Snowfall at Willow Lake: Lakeshore Chronicles Book 4 (17 page)

He nuzzled her neck again. “So we've got all morning…”

She was inches from succumbing. He made it seem completely natural to do so. “You're turning me into a hussy,” she said.

“Being snowed in will do that to a person.”

With a groan of reluctance, she peeled herself away from him. “I need to get busy. I'm finally going to see my children today. And I have to get rid of my rental car and lease a different one. I was thinking of a minivan.” If she was going to start acting like a mom, she might as well drive a car that made her look like a mom.

“Make sure you get snow tires and all-wheel drive.”

“I will.” Just like that, the plan began to feel very real, and nervousness hummed through her. This was going to work, she promised herself. There were only a few hurdles to cross, like the fact that her kids were bound to be skeptical of this ever working out at all. Or the fact that she hadn't exactly explained the plan to her ex-husband.

“Y
ou're doing what?” Greg Bellamy took Sophie's coat from her and frowned. “Come on, Soph. Back up a little. Let's go over this again.”

Sophie tried not to feel defensive as she regarded her ex-husband in the vestibule of his house, a house where she was a stranger. He had every right to be suspicious of her motives and actions. She had done a spectacularly bad job of being a wife and mother. It was understandable that he would question her now.

“Can we sit down?” she asked evenly. “I'll try to explain.” She doubted she could fumble through a reasonable-sounding explanation of why she'd come to Avalon, but she was going to try.

He gestured toward the old-fashioned parlor. “I'll hang up your coat. Go have a seat.”

He didn't say,
Make yourself at home,
but she shouldn't have expected that, of course. Nor did she want the gesture. She and Greg were exes for a reason. For a lot of reasons. When they were married, they were so busy taking care of business that they forgot to take care of each other and had let the marriage die a slow death. They were not like wistful TV exes who got along beautifully, trading kids back and forth like keys to a mutually beloved car.

She took a seat in a Queen-Anne-style oval-backed armchair and regarded her surroundings with mild fascination. Greg had reinvented himself and rebuilt his life from the ground up, and every item in the room was unfamiliar to Sophie, from the overstuffed armchairs to the bowl of Jelly Bellies on the coffee table.

When Greg had first made his move, she'd thought he was nuts. He'd sold his Manhattan architecture firm and moved upstate, to the town where he'd spent all his boyhood summers. He'd bought a historic lakefront hotel, the Inn at Willow Lake, and had recently married a woman who seemed to be Sophie's polar opposite. They lived on the property in a tall, boxy house built in Carpenter Gothic style and furnished with a bright, eclectic mix of antiques and contemporary pieces.

The room was casual and comfortable in a way no room in their former home together had ever looked. There was a cushy, lived-in atmosphere here, and despite her differences with Greg, she was glad Max got to live here. There was an array of photos on a narrow table against one wall, showing Max and Daisy at various ages. There were also pictures of Sonnet Romano, Nina's daughter, who now attended American University.

Just like that, Greg had another child. Even though Sonnet was away, she was a permanent fixture in Max and Daisy's lives. So far, the three of them got along beautifully. Or so it seemed to Sophie. Suddenly, sitting here, it finally struck her how out of the loop she had been.

She recognized a couple of shots from last summer when Greg's niece, Olivia Bellamy, had married in a big wedding at the Bellamys' Camp Kioga, a rustic wilderness camp on the north end of the lake.

There was a collage frame of brand-new images, too, and Sophie couldn't help herself. She was fascinated. The photos depicted Greg's wedding, which had taken place on Epiphany. Sophie now had two reasons she wished she could forget that night.

She felt an unexpected twist of pain. Yes, she'd known on an intellectual level that Greg had fallen in love with Nina Romano, a young single mother with a grown daughter. Yes, Sophie had known he'd remarried in a small ocean-side ceremony on the island of St. Croix.

She thought she had processed this data and neutralized the pain. She thought she was all right with the turn of events. Now, looking at the smiling faces of her children, her ex-husband, her ex-in-laws whose name she still carried, she realized she was not okay. She was devastated. It was not that she wished she was still married to Greg, God, no. It was not even that she resented seeing him so happy. The thing that ripped into her heart was the knowledge that the Bellamys had once witnessed her own wedding. She felt entirely expendable. But she stopped herself from unraveling by keeping a stiff upper lip. She'd made a decision years ago, and she knew how to live with it.

She focused on a group shot of the Bellamys and Romanos, who were complete strangers to her. Everyone looked so happy, laughing and carefree against the bright white of the sand and the deep Caribbean blue of the water in the background.

Nina was a small-town girl, born and raised in Avalon, even serving a term as its mayor. Sophie, on the other hand, had grown up dividing her time between two large, vibrant cities—Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. Nina had some ungodly big family with members numbering in the double digits, while Sophie was an only child, with the entire weight of her parents' expectations on her shoulders. Nina was dark and intense, small and curvy, given to expressing every emotion in true Italian-American fashion. Sophie was fair and tall and slender, and so emotionally reserved that even her therapist got frustrated with her. Nina was casual and comfortable in her creamy, olive-toned skin; she'd actually gotten married in flip-flops. Sophie had never worn flip-flops in her life. Seeing these photos was proof in living color that she had been wrong for Greg in every possible way.

Hearing him return to the parlor, she turned away from the array of photos. “Congratulations on your marriage. I should have said so before.”

“Thanks.” He looked distinctly uncomfortable. Like Sophie, he clearly had no clue about the etiquette in this situation.

Studying him, she noticed for the first time that he still bore the faint shadow of a suntan from his Caribbean wedding trip, and it looked wonderful on him, enhancing his golden good looks. Her gaze was drawn to his hands. It was a curious fact that when you were truly intimate with a man, you knew every detail of his hands—their shape and texture, the nails and creases of the palms. She couldn't remember much about Greg's hands these days, which was a good sign. However, she became fixated on his wedding band. It was a wide chunk of gold, bluntly beautiful, nothing like the slender Tiffany band he'd worn while married to her. No, the two wedding bands were as different from one another as…Sophie and Nina.

Which, she conceded, was entirely appropriate and as it should be.

Focus,
Sophie reminded herself. It was too easy to be distracted by things like the fact that her ex had remarried and was living a dream life, a life he never could have had while married to her.

“We've been worried as hell about you,” he said. “It's not like you to just walk away from something. I read the published reports about what happened in The Hague. It was bad. Really bad.”

“I won't lie to you. It was horrible. I'm sure it will haunt me for the rest of my life. But I wasn't hurt, and I'm ready to move on.”

“Are you sure you're all right?”

Could anyone be “all right” after what she'd done? She looked him in the eye. “One hundred percent.”

“Then why are you here, Sophie?” he asked.

Even though his voice was gentle, the question was a touch of fire to the base of her spine. Of course he would ask that. Of course he would assume that she'd come simply because she had no other options. He had no idea what she'd sacrificed to come to Avalon.

“I'm here for Max and Daisy and the baby,” she said evenly. “And yes, the incident at the Peace Palace was a wake-up call, but my being here is about the kids, not about me.” Good heavens, understatement there. Why else would she move to a town where the name of her ex-husband was uttered in reverential tones, and where Greg's new wife, the former mayor, was known and loved by all? Did he think this would be fun for her?

“That sounds reasonable,” Greg said, “but for how long?”

Again, she reminded herself that he was looking out for his kids. “I can understand why you'd ask me that,” she said. “Ever since our children were babies, I've been coming and going between them and work. It's different this time. Greg. I'm here for good.”

He studied her for a long moment. There were things about her that Greg Bellamy knew better than any other living soul, and vice versa. Married at an absurdly young age, it was no shock that they'd wound up divorced. The shock was that they'd stayed married as long as they had. Sophie attributed this to their stubbornness and commitment to their kids.

She shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny. “What?” she asked finally.

“You seem…different,” he said at last. “A lot less uptight.”

A night of wild sex will do that to a girl,
she thought.

“I didn't mean to make you blush,” Greg said.

She waved her hand nonchalantly and reminded herself not to get defensive. “It's not you.” Another huge understatement. “Listen, we're going to have our moments, but I don't want it to be about us, either. My total focus is going to be the kids.”

“From international lawyer to soccer mom, just like that.”

“You don't buy it.” She didn't trust herself, either, but the uncertainty wouldn't keep her from trying.

“It's hard to see you in that role. I don't want the kids getting hurt.”

Then why didn't you work harder on our marriage? she almost asked. No, that wasn't fair. They had both worked on it, but eventually each had to concede defeat.

“I'm not here to hurt them.”

“I know.”

Even though he agreed with her, she heard what he didn't say aloud: You can't help hurting them.

As objectively as possible, she explained that she would take a hiatus from work. The Wilsons had invited her to stay as long as she wanted as they rarely used their lake house until the Fourth of July. Sophie planned to find more permanent living quarters well in advance of that. She was still licensed to practice law in the state of New York. Since her family was here, she had been diligent about keeping her license current. Eventually she might join a local firm as an “of counsel” associate, working two or three days a week.

That, of course, might be overly optimistic. Getting people in Avalon to put their trust in Greg Bellamy's ex-wife could be a bit of a stretch. Still, she was determined to make this happen. That meant carpooling, attending sports events, doctor appointments, teacher conferences. It meant hosting birthdays, laughing at Max's fart jokes, listening to Daisy's hopes and fears. It was a glaring contrast to her former life, with its excitement and high stakes. Yet in a different way, the stakes were even higher now.

To his credit, Greg listened without comment and kept his expression neutral. When she finished talking, he got up and went over to a corner desk, returning with a calendar covered in someone's unfamiliar handwriting. Nina's, she realized.

“Max's schedule,” Greg said. Somewhere in the house, a phone started ringing. “You can take a look at it. I need to get that.”

Sophie used to have a staff that took care of things like calendars and schedules. She was on her own now. This was all brand-new and the responsibility made her somewhat nervous. Forgetting something was not an option.

She took out her global PDA and studied the screen. She had to scroll through meetings, briefings and hearings, events at court she would miss. She couldn't help feeling a twinge.

Quit making comparisons, she admonished herself. You don't compare your son's hockey practice to a meeting with the president of the International Criminal Court. They're two different things. Two mutually exclusive things.

The calendar gave her a snapshot of a busy family functioning well. Max had plenty going on in his life—hockey practice, snowboarding on the weekend, an orthodontist appointment.

“Orthodontist?” she muttered aloud.

“He just started with Dr. Rencher,” Greg said, returning to the room.

Her son was going to an orthodontist and she didn't even know about it. “Is he getting braces?” she asked.

“Soph. He's already got them.”

“He didn't tell me. You didn't tell me. How is it that my own child gets braces and I don't even know?”

Greg must have recognized the raw pain in her voice. His expression was mild as he said, “That's a good sign. It means it's no big deal to Max, which is what we want. He's only had them a couple of weeks and he doesn't seem to mind. You can take him to next month's appointment and hear what Dr. Rencher has to say.”

She nodded and entered it into her PDA. She was on her own now. In addition to the orthodontist and hockey practice, Max had a couple of birthday parties to go to, a weekly match with another team, a school trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and a Boy Scout outing to West Point.

“Drum lessons?” she asked, looking at Wednesday afternoon.

“He switched from piano.”

“And you let him?” She could already feel herself starting to butt heads with Greg.

“It's his choice, Soph.”

“He's only twelve years old. He doesn't get that he needs piano.”

Years ago, she had read that music training was crucial to a child's intellectual development, and she'd enrolled Max and Daisy both in piano lessons. Max in particular had done well on piano, winning prizes in age-group competitions.