Daughters of the Lake(44)

As the train pulled to a stop at its destination, the fog settled around the station. Jess disembarked slowly, unable to see more than two feet in either direction. It had been so long . . . Where was the station? Which way was home? He was reminded of that day long ago, when he had found baby Addie in the lake. It was the same kind of blinding whiteness, the same kind of tangible cloud that felt like a living blanket had covered the entire earth.

He was standing alone, turning this way and that, watching the few other passengers get off the train and disappear into the whiteness. I should go that way, he thought, when a woman materialized in front of him.

The sight of her literally took Jess’s breath away. He felt as though the fog itself had rushed into his lungs, snatching his ability to breathe and withholding it from him. His heart was beating so loudly that Jess was sure everyone within earshot could hear it.

The woman was Addie, of course. But she was not the young girl Jess had left behind. With all his strategizing about the future, with all his thoughts about finding a bride, he had somehow neglected one detail: Addie was growing up. While he himself didn’t see much change in his own mirror during his college years, Addie had literally transformed from a child into a woman—the most beautiful woman Jess had ever seen or imagined. Her long, auburn hair fell in soft curls around her face. Her mouth curved into a slight, mysterious smile. She was wearing a deep-blue dress that showed off her tiny waist and curvy figure. Jess thought she was absolutely exquisite, completely changed. Only her piercing violet eyes were the same as he remembered.

He stared at her in stunned silence. She, too, seemed stunned, but not by his appearance. He looked a bit older, yes, but he was largely the same as the day he left. She was reacting to his awestruck countenance. He seemed overwhelmed by her, and she didn’t know what to make of it. When she imagined their reunion—and she had imagined it over and over during these four years—she thought it would be a joyous encounter filled with laughter, hugs, and kisses. This was something else again. She had not expected him to be mute at the sight of her.

He extended his hand to her face and brushed the curls back, gingerly, delicately, as though she might dissipate like the fog at his slightest touch. He just kept staring as though he was seeing a ghost, his eyes searching for the young girl he had left behind. This was no little sister. What had he been thinking?

“Welcome home,” she said, finally.

His face broke into an enormous smile. He took her hands into his, murmuring, “My goodness, Addie Cassatt. You’ve grown up.”

In that moment on the train station platform, Jess Stewart’s future changed. Or, more exactly, it fell back into its rightful place. He had been dangerously close to veering off course, but now he was back on it. Without giving it another thought, he immediately and absolutely abandoned his well-considered plan to marry a suitable wife from a good family in the city. Sally Reade—or the idea of Sally Reade, a fine society wife—faded from his mind in an instant, the scales fell from his eyes, and he finally saw clearly. How could he have ever considered marrying anyone other than Addie Cassatt? She was his best friend and a stunning woman. Thank God he hadn’t let her down in a letter! He could scarcely believe his good luck. He might have ruined it all, he might never have had her. He had trained himself to fit into the high-society circles in which he now traveled, he could train Addie to do the same. Of course! Why hadn’t he thought of this before?

Jess took Addie into his arms and said, “I have come home for you, Addie.”

He drew her close and kissed her then, the way he had kissed so many women during the past four years. It was Addie’s first kiss, and he knew this without even asking. Neither of them knew how long they stood there on the platform, enveloped in the fog, holding each other.

“I’ve missed you so much,” Jess whispered into her ear so convincingly that he himself believed that he had.

“I’ve missed you, Jess,” Addie said, meaning every word.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“How can you be sure it’s her?” Simon said, taking a bite of salad and examining the photo more closely. “I mean, this must’ve been taken, what, a century ago?”

“It’s her,” Kate said. “If I showed it to my dad and Johnny, they’d identify her as the woman we saw on the beach. But that just can’t be, right? It would make her body more than one hundred years old.”

“What if the woman in this photo and the woman on your beach were, say, mother and daughter, or grandmother and granddaughter?” Simon offered. “How do you know for sure it’s the same person?”

“That would make sense, if I hadn’t also been dreaming about the husband,” Kate said, her eyes shifting to the man’s handsome face. “I saw both of them, Simon.”

Kate’s thoughts drifted back to her dreams—there were no cell phones, no televisions, no electronics of any kind in any of the dreams. No cars. No modern music.

“I just sort of took it for granted that she was alive now—well, recently, anyway—but when I really think about it . . .”

“You think you’ve been dreaming about the past.”

Kate considered this, staring at the photo. It seemed like the only reasonable answer. But how far in the past?

“It explains the ninety-year-old nightgown, that’s for sure,” Simon said.