Nowadays he cherished any little habits of childhood that still clung to her. They helped to reassure him that he hadn’t completely lost her. At fourteen his daughter almost had the face and body of a woman. Only when she was sleeping like this could he see traces of the enchanting little girl she’d been.
There were people who’d considered them irresponsible for having a baby when they were aware of Janice’s illness. But those people, of course, didn’t know the truth about Steffi’s birth.
He felt a painful lump in his throat as he remembered how he’d adored that red-haired baby they’d brought home from the hospital all those years ago. What a miracle she’d been to him and his wife. Their lives had been transformed. The growing tensions between him and Janice had almost disappeared, replaced by happy sun-flooded years of laughter and absorption in the growing child they both so dearly loved.
A few years of heaven, Alex thought grimly, followed by years of utter hell. Life had a harsh way of balancing things out.
He could bear it for himself. But he hated his daughter’s having to endure those cruel checks and balances, Steffi, who had never done anything to deserve the kind of suffering inflicted on her family. During all her growing-up years, Steffi had been a pure delight, a ray of sunshine. How he missed that happy generous loving little girl.
Now she was as tall as her mother had been, with a curving figure and a sulky hostile expression that chilled him. Her lips, which were exactly like his own, were usually pressed together in a taut line, and her smiles were rare. He hardly knew what to say to this beautiful stranger, how to fight his way past her anger and pain to the child still living in there.
He reached down gently to brush a strand of hair back from her sleeping face, then adjusted the blankets. As he did so, he saw that Steffi had gone to sleep clutching her old stuffed bunny.
This favorite toy had once been soft pink plush, with a yellow velvet waistcoat and a jaunty expression. But years of love had worn the plush almost bare in places, and the long ears were limp and droopy from constant handling.
As far as he knew, she hadn’t slept with the bunny for eight or nine years. The sight of it now, cradled in her arms, was almost unbearably painful to him.
How lonely and distressed she must be feeling!
If only she would talk to him, even yell at him. Maybe then, Alex and his daughter could start to breach this grim wall of silences and be a family again. But Steffi was so cold and remote. After school and on weekends, she hiked by herself along the trails near their home, fished for hours down in the cove, tramped alone through the woods or sat up in her room with a book.
He should probably be glad she was spending the first two weeks of the summer with Angela Sanders and her parents on a long-planned trip to Disneyland.
As far as Alex knew, his daughter had almost as little to do with her school friends these days as she did with him. Steffi had once been such a bubbly gregarious child, but now she was usually solitary. Maybe a couple of weeks with her friend would be a good thing, though he yearned to have her with him at Edgewood Manor.
But she’d be home from California in a couple of weeks, and then they’d have the rest of the summer together.
Again he thought of the old hotel on the shore of Okanagan Lake. Alex hoped that the tranquillity of that lovely old house and the beauty of its setting would work a miracle, that somewhere within the sun-dappled walls of Edgewood Manor, he would find the touch of magic that would bring his daughter back to him.
“WHY DO YOU KEEP looking down the road?”
“What road?” Gina burrowed among the strawberries. “You know, some of these are really huge.” She held up a fat strawberry for Roger’s inspection.
He nodded, leaning on his hoe in the sunshine among the neat little hills of potatoes. “How many roads are there leading to this place?”
“One,” Gina mumbled. “Last time I looked.”
“Which was about four seconds ago.”
Gina sat back on her heels and gave her caretaker a stern glance. “Roger, you’ve got to quit teasing me about that man, or…”
“Or what?”
“Or I’ll wrap a shovel around your neck,” Gina said cheerfully.
Roger rolled his eyes and plied the hoe on a patch of weeds near the fence. “Half the time she worries and frets about me leaving, and the other half she’s threatening to attack me. Women are so hard to understand.”
Gina crawled along the row, digging more plump strawberries out from under their sheltering dark green leaves. “Mary tells me you’ve been learning a whole lot about women these days,” she said casually.
Roger grunted and removed his baseball cap to scratch his head. “And how would Mary know? When she’s not working in that kitchen, she spends all her time at choir practice or buried in the library.”
“Mary knows a lot of things.” Gina stood up and carried her plastic bucket to the next row of strawberries. “Roger…”
“Yes?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about your new friend? You know I’d be interested. I’d love to meet her.”
“What friend?” he asked, scraping busily with his hoe.
“You know.” Gina knelt and started on the next row. “Lacey Franks. The city lady who’s been staying over at Fred’s motel. Apparently the two of you are getting really…well acquainted.”
Roger straightened his lanky body and leaned on the hoe, resting his chin on the handle and staring gloomily across the lake. “This town is the damnedest place for gossip.”
“Of course it is. All small towns are the same way. So?” She looked up at him expectantly.
“So what?”
“Tell me about her,” Gina said, exasperated.
“Nothing to tell. Are any of those wax beans ready yet?”
Gina gave up, knowing it was hopeless to press him further. She reached over to examine a long yellow pod on one of the bean plants nearby.
“Yes, I think they are. A few of them, anyway.”
“Could we pick enough for our supper?”
Gina checked the plants again. “I think so. You’d better tell Mary before she plans something else.”
“You tell her. She hardly speaks to me anymore.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Gina said. “I get so tired of all the squabbling you two do.”
But her annoyance was immediately overcome by pleasure at the idea of fresh-cooked buttery beans for their evening meal in the kitchen. She was still riffling through the laden bean plants when a shadow fell across the garden.
Roger looked up with a cordial smile.
“Hello there,” he said, leaning on his hoe again to address someone behind Gina. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Gina’s heart began to pound. She got up, holding her plastic pail, and brushed dirt from the knees of her jeans.
Alex Colton smiled and extended his hand. “Hello, Gina. Nice to see you again.”
He looked happier today, Gina thought, examining him closely as she shook his hand. His face was still tired and worn, but he seemed much more relaxed than on his first visit. Today he wore jeans, a yellow cotton shirt and a jaunty straw fedora,