Blue Willow
Deborah Smith
Artemas stared at the tree and clenched his hands on the balcony’s railing.
As a boy, he’d climbed ones so similar to it. A blue willow. A botanical mystery. A marvel.
One of Lily’s trees.
He waited, his chest aching with anticipation and restraint. Finally she appeared from under the willow’s delicate, draping limbs. She was laughing, her head tilted back as if by the weight of the mane of red hair drawn up in a soft, chic bundle, She carried her giggling red-haired son over one shoulder, one strong bare arm braced across his back, her diamond bracelet catching the light. She held him with the careful confidence of a woman who’d grown up shouldering sacks of feed and fertilizer. People around the garden’s marble border laughed awkwardly and stared.
Lily had never given a damn for appearances.
Artemas watched her with the desperate knowledge that after tonight’s opening ceremonies there would be no reason for her to set foot in his presence again, no reason for her to endure even the most innocent contact with him.
She was not part of his family. She did not work for him—not anymore, now that the garden she’d designed was finished.
Lily MacKenzie Porter. Her son was not his. Her life was not his. She was another man’s wife.
But she had belonged to Artemas since the day she was born.
Bantam Books by Deborah Smith
Ask your bookseller for titles you may have missed.
WHEN VENUS FELL
A PLACE TO CALL HOME
SILK AND STONE
BLUE WILLOW
MIRACLE
FOLLOW THE SUN
BLUE WILLOW
A Bantam Book/February 1993
Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint from “Georgia on My Mind” by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell. Copyright © 1930 by Peer International Corporation. Copyright Renewed and Assigned to Perrmusic Ltd. International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.
All right reserved.
Copyright © 1993 by Deborah Smith.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
eISBN: 978-0-307-81568-2
Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. It’s trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Bantam Books, New York, New York.
v3.1
Many thanks to my sister-in-law, Myra, for her expert advice on matters botanical, to Mother, Jack, and Ann for their love and unwavering family support, and, most of all, much love to my husband, Hank, for being my consultant on architecture and engineering, and for always reminding me that llamas spit.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Two
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Part Three
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Epilogue
About the Author
Part One
Other arms reach out to me,
Other eyes smile tenderly,
Still in peaceful dreams I see,
The road leads back to you.
Hoagy Carmichael
One
Atlanta, 1993
Money, power, respect. Artemas Colebrook looked down on the proof of all he’d achieved in thirty-eight years but saw only the desire he could never fulfill.
Six generations of Colebrook history had reached a pinnacle. The bloodlines of a poor immigrant English potter had survived more than 150 years of ambition, triumph, and scandal. A fortune lost and regained. It had begun with a handful of pure white clay in the Georgia mountains. Now, it ended and began again in the glittering, neo-Gothic splendor of Colebrook Internationals new headquarters in the moneyed crescent of Atlanta’s suburbs.
He stood alone and unmoving, painfully lost in the scene below him, a tall, big-shouldered man in formal attire who had inherited a legacy of fine china to which he’d added a prosperous industrial ceramics empire. Thick black hair framed a rugged face. There was an inward elegance to him, a grace of manner that gentled the haphazardly cut cheekbones and rakish black brows. Large gray eyes were locked in brooding concentration, revealing all the strength but little of the innate kindness behind them.
The atrium of Colebrook International’s new offices plunged down from his spot on an upper balcony. A few stories below him was a masterpiece of architecture. The serpentine bridge seemed to float across a lobby packed with people. Looking down, men in tuxedos and women in beautiful evening gowns crowded the bridge. Artemas gazed past them, at more guests, at liveried servers carrying silver trays filled with hors d’oeuvres and glasses of champagne, at an orchestra playing Mozart, at the lobby’s centerpiece garden and the magnificent blue-green willow tree that dominated it.
Artemas stared at the tree and clenched his hands on the balcony’s railing. Salix cyaneus “MacKenzieii.” As a boy, he’d climbed ones so similar to it, along the MacKenzies’ creek. A blue willow. A mutant. A botanical mystery. A marvel.
One of Lily’s trees.
He waited, his chest aching with anticipation and restraint. Finally she appeared from under the willow’s delicate, draping limbs. She was laughing, her head tilted back as if by the weight of the mane of red hair drawn up in a soft, chic bundle. She was so tall, she stood out even among the luscious jungle of plants surrounding the willow, her simple black gown catching heedlessly on the fronds and branches as she strode through the greenery Her body was rangy and full-figured, her face vibrant, fascinating, with strong features. Men scrutinized her as if she were some queenly Amazon.
She carried her giggling red-haired son over one shoulder, one strong bare arm braced across his back, her diamond bracelet catching the light. She held him with the careful confidence of a woman who’d grown up shouldering sacks of feed and fertilizer. People around the garden’s marble border laughed awkwardly and stared.
Lily had never given a damn for appearances.
Artemas watched her with the desperate knowledge that after tonight’s opening ceremonies there would be no reason for her to set foot in his presence again, no reason for her to endure even the most innocent contact with him.
She was not part of his family, not one of the five Colebrook siblings whom he spotted on the bridge or in the lobby below. She did not work for him—not anymore, now that the garden she’d designed was finished. She would never curry his favor like the politicians an
d business leaders, like the executives from companies owned by Colebrook International, not even like her own husband and her husband’s partner, the architects who’d designed this building.
Lily MacKenzie Porter. Her son was not his. Her life was not his. She was another man’s wife.
But she had belonged to Artemas since the day she was born.
“Help! I’m caught in the zipper.”
“Hold on, mister, you’ll rip off something important. We’d have to call you Stephanie instead of Stephen.” Kneeling in the loamy mulch among the plants, trying to ward off her six-year-old’s helpful hands, Lily tucked and zipped, then straightened his child-sized tuxedo. “Next time you have to pee, you tell me before you get desperate. This place has more toilets than the Atlanta stadium. I’ll find one for you. Okay?”
“Okay. But I want to see Daddy give his talk.”
“Daddy’s just going to go up on the bridge and say, ‘Yep, we built the whole doggoned thing. Thank you very much.’ ”
“Him and Frank and Mr. Grant and you.”
“I just did the garden.”
“I like the garden best of all.”
“That’s because you’ve got farmer blood in you.” Lily ruffled his red hair. “Can’t let you look too neat,” she whispered, grinning at him. “Daddy wouldn’t recognize you.”
She led Stephen from the garden, and they sat on the marble edge while she slipped her feet back into the high-heeled black shoes she’d dumped there. Her back, though covered by the gown’s sheer black yoke, felt exposed and cold. A bead of perspiration crept down her spine.
She wondered if Artemas was still high above them, watching. After tonight, thank God, she could retreat from the memories and the unceasing sense of accusation.
The number of times they’d seen and spoken to each other over the past few years could be counted on the fingers of one hand. And each time he’d been unfailingly polite, even distant. No hint of their history had escaped, no ungallant invitation to forget her marriage vows, no attempt to remind her that he’d given this project to Richard’s firm because he thought it fulfilled an old debt of honor to her.
He’d done nothing to make her think about him when she made love to her husband. Yet he probably hoped she did. That was a torment she’d never admit to anyone and had fought with every ounce of loyalty to Richard.
“Where have you two been?” asked Richard, walking out of the crowd around them and clamping a hand on their son’s shoulder. “I like to know where you are.”
Lily looked up into her husband’s flushed face. Big and stocky—he could have played football in college if he’d had the kind of brutal streak the sport demanded—Richard was, instead, as gentle and dependable as a tame bear. She loved him, even if she wanted to shake him sometimes just to hear a growl.
Brown hair shagged over his forehead, and she knew he’d been running his hands through it again. His neck was red and splotchy above the white collar of his dress shirt; his black bow tie was askew. Richard belonged in muddy hiking boots, flannel shirts, and faded jeans, with a calculator in his shirt pocket and a roll of blueprints under one beefy arm. He always looked uncomfortable in the custom-tailored tux, which he wore only when forced to by social proprieties.
Tonight he looked as if he might split a seam. Lily stood, laid a hand along his jaw, and resisted an urge to ruffle his hair the way she’d ruffled Stephen’s. “Take a deep breath, sweetie. You and Frank have gone through hell to make this place what it is, and tonight you ought to enjoy it. Think about your award from the American Institute of Architects. Relax.”
“I just want this over with.” He bent close to the diamond cluster on her right ear and whispered, “It’s been bad enough having Julia Colebrook ranting and raving every minute of the past three years, but tonight we’ve got the whole goddamned Colebrook tribe. I wouldn’t be surprised if Julia takes them on a tour of the men’s rest rooms to point out that the urinals are an inch higher than she thinks they ought to be.”
Lily frowned. The Colebrook siblings were a clannish group, all six of them—reclusive, infinitely loyal to each other but especially to Artemas, the eldest. They were unpretentious for people who had a famous name and so much money, and every one of them worked in the family businesses. Together they owned an overwhelming majority of the public stock. Together they’d saved a ruined china company from bankruptcy and their family’s name from disgrace.
And when Artemas gave one of them a project, impressing him and the rest of the family became an obsession. Julia Colebrook was thus obsessed. She would probably make Richard miserable until the last hurrah. The whole project from its beginning had twisted Lily’s own emotions into knots as well.
She gave in and ruffled Richard’s hair, then said grimly, “Julia Colebrook just doesn’t like to bump her balls when she squats.”
Richard managed a wan smile. Lily caught a whiff of his breath. Alarm and surprise scattered goose bumps down her spine. Other than an occasional beer, Richard never drank. He thought her nightly glass of wine with dinner was one step from Baptist hell. “Your breath smells like free-samples day at a package store,” she said, casting a glance at Stephen, who, to her relief, was gazing up in distracted wonder at the bridge overhead.
“I’m nervous,” Richard answered, ramming his hands through his hair. Lily stared at him. Nervousness in Richard was as rare as hen’s teeth. He had always radiated the unshakable serenity of a man who, while not dull-witted or ignorant, embraced life simply. Simple goals guided him—love for her and their son, rigid honesty, hard work.
“I have to go,” Richard said. He cupped her face in his hands, looked at her with a brand of anxiety she’d never seen before, and kissed her on the forehead. “Stay right here, all right? I’m coming back as soon as the ceremonies are over. I want to get out and go home. I love you, Red.”
“I love you too. And you’re going to be great up there.”
He swallowed hard. “Your trust is one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
He knelt in front of Stephen and hugged him. Stephen wrapped his arms around his father’s neck and beamed at him. “I love you, Daddy.”
“I love you, too, you little turnip.” Richard drew him close, clasped the back of his head, and shut his eyes as he held the boy As Lily studied Richard’s drawn expression, she put a hand on his shoulder. His eyes were full of tears when he looked up at her.
Stunned, she finally said, “You come back as fast as you can. I want to talk to you when we get home. You need a vacation.”
He nodded, rose, and set Stephen aside, then disappeared into the crowd. Lily stared after him, worried and confused.
She felt Stephen’s hand in hers, breaking her train of thought. “Daddy doesn’t like giving talks, does he, Mommy?”
“No, he doesn’t. And this is the most important project he’s ever worked on. But he’ll be all right.”
Frank’s arrival cut Lily’s brooding short. He came through the crowd in a flurry of elegant steps that propelled his dapper, lanky body between the guests without brushing a sequined elbow or tuxedoed arm. Richard’s partner had the blue-blooded social training of a prince and the ambition of a mobster. She wondered where he’d been all evening. Usually he and Richard were inseparable.
“She says she wants to start the ceremonies in five minutes,” he told her, throwing up both hands in defeat. The she was undoubtedly Julia Colebrook. “I told her they’re scheduled for eight-thirty, not eight-fifteen. She changed the program. Damn her. I can’t find Oliver. And where’s Richard?”
“Richard just headed for the bridge. Oliver’s probably in hiding. I heard Julia introduce him to her sisters as ‘the contractor from hell.’ They looked at him as if he’d hidden corpses in the walls. I watched one of the most respected building contractors in this part of the country turn red and mumble like a fool.”
“That’s what she’s reduced us to,” Frank said, rubbing a high, elegant forehead with a hand
that bore a diamond pinkie ring. “I can’t believe she’s going to twist the knife right until the end.”
“Yes, it’s hard to imagine why she’d hate your guts. All you did was break off your affair by sticking a ‘Dear Julia’ note to a blueprint you sent her.”
“Thanks a lot. That was a year ago.”
“I wouldn’t forget in one year’s time if I were Julia.”
Frank sighed. “I’ll go find Oliver. We’ll meet Richard on the bridge.”
Stephen grabbed Frank’s coattail. “Can I go with you? I think Daddy needs me to hold his hand.”
“It’s up to your mother.” Frank was scanning the crowd. A sheen of perspiration gleamed on his forehead. Frank, as cool as he was brilliant, was no less rattled than Richard tonight.
Stephen tugged on Lily’s hand. She looked down into his solemn blue eyes. “Please? I want to be with Daddy when he gives his talk.”
“All right. But be a quiet little gentleman, okay? And if you have to go to the bathroom again, tell Daddy the minute you need to.” Lily dropped to her heels, hitching her snug gown up a little, and stuck her fingers in her mouth. She combed Stephen’s mop of hair with long red nails. “I knew these false fingernails would be good for something besides scratching itches,” she teased. “There. You’re handsome. Go and tell Daddy we love him.”
“I will.” They traded hugs, then Frank picked the boy up and walked wordlessly into the crowd. Lily waved as Stephen twisted over Frank’s shoulder and blew her a kiss.
