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And that meant closing his eyes to things that weren’t any of his business. Like Colby’s treatment of his wife.
How a man could have such a woman and not treat her like fine crystal was beyond his imagination. Things had gotten bad enough to bring the police into the matter a couple of times. With the help of a detective saving for early retirement, Ross had cleaned those up for Jonathan, and he had not been able to look Audrey in the eyes since.
He took another swig of scotch.
Laura appeared in the doorway, tucked inside a fluffy white robe. Without makeup and her high-end clothes, she looked enough like the little girl she had been not so long ago that he felt an actual pain in his chest for his inability to turn back the clock.
“What are you doing up, Daddy?”
“Couldn’t sleep. Still wired from the party, I guess. You?”
She leaned against the doorjamb and folded her arms across her chest, looking as if she had something on her mind.
“What is it, honey?”
She tipped her head, didn’t answer for a moment, and then said, “Do you think Jonathan and Audrey are happy?”
The question took him by surprise. “As happy as anyone, I guess. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. They don’t look happy.”
“That’s their business then, don’t you think?”
She shrugged. “I just wonder why people stay together if they’re not happy being with each other.”
“Human nature, I guess,” he said. “Hard to get off the train once it’s headed down the tracks.” He thought of his own marriage, his clear understanding of why Sylvia had stayed with him all these years. Nice enough meal ticket for a girl from rural Georgia. If he’d once thought it had to do with anything other than that, he’d been permanently cured of his disillusion.
“That’s a pretty dismal outlook. I don’t think people should stay together if it’s not working.”
“Probably not,” he conceded, too weary to argue.
“So why do you?”
He met her gaze, started to pretend he didn’t know what she meant, then surprised himself by saying, “Your mom and I have been together a long time.”
“So that’s a reason?”
“One.”
“How about another?”
“Something about age, I think. Things you couldn’t have imagined yourself doing, standing for, when you were younger just don’t really seem worth the battle.”
“Now there’s a life goal. Settling. You know, Daddy, I’m not subscribing.”
Ross heard the disapproval in his daughter’s voice. On the day she’d been born, his biggest hope was that she would grow up to be proud of him. There was something infinitely deflating in the realization that your child did not respect you. “Maybe your life will be completely different.”
A smile touched her mouth. “If I have any say in it.”
Her certainty was hard to refute. And he hoped she would be right.
“I’m headed to the kitchen,” she said, her tone lighter, as if she had decided to give him a reprieve. “Want something warm to drink?”
“Sure, honey,” he said. “Thanks.”
“Be right back.”
He watched her leave the room. Even her walk was marked with confidence. In Laura’s eyes, the world was hers for the taking. He had spoiled his daughter. That, Ross could not deny. But he loved her.
He wondered if Audrey Colby had a father who felt the same about her.
He could only imagine what he would do if Laura ever got involved with a man who mistreated her. Something in his gut tightened, needle-sharp. Laura might be spoiled, but she was the one good thing he’d done in his life. He’d die before she’d end up like Audrey.
He was sorry for her. Really, he was. But he wasn’t a white-hat guy.
He couldn’t save her.
Hell, he’d be lucky if he saved himself.
AUDREY AWOKE to a pain so intense it took her a moment to figure out what it was. Maybe she’d died. Maybe this was what death felt like when you’d failed to live your life to expectation.
She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. The room was nearly dark, the only light shining through from the kitchen. She tried to sit up. Something sharp stabbed her palm. Wincing, she yanked her hand away, blood trickling down her wrist. Shards of glass, the remains of a broken table lamp, lay around her, the shade resting on its side like an old hat someone had thrown away.
Moaning, she straightened and leaned back against the wall, fighting the wave of nausea threatening to overcome her. She touched her hand to her throbbing shoulder, then tried to move it. White-hot pain shot through her arm. She dropped her head back and wondered how many days she would have to hide from the world to cover this one up. Thank God it was winter. Thank God for turtlenecks and gloves.
She squeezed her eyes shut, wiping at the tears sliding down one cheek with the back of her hand. She despised herself for the tears. Tears were useless, would get her nowhere. They were weak and powerless and self-pitying. The last person she felt sorry for was herself.
She’d long since ceased to think of the poor excuse of a woman that she had become as someone she knew. The woman who now sat huddled on her living-room floor was a stranger. Someone she did not know, resembling in no way the woman Audrey had once thought she would become. This woman was a victim. Weak. Despicable.
Why hadn’t she walked away as soon as she’d seen Nicholas Wakefield standing on that terrace?
Maybe because he’d been a stranger, and there was anonymity in that, someone with no pre-drawn conclusions about her. At the party, she’d barely spoken to anyone, knowing that to linger too long would be to arouse Jonathan’s anger. Outside, in the darkness, some almost-forgotten part of her had been hungry for a few moments of uncensored conversation with another human being. A human being who knew nothing about her life, who might think she was as normal as the rest of the world.
“Mama?”
Audrey jerked up. Her nine-year-old son stood in the doorway, his face white with fear. Audrey glanced at the mess around her, the shattered lamp, the overturned coffee table, realizing what she must look like. “Oh, Sammy. It’s okay. Stay right there.”
Taking a deep breath, she slid across the floor, her back to the wall, each move agonizing. She hadn’t made it to the doorway before he launched himself at her, flinging his arms around her neck and gripping her as if he were about to drown. She winced at the spasm of pain that racked through her, but pulled him close and held him tight.
Sammy cried quietly, his chest shaking. She closed her eyes and pressed his face to her shoulder, soothing him with her voice and her hands.
“I thought you were dead,” he finally managed to say. “I saw you against the wall, and I thought—”
Audrey’s eyes welled with tears. “It’s okay, sweetie. I’m all right. Shh.”
“Why does he hurt you, Mommy?” Sammy asked, his voice breaking at the end.
Audrey drew back and brushed his hair away from his face, gently rubbing the tears from his cheek with her thumb. “Sammy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Her son, her precious son, looked up at her with fear and anguish in his eyes. For that, Audrey hated herself most of all.
Despite the pain grabbing at her, she walked with him up the stairs, her arm around his shoulders, tucking him to her side.
In his room, she helped him into bed, smoothing a hand over his fine hair. Sitting there beside the son she loved more than she would ever have believed it possible to love, Audrey thought of what a different life she had once imagined for herself, for the children she might have. How had things turned out this way?
The truth? She had never seen it coming.
CHAPTER FOUR
AS A SENIOR in high school, Audrey took a job with the Colbys, the most affluent family in Lanier, Georgia. They could trace their bloodlines to the earliest records in the courthouse, and Martha Colby took great pride in running her home in much the same way her husband’s ancestors had. Even though Audrey had originally been hired to work two evenings a week and every Saturday, her hours had continued to increase when one of the housekeepers had to leave.
Audrey didn’t mind working extra. While she liked her actual classes, she didn’t enjoy the social aspects of school. Up until junior high, she had liked everything about it and had looked forward to running track.
But then her body had started to change, and along with it, the rest of her life as well. In her freshman year, her bra size went from 34 A to 36 C. At five-three, Audrey was small-framed, petite even, and the change was more than noticeable. Suddenly, boys treated her differently. She hated the look in their eyes, detested the snickers that followed her down the hall. But worst of all were the nicknames she heard bandied about behind her back, the suggestive remarks the boys made when she walked by. One day, she’d gone into biology class and found one of those nicknames carved into the top of the desk.
She’d left the class and called her mom to come and get her, claiming she had a stomachache. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon curled up on her bed, humiliated.
Her mother came into her room, smoothing a hand over her hair. “What is it, honey? What’s wrong?”
Audrey turned over, unwelcome tears welling in her eyes. “I hate school, Mama. I don’t want to go back.”
“It’s the changes in your body,” her mother said softly. “Am I right?”
Audrey bit her lip, before admitting in a low voice, “It’s awful.”
Sarah Williams took her daughter’s hand and squeezed it between both of hers. “Oh, baby, you’ve just matured faster than some girls. Do you know how many women would love to have your figure?”
“I’m not a woman. And the boys make fun of me.”
Her mother pressed her lips together. “That’s because they’re immature and don’t know any better.”
“Please don’t make me go back.”
“Audrey.” Her mother’s voice held a note of wistfulness as if she wished she could snap her fingers and take the pain away. But she couldn’t. And they both knew it. “It won’t last forever, honey. The older you get, the better things will be. I promise.”
In a way, she was right. Audrey wore clothing that helped to conceal her figure, loose-fitting blouses and jumpers. She never wore sweaters or anything that remotely emphasized her breasts. The nicknames ceased. At least where she could hear them. But the boys were still interested in one thing. And after a few dates that resulted in little more than fumbling and groping, she decided dating wasn’t for her.
Instead, she threw herself into her schoolwork and had so far maintained the highest GPA in her class. She spent her free time painting—mostly portraits, scenes from small-town life. She loved the mystery of a blank canvas, starting out with nothing but white space and capturing a moment of time there.
Halfway through her senior year she went to work for the Colbys, and although she got a little less sleep than before, it was worth it to have the extra money. She’d recently been accepted at Georgia State. Going to college was important to her. No one else in her family had ever been. Her mother and father were counting on her to be the first. Money was tight, though. Her father had worked in a lumber mill for the past twenty years, and her mother took in sewing and alterations in addition to her job at the local Rexall. Audrey wanted to help with her tuition so she took as many extra hours as she could.
One afternoon, Mrs. Colby asked her to dust in the library. With its walnut-paneled walls and inviting reading lamps, it was a room she could have spent weeks in without ever leaving. She wiped each of the frames positioned on the round tables, handling them with care. An eight-by-ten photo in a pewter frame caught her eye. A young man with glossy black hair and smooth, dark skin, smiled up at her, his eyes hinting at self-assurance. The Colbys’ only son, Jonathan. She’d heard of him through her older brother. Jonathan Colby was a local icon of sorts, the rich kid who went to boarding school and moved away after college.
Audrey rubbed at the glass on the photograph, then placed it back on the table. But her gaze lingered on his handsome face, and she wondered if he ever came home.
After that day, she found herself thinking about him. In school while the teacher was lecturing. At night when she turned off her lamp and lay in bed. She wondered what it would be like to go out with someone older and more mature, unlike the boys in school.
Jonathan Colby remained snagged in her thoughts, even though she’d never met him, even though he was older by ten years or so.
But on the following Tuesday, she forgot all of her arguments about putting him from her mind. She was in the kitchen helping Mary, an older woman who had been with the Colbys for years as a housekeeper. Mary touched a hand to the grey braid wound into a coil at the nape of her neck. “We’ll have to get the house extra clean this week,” Mary said. “Mrs. Colby says Jonathan is coming home over the weekend. She’s having a dinner on Saturday night for him. She asked me to check with you about working late.”
The dish in Audrey’s hand clattered to the floor. “I’m sorry,” she said, bending over to pick it up, grateful that it hadn’t broken. “I’ll be glad to.”
Mary sent her a knowing look and then said with a chuckle, “Jonathan always did have that effect on the girls.”
It was the slowest week of Audrey’s life. She thought the weekend would never arrive. On Saturday afternoon, she took extra care getting ready. Standing back and looking at herself in the mirror, she decided that she looked older, a little more sophisticated.
Once she arrived at the Colby house, Audrey was a batch of nerves, her stomach tightening every time the kitchen door swung open.
When it was time to serve dessert, Audrey followed Mary into the dining room where the din of conversation rose and fell around the twelve-person table.
She kept her eyes on the serving cart, too nervous to look up.
“Could you put one of these in each bowl, Audrey?” Mary asked, handing her some silver spoons.
“Sure,” she said, glancing at the head of the table and spotting him for the first time. To his right sat a dark-haired girl laughing at something he’d just said close to her ear. Audrey couldn’t look away from the two of them. He was every bit as handsome as his photo. More so. And the girl beside him was tall and striking in an off-the-shoulder black cocktail dress.
Audrey started to turn, but he glanced up just then and caught her gaze. Her cheeks went warm, the blush spreading across her whole body. He didn’t look away for several long seconds, and she could have sworn she saw a flicker of interest in his laughing blue eyes.
She moved toward his end of the table and placed the spoons in each bowl, feeling his eyes upon her still. Gripped with shyness, she could not bring herself to glance up again.
A few minutes later, she escaped to the kitchen. Once there, she wet a paper towel with cool water and pressed it to her cheeks. She’d spent the week fantasizing about a guy she’d never met, had only seen a picture of. And now that she’d seen him in real life, with an infatuated girl beside him, she felt… What? Disappointed. The ridiculousness of the admission did not escape her.
Mary returned to the kitchen a few minutes later. “So what did you think?”
“Of what?” she asked, continuing to scrub the pot in the sink without looking up.
“Young Jonathan, of course.”
“Oh. He’s very handsome.”
“And as usual, he’s got a new young lady with him tonight.” Mary shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll ever settle down. He’s too busy sampling.”
It was after 1:00 a.m. by the time the two of them had everything washed and put back in place.
“That should about do it,” Mary said, wiping her hands on her apron. “You go on home now. Will you be all right by yourself?”
“I’ll be fine,” Audrey reassured her.
“See you at eleven tomorrow?”
“Okay,” she said, letting herself out the kitchen door. Getting in her mother’s old green Falcon, she turned the key in the ignition. An awful grinding noise rang out like gunshots in the quiet neighborhood.
She tried it again, but this time the noise was worse. A knock sounded at the window. Audrey jumped, one hand to her throat. Jonathan peered down at her, smiling. Her heart started pounding in her ears.
“Mind if I give it a try?” she heard him ask through the closed window.
This wasn’t exactly how she’d envisioned the two of them meeting. But grateful for his help, she nodded and got out. He slid behind the wheel. When the same thing happened after two tries, he said, “I don’t think it’s going anywhere tonight.”
“I think you’re right,” she said, forcing herself to meet his gaze. His face had relaxed into a kind smile, and she noticed that he had a smudge of red lipstick on his collar. Apparently, he’d just gotten back from taking his date home.
“I don’t think we got properly introduced,” he said. “I’m Jonathan Colby.”
“Audrey Williams.”
He looked at her and said, “Audrey. I’ll be glad to give you a lift. You can leave the car here tonight.”
Something inside her thrilled at the thought. But she didn’t want him to feel obligated to take her. “I can call a cab.”
“It’s not a problem.”
She hesitated, before saying, “If you’re sure you won’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He smiled at her then, looking exactly like the man in the photograph she’d been fantasizing about all week.
AUDREY’S HOUSE was approximately twenty-five minutes away, on the other side of town. For once, she was glad of the distance. Sitting in Jonathan Colby’s BMW with late-night radio playing in the background was like something she might have dreamed. The tan leather seat felt like butter against her skin, and he had the sunroof open, leaving a square of stars visible above them.
“How long have you been working for my parents?” he asked as they backed out of the driveway and then sped down the tree-lined street.
“A few months.”
“I thought you must have started since the last time I was home. I would have remembered you.”
The words made her heart beat a little faster. It would be foolish to read anything into them, but his smile made her think he’d meant them as a compliment. “Your mother’s very nice,” she said, looking down at her lap.
“Yes, she is,” he agreed, the smile suddenly disappearing. “Are you in college?”
“I’m a senior. In high school,” she said, flattered.
He slowed for a stop sign, one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shift. “You could have fooled me.”
Again, the remark found its spot in her heart, and she smiled at him. “You live in Atlanta, don’t you?”
He nodded. “I’m running an arm of Dad’s business there.”
“Do you like it? Atlanta, I mean.”
“Yeah. It’s a great town. There’s a lot to do.”
She didn’t want to tell him that she’d never been even though it was only four hours away. Her family hadn’t traveled much. Neither of her parents liked to stray too far from home.
They chatted for the duration of the drive to her house. She told him where to turn when they reached her street. He stopped in front of the driveway, flicking the car lights off.
“Thank you so much for the ride,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
Audrey wished for a reason to linger. None of the guys she’d dated came close to this dark-haired, confident man.
“You have a boyfriend, Audrey?” he asked.
“No one special.”
“That’s surprising.”
She shrugged. “I’m going to college next year. And I work part-time. There’s not much room for anything else.”
“You’re smart to keep it that way for now.”
In that moment, Audrey was glad there was no one else. She sensed that if she shifted in his direction, he would have kissed her. But she didn’t have the courage to try it.
Unnerved by the awareness between them, she looked down at her lap and said, “Thank you for the ride, Jonathan. I really appreciate it.”
He put a hand on the steering wheel, and said, “No problem.”
“I’ll get my dad to come over in the morning and take a look at the car.”
“Will you be coming with him?”
She nodded. “I have to be there for work at eleven.”
“Good. Then I guess I’ll see you at lunch?”
She smiled. “I guess so.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Audrey’s father drove her to work and called a tow truck for her mother’s car. The Colbys came in from church just before twelve-thirty. Audrey’s stomach fluttered at the sound of their voices in the foyer. She could hear Jonathan’s low tones and felt a fresh rush of anticipation at the thought of seeing him again.
She followed Mary into the dining room, carrying steaming bowls of mashed potatoes and cream-style corn. Her gaze immediately found him, seated again at the far end of the table. The same dark-haired young woman sat next to him. Audrey’s heart dropped to the floor.
She tried not to look at him again and went about the business of putting food on the table, wanting only to finish so she could escape back to the kitchen. Once there, she ran her hand under the cool tap water and splashed a little on her face.
It was after three o’clock when the kitchen door swung open. She looked up from wiping the counters. Jonathan stood in the doorway, and she could not deny the gladness she felt at the sight of him. “Hi.”
He smiled at her. “Did you get your car fixed?”
She shook her head. “Dad had a tow truck pick it up.”
“Will you need a ride home then?”
“I’ll call him when I’m through here.”
“I’ll be glad to take you. I’ll be on my way out of town anyway. I’m heading back to Atlanta in a little while.”
Audrey hesitated, recalling Mary’s earlier warning. But even though she knew the woman was probably right, she found herself saying, “If you’re sure it won’t be too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all. I’ll go upstairs and pack up the rest of my things. How much longer will you be?”
“Twenty minutes or so?”
“I’ll meet you back here.”
Audrey called her mom and told her she had a ride home.
Jonathan was back in exactly twenty minutes. “I already said goodbye to my folks, so if you’re ready—”
“All set.” She reached for her sweater where she’d hung it earlier on the hook behind the door.
“Here, let me help.” He took the sweater and held it for her while she shrugged her arms inside. His hands grazed the side of her shoulders, sending unexpected sparks of electricity through her.
“Thank you,” she said, not meeting his gaze for fear that he would see awareness in her eyes.
“Do you have to be home right away?” he asked, once they were in the car.
The question surprised her. “Not right away.”
“Want to take a walk in the park?”
“Sure. I’d love to.”
He pulled over at a 7-Eleven, coming out a couple of minutes later with two Cokes and a bag of chips. “Not much of a picnic,” he said, “but it’s the best I can do on short notice.”
She laughed, thinking it was wonderful that he’d thought of it at all.
They parked on the street beside the entrance. Jonathan opened her door for her and pulled a blanket from the trunk. By the pond, Jonathan spread out the quilt, tossed the chips and Cokes in one corner and motioned for her to sit. She did, pulling her knees up in front of her chest.
He sat down beside her, plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between his fingers. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Hide yourself.”
She avoided his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The clothes you wear. The way you hunch your shoulders. The way you’re hiding behind your knees right now.”
Face hot, she kept her gaze on the grass in front of the quilt.
“You’re beautiful, Audrey,” he said. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of in that.”