colby subsided, relieved. As long as she had the appointment, he could relax for now. He’d talk to Matt and Red. One of them would find a way to tag along and get some answers.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said in a phony meek voice. He sat on the edge of the bed, glancing at the magazine she’d been reading. It was a catalog of elaborate play sets designed to look like castles, forts and other magical places. One touted itself as Atlantis.
“You know,” he said, “if you don’t want the ever-expanding offspring to sap your life force, maybe you shouldn’t keep adding to the Disneyland you’ve built in the backyard.”
She whisked the magazine away with a low tutting sound. “I was just relaxing my mind after studying last month’s receipts, and Red’s proposal for the new store in Sonoma.” She fiddled a little more with her robe. “He seemed to think you might be heading over there today to take a look at it. Did you?”
He chuckled again. She was good, but they all knew each other too well. “Don’t try to smooth-talk me,” he said in a teasing imitation of her words. “What you really want to know is whether I went to Ben Watson’s funeral.”
She smiled, well aware the jig was up. “Well?” She tried to mimic his one-eyebrow query. But no one could beat Colby on that look, not even Red and Matt, though they’d spent their youths trying.
She settled for a scowl. “Well? Did you?”
He nodded. “Yes. And the answer to your next question is yes, as well.”
She lifted her chin haughtily. “My next question?”
“Yes. You want to know whether Hayley was there. It’s a fair question. I know you’ve wondered…all these years… We’ve all wondered. So yes, she was there. And she looked fine.”
“Fine?” His grandmother rolled her magazine into a tube, the paper making a soft, slithering noise. When it was safely rolled, she gripped it firmly. “What does fine mean?”
As Colby searched for the right words, a vision of Hayley Watson rose before his mind’s eye. What did fine mean? What exactly should he say to describe how she’d changed?
The transformation was dramatic. She had changed so much that, on a conscious level, he probably wouldn’t have recognized her. He might have had to ask someone to be sure—except that his body had identified her in an instant. The minute he laid eyes on her, every nerve ending he possessed zapped him with a small electric charge.
“She looks completely different. Poised, and well dressed. And she was wearing her hair—” He put his hands up and waved them around his head, trying to imply the complicated halo-braid kind of thing that had controlled her long, thick, honey-colored waves. “I don’t know. Sophisticated. She looks like someone else, actually.”
His grandmother tilted her head. “That’s the best you can do? I never saw her—or her hair—back then, except in pictures. Why would I care how she wears it now? I mean, does she look well? I don’t expect happy, given the circumstances, but does she look healthy and content?”
Did she? “Healthy, definitely. Content… I really couldn’t say. Maybe.”
Nana Lina nodded, tapping the magazine roll against her knee slowly. “Well, considering that until today we thought she might be buried out in that vineyard, along with her mother and her sister, I guess that’s saying a lot.”
Colby cut his gaze to the picture window, even though the drapes were shut and there was nothing to see.
Nana Lina didn’t know, of course, that twelve years ago, Colby had hired a private investigator to make sure all three Watson women were safe and well.
All he’d wanted, really, was to know that Hayley was alive. He shouldn’t have to spend the rest of his life wondering if there might be any truth to the local rumors that three ghostly beauties went weeping through the Foggy Valley Vineyard on nights with a full moon.
