Fountain [NOOK Book]

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Chapter One

Two days before Casey Becket's twentieth wedding anniversary, her past came back to haunt her or, at the very least, astonish her. She wasn't prepared for such a visitation -- no one ever is -- but instead her thoughts were moving her only in the direction of Saturday, and the anniversary party that was to take place. She was sitting at the kitchen table, where she could often be found, her feet bare against the cool slate tiles, one foot tapping lightly to the percussive strains of jazz that were wafting from the CD player Michael had installed on a shelf above the spice rack. Before her on the table was a yellow legal pad covered with scrawled writing, all of it instructions she'd written to herself about things that had to be accomplished before the party. It was while Casey was going over the list and seeing what still needed to be done before Saturday that she saw a flash of movement out the back window, by the fountain.

Someone was there -- one of the men from the party rental company, maybe. He was standing by the fountain, staring down into it, as if studying it for signs of life. By Saturday the fountain would be running again, bursts of water shooting upward, a fine mist falling on all the people who gathered in the yard. But now it was completely dry, still clotted with leaves and blossoms that had dropped from the trees that arched overhead. In recent years, and for no particular reason except perhaps the chaos of daily life, Casey and Michael had let it fall into disrepair. She supposed now that perhaps it had become a bit of an eyesore, but not so much that it should be an object offascination for a stranger. And then the man looked up from the fountain, to the house, to the window where Casey Becket sat at a table, staring back at him.

Her hand flew involuntarily to her mouth, as if some primitive part of her had recognized him before she could even realize what, or whom, she was seeing. And then there was no mistaking it: Some twenty-odd years after he had disappeared from her life, Will Combray had suddenly walked back into it.

She stood up shakily at the table and silently commanded herself to get a grip. For a "grip," whatever that was, really, was what she needed now more than anything. For a moment she and Will looked at each other through the screened window, neither of them saying a word. It was difficult, in this first, adrenalized moment of shocked recognition, to tell the difference between what she was really seeing and what her memory wanted her to see. But even at this distance, even staring through the screen, Casey could identify one thing that hadn't changed at all over the years: Will's smile. It was an expression that she immediately recognized as his, a slight upturn of one side of the lips, as though he'd recently had a shot of novocaine. A sleepy, slow smile, the kind that men might barely notice but that women always loved.

"Hello, Vanilla," he said.

It was a nickname from so long ago, and the sound of it now sent a peculiar sensation unraveling through her. The familiar word, in that familiar voice it was almost as though no time had passed at all. And then Casey realized that she had always known it would be like this when Will returned. Not if. When. For as shocking as it was to look out the back window one morning and see the man she'd loved so long ago suddenly appear, it wasn't really surprising. It was, in a way, inevitable. It was as if she'd known all along that Will would one day come back, and that he would do it as he'd left: unexpectedly.

She walked to the kitchen door and threw it open, stepping out into the yard. "It is you," she said, and then the two of them just stood there, staring at each other across the lawn as if in a silent endurance contest, neither of them daring to speak or move any closer. There would be no running, no hugging, no open arms and cascading tears of happiness; this was not the kind of reunion that called for the usual displays of unfettered emotion. Instead, Casey and Will just looked and looked, absorbing what they saw, each appraising how the other had changed and somehow not changed, the overlay of age upon youth, like layers of paint spread on a canvas.

Will Combray and Casey Becket were now a grown man and woman. The last time they had been together, they were teenagers. Their faces had been narrower then, more defined. Both of them had had long, wild hair back then, too. Will was still unmistakably handsome, if slightly thicker featured, his sand-colored hair threaded with silver. He had once been an eighteen-year-old in a flannel shirt and jeans and scuffed Frye boots, who had occupied all her thoughts, and here he was now, a forty-year-old man in an expensive-looking white cotton shirt and loosened silk tie, probably well off and apparently tired. He walked closer then, and she noticed that he had a scar on his chin, something that hadn't been there the last time she'd seen him. He'd had a life without her, a life that included other people, and other places, and even a small scar that cut a raised diagonal across his chin, giving him the slightly raffish appearance of a pirate. A pirate executive, she thought giddily.

As for herself, Casey knew she came across as a delicately pretty woman, someone who seemed still youthful and appealing and slightly arty, though perhaps lacking the concentrated girlish beauty she'd once had. For a moment, she felt...