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Most of the agony she had endured was her own fault. If she had just forgotten Trevor, as she had promised herself that stormy night in Neskowin, the following events never would have occurred. But as it was, blinded by fury and disgrace, Ashley had stormed out of the beach cottage and had returned to Portland.
In the following few weeks after the breakup with Trevor, Ashley had resumed working for her father and had secretly hoped that she might be pregnant. She wanted desperately to have Trevor’s baby, a lasting memory of the love affair that wasn’t quite strong enough to survive. At the time, she had been sure that a child, Trevor’s child, was all she needed to heal the pain.
It hadn’t happened. Ashley cried bitter tears of anguish when her monthly cycle resumed and all her hopes of bearing Trevor’s child were destroyed. Her dreams of the future had been shattered as easily as if they had been delicate sea shells crushed by the tireless anger of the sea.
Ashley had married Richard out of spite. Richard Jennings was the man she had been dating before she met Trevor. Richard worked for Stephens Timber and was the only son of rich, socialite parents. It hadn’t taken long for him to propose to the beautiful and headstrong daughter of Lazarus Stephens.
For her part, though at the time she had suspected that she might be deluding herself, Ashley had hoped that another man would replace Trevor. It didn’t take her long to realize that she had been wrong.
The marriage had been a mistake for both Richard and herself. Richard had expected a doting wife interested only in supporting him in his engineering career, but Ashley had shown more interest in the timber business than in homemaking.
It wasn’t all Richard’s fault that the marriage had failed, Ashley decided with a grimace. Though Ashley had hoped to purge herself of Trevor, and though she had tried to be everything Richard wanted, she had failed miserably. Even Lazarus hadn’t gotten the satisfaction of the grandchild he had expected from the short-lived union.
A divorce was inevitable. Lazarus Stephens went to his grave an unhappy, selfish man who never had suspected that his daughter was incapable of providing an heir to the Stephens Timber fortune.
Perhaps it didn’t matter, Ashley thought as she walked up the stairs to the loft and opened her suitcase. When she and Richard had divorced, she had lost all interest in owning any part of the vast timber empire. If she had learned anything from her brief but passionate affair with Trevor, it was how to be her own person and still care for other people. Trevor had helped her mature. By leaving her, he had forced her to rely on herself and become self-sufficient.
Maybe that was why her marriage had failed; she’d been too strong, while Richard was weak. It hadn’t been Richard’s obvious affairs that had finally gotten to her; it had been his lack of character and strength.
What’s the point of dredging it up all over again? she asked herself as she folded her clothes and placed them in the open suitcase on the bed. The sheets were still rumpled in disturbing evidence of her recent lovemaking with Trevor. She swallowed the urge to cry and hastily straightened the bedclothes.
Working swiftly, she managed to clean the cabin, pack her bags and bundle up all the reports from the Bend office. As she took out the garbage she noticed an empty champagne bottle and remembered how she had shared a glass of the sparkling wine with Trevor in front of the fire the night before. It seemed like weeks ago, when it had only been hours. Could so much have happened in so short a time?
When she finally had packed everything into her Jeep, she returned to make su
re the fire was no longer smoldering and to cast one last, searching glance around the interior of the rustic home. Her heart ached painfully. She wondered if Trevor was still at the Lambert cabin just a few minutes away. She pushed the nagging question aside and frowned. She couldn’t run to him—not yet. Until she had cleared her father’s name, she had nothing to offer Trevor.
“That’s life,” she muttered to herself, climbing into the Jeep. “Merry Christmas, Ashley,” she chided with a self-effacing frown. She turned the key in the ignition and the trustworthy engine sparked to life: Ashley drove away from the snow-covered cabin without once looking back.
* * *
It had grown dark by the time Ashley made it back to the Willamette Valley. The blackened skies were moist and the city streets of Portland were slick with rain. Most of the large homes in the West Hills were illuminated with colorful Christmas lights that twinkled in the gathering darkness and were reflected in the raindrops collecting on the Jeep’s windshield before the wipers slapped them aside.
Her father’s home was a huge, Tudor structure with seven bedrooms and five baths. Why he had ever purchased so large an estate was beyond Ashley, as Lazarus had never remarried and had no children other than herself. Most of the bedrooms had never been occupied. It seemed an incredible waste.
As Ashley turned up the cedar-lined drive, she noticed that the interior lights of the house were glowing warmly.
Ashley smiled to herself, knowing that Mrs. Deveraux, a fussy French lady who had been Lazarus’s housekeeper ever since Enora’s death and was still in charge of the house and grounds, must have guessed that Ashley would return tonight.
“Wouldn’t you know,” Ashley said to herself, pleased that Mrs. Deveraux had thought about her. The kindly old woman still treated her like a child. Tonight it would be appreciated. What Ashley needed right now was a warm meal and a hot bath. Once refreshed, she was sure that she could tackle the mountain of computer printouts once again.
No one answered her call when she entered. Ashley left her bags at the foot of the grand, oiled-oak staircase and walked into the kitchen, where she found a note from Mrs. Deveraux tacked to the refrigerater door. The message was simple: Mrs. Deveraux had gone out to the movies, would be back around ten and had left a crock of soup in the refrigerater. Also, as a postscript, there was a message from John Ellis, the accountant for Stephens Timber, requesting that Ashley call him the minute she was back in town.
The note made Ashley uneasy. There was no telling what Claud had done after calling Ashley this morning. She couldn’t help but wonder if her cousin had pumped John for information after getting no satisfaction from her.
After heating the homemade chowder in the microwave, Ashley dialed John’s number at home and let the soup cool.
“Hello?”
“John? This is Ashley.”
There was a sigh of relief on the other end of the connection. “Are you back in town?” John’s voice sounded anxious, almost fearful.
“Just got in.”
“At your father’s house?”
“Yes. Why—”
