He had built it out of fancy, and a love for the romantic. He had made love with his wife there countless nights, conceived both of their children within the charming rounded walls, in the big rococo bed. Although Susan often said Josh had been made on the Bokhara rug in front of the fire.
He never disputed her on such matters.
Now with flames simmering in the Adams fireplace, a bottle of Templeton champagne chilled in a silver bucket and moonlight filtering in through the high windows, he curled with his wife of thirty-six years on that same rug.
"I think you're trying to seduce me."
He offered her a glass brimming with frothy wine. "You're such a sharp woman, Susie."
"And smart enough to let you." Smiling, she touched a hand to his face. "Tommy. How could so many years have gone by?"
"You look the same." He pressed his lips to her palm. "Just as lovely, just as fresh."
"Now it takes me hours to maintain the illusion."
"It's no illusion." He nestled her head on his shoulder, watched the fire leap as a log gave way to the heat. "Do you remember the first night we slept here?''
"You carried me up the steps. Up every single one. And when you brought me in here, you had flowers everywhere, gardens of them, roses strewn over the bed. Wine chilling, the candles lighted."
"You cried."
"You overwhelmed me. You often did, and do still." She tilted her face up, brushed her lips over his jaw. "I knew I was the luckiest woman in the world to have you, to be loved the way you loved me. And to be wanted the way you wanted me." She shut her eyes, turned her face against his throat. "Oh, Tommy."
"Tell me what's troubling you. It's La
ura, isn't it?"
"I can't bear to see her hurt. I can stand anything but that. Even though I know that children have to go their own way, fight their own battles, it breaks my heart. I can still remember the day she was born, the way she curled into my arms. So small and precious."
"And you think Michael Fury is going to break her heart?"
"I don't know. I wish I did." She rose, walked to the window that looked out over the cliffs. Cliffs, she knew, that Laura had haunted since childhood. "It's knowing she's already had it broken that kills me inside. I spoke with her tonight when you were up with the girls. And I realized as she talked to me, that as hard as she's worked to rebuild her life, part of her is still so vulnerable, so raw. So… exposed. She believes she's failed, Tommy."
"Failed, my ass." Incensed, he sprang up. "Peter Ridgeway failed, in every way possible."
"And did we fail, by not preventing?"
"Could we have stopped her?" It was a question he'd asked himself dozens of times over the last few years. "Could we have?"
"No," Susan said after a long moment. "We might have postponed it, we might have persuaded her to wait. A few months, a year. But she was in love. She wanted what we have. That's what she said to me tonight, Tommy. She wanted what we have."
When he laid a hand on her shoulder, she reached back, gripped tight. "I hate that she couldn't have it. That she was denied the security and excitement and beauty of it. Now she doesn't believe she ever will have it."
"She's a young woman, Susie. A lovely and loving young woman. She'll fall in love again."
"She already has. She's in love with Michael, Tommy. She hasn't admitted it to herself yet; she protects herself by thinking of it as sex."
"Please." He winced. "It's not easy to think of my little girl that way."
It made her laugh and turn to him. "Your little girl is in the middle of a hot affair with Josh's rebellious young friend."
"Should I get the gun?"
So she laughed again, embraced him. "Oh, Tommy, here we are, with no way to stop it again. Nothing to do but wait and hope."
"I could have a… little talk with him."
"You could. I could. But nothing we say is going to change Laura's mind, or her heart. He's gorgeous."