Blue Willow
| Blue Willow | |
| Deborah Smith | |
| Bantam (2011) | |
| Rating: | **** |
| Tags: | Romance, Contemporary, Fiction |
Back in the small town of her childhood, Lily MacKenzie rekindles old flames with Artemas Colebrook, a boyhood friend and a family enemy.
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
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
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
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
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.