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darling.”

      “You do approve…don’t you?”

      “Of course I do. I like Keith a lot, and I was just surprised for a moment, that’s all. It seems to have progressed very quickly…what I mean is, you haven’t known him all that long.”

      “Six months. That’s enough time, isn’t it?”

      “I suppose so.”

      Catherine said, “Actually, Keith and I fell in love with each other the moment we met. It was a coup de foudre, as the French are wont to say.”

      Meredith smiled to herself. “Ah yes, struck by lightning…I know what you mean.”

      “Is that how it was with my father?”

      Meredith hesitated. “Not really, Cat…Well, in a way, yes. Except we didn’t admit that to each other for a long time.”

      “Well, you couldn’t, could you. I mean, given the peculiar circumstances. It must’ve been hell for you.”

      “No, it wasn’t, strangely enough. Anyway, that’s an old, old story, and now’s not the time to start going into it again.”

      “Was it a coup de foudre when you met David?”

      “No,” Meredith said, and thought of Jonathan’s father for the first time in several years. “We loved each other, but it wasn’t a…crazy love.”

      “I always knew that, I guess. It’s a crazy love between me and Keith, and when he asks me, I’m obviously going to say yes. You really do approve, don’t you, Mom?” she asked again.

      “Very much so, darling, and if he pops the question while I’m in London or Paris, you will let me know at once, won’t you?”

      “I sure will. And I bet we make you a grandmother before you can say…Jack Robinson.” Catherine giggled.

      Meredith said, “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

      “Don’t be silly, Mom, of course I’m not. But I can’t wait to have a baby. Before I get too old.”

      Meredith burst out laughing. “Don’t be so ridiculous, you’re only twenty-five.”

      “I know, but I want to have children while I’m young, the way you did.”

      “You always were a regular old mother hen, even when you were little. But listen, honey, I’m going to have to go. Jonas is driving me up to Silver Lake Inn tonight. I have a meeting at Hilltops tomorrow. I’ll be back in New York tomorrow evening, if you need me. Good night, Cat. I love you.”

      “I love you too, Mom. Say hello to Blanche and Pete, give them my love. And listen, take care.”

      “I will. Talk to you tomorrow, and God bless.”

      After hanging up the phone, Meredith sat at her desk for a moment or two, her thoughts with her daughter. Of course Keith Pearson would propose, and very soon, Meredith was quite certain of that. There was going to be a wedding this year. Her face lit up at the thought of it. Catherine was going to be a beautiful bride, and she would give her daughter a memorable wedding.

      Meredith rose, walked over to the window, and stood staring out at the Manhattan skyline. New York City, she murmured to herself, the place I’ve made my home. Such a long way from Sydney, Australia…how far I’ve come and in so many different ways. I took my terrible life and turned it around. I made a new life for myself. I took the pain and heartbreak and I built on them…I used them as pilings upon which to build my strong citadel in much the same way the Venetians built theirs on pilings driven into the sandbanks. And I did it all by myself…no, not entirely by myself. Jack and Amelia helped me.

      Meredith’s eyes swept around the elegant room decorated in various shades of pale gray, lavender, and amethyst. They took in the rich silks and velvets used to upholster the sofas and chairs, the sleek gray lacquer finishes on the modern furniture, the French and American modern impressionist paintings by Taurelle, Epko, and Guy Wiggins.

      And she saw it as if for the first time, through newly objective eyes, and she could not help wondering what Jack and Amelia would think of it…what they would think of all that she had accomplished.

      Her throat tightened with a rush of sudden emotion, and she stepped back to the desk and sat down, her eyes now lingering on the two photographs in their silver frames that she always kept there in front of her.

      One photograph was of Catherine and Jonathan taken when they were children; Cat had been twelve, Jon eight, and what beauties they had been. Free spirits and so finely wrought.

      The other picture was of Amelia and Jack and her. How young she looked. Tanned and blonde and so unsophisticated. She had been just twenty-one years old when the picture was taken at Silver Lake.

      Jack and Amelia would be proud of me, she thought. After all, they helped to make me what I am, and in a sense I am their creation. And they are the best part of me.

       CHAPTER TWO

      Whenever she came back to Silver Lake, Meredith experienced a feeling of excitement. No matter how long she had been absent, be it months on end, a week, or merely a few days, she returned with a sense of joyousness welling inside, the knowledge that she was coming home.

      Tonight was no exception.

      Her anticipation started the moment Jonas pulled off Route 45 North near Cornwall, and nosed the car through the big iron gates that marked the entrance to the vast Silver Lake property.

      Jonas drove slowly down the road that led to the lake, the inn, and the small compound of buildings on its shores. It was a good road, well illuminated by the old-fashioned street lamps Meredith had installed some years before.

      Peering out of the car windows, she could see that Pete had had some of the workers busy with the bulldozer earlier in the day. The road was clear, the snow banked high like giant white hedges, and in the woods that traversed the road on either side there were huge drifts blown by the wind into weird sand-dune shapes.

      The branches of the trees were heavy with snow, many of them dripping icicles, and in the moonlight the pristine white landscape appeared to shimmer as if sprinkled with a fine coating of silver dust.

      Meredith could not help thinking how beautiful the woods were in their winter garb. But then, this land was always glorious, no matter what the season of the year, and it was so special to her, no other place in the world could compare to it.

      The first time she had set eyes on Silver Lake she had been awed by its majestic beauty—the great lake shining in the spring sunlight, a smooth sheet of glass, surrounded by lush meadows and orchards, the whole set in a natural basin created by the soaring wooded hills that rose up to encircle the entire property.

      She had fallen in love with it instantly and had gone on loving it with a growing passion ever since.

      Twenty-six years ago this year, she thought, I was only eighteen. So long ago, more than half her life ago. And yet it might have been only yesterday, so clear and fresh was the memory in her mind.

      She had come to Silver Lake Inn to apply for the job of receptionist, which she had seen advertised in the local paper. The Paulsons, the American family who had brought her with them from Australia as an au pair, were moving to South Africa because of Mr. Paulson’s job. She did not want to go there. Nor did she wish to return to her native Australia. Instead, she preferred to stay in America, in Connecticut, to be precise.

      It had been the middle of May, not long after her birthday, and she had arrived on a borrowed bicycle, looking a bit windswept, to say the least.

      Casting her mind back now, she pictured herself as she had been then—tall, skinny, all arms and legs like a young colt. Yet

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