When Love Is True. Joan Kilby
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the rooms were large and spacious. Their bedroom, like the living room, faced the ocean and had its own deck. Directly across the hall was Brianna’s room, then the bathroom and linen closet, and then a much larger room. Daniel had called it a rec room during construction, but now its true purpose was revealed.
Chloe stopped short in the doorway to survey the bare floorboards. “Where’s the carpet?” Then she noticed the barre and the wall-to-wall floor-to-ceiling mirror.
He waited, hands clenched, for her reaction. Why the hell hadn’t he discussed it with her first? He’d wanted to surprise her, that’s why.
Those mirrors had cost a fortune, but damn it, he wanted to give her this. He wanted her not to regret giving up her dancing along with her lover when she’d married him.
Brianna was wriggling in his arms, so Daniel set her on the floor. She toddled into the room, saw herself in the mirror and giggled with delight. With graceful steps, Chloe took the little girl’s hands and twirled her in a pirouette. She glanced over her shoulder at Daniel, her face alight. “This is wonderful. Thank you.”
Daniel felt the tension seep from his shoulders and he leaned against the doorjamb, watching his girls spin and twirl. Winning Chloe’s smile made the extra work and expense worthwhile. “I thought you could teach here, until you’re ready to rejoin the ballet company.”
Chloe’s steps slowed, and she surveyed the room as she examined the possibilities in her mind. “There aren’t many children around here, but Sooke isn’t so far away. Teaching might be just the thing.” Then she crossed the floor, to tug on his hands. “Come on, dance with us.”
“I’m no good at that stuff.” He loved the way Chloe celebrated life through her love of movement, but next to her he was big and clumsy.
“Yes, you are. Come on,” she urged, twirling under his arm. Her clear, sweet voice lilted in a wordless melody as she encouraged him to sidestep across the room.
Daniel felt like an idiot clunking around in his heavy boots, but Chloe’s smile was contagious and after a moment he laughed and gave in, hamming it up when Brianna started to clap. A rush of happiness caught him off guard. His wife had made love to him and his baby daughter adored him. Life was good. He picked up Chloe and Brianna in his arms and spun around until they were all dizzy and laughing.
Finally Chloe, gasping for breath, pounded on his shoulders. “Put me down.”
Daniel stopped spinning and set them down, still smiling. “Guess we’d better get to work.”
Within a couple of hours, they’d carried in the few pieces of furniture they owned—a brand-new bed with matching side tables, Brianna’s crib and chest of drawers, Daniel’s tallboy and a bookcase he’d had before they’d married, a couch and matching chair upholstered in maroon corduroy and a pine coffee table they’d bought at an auction. The only good piece of furniture they owned was a round oak dining table that Chloe’s parents had given them as a wedding present.
“Our furniture looks a bit shabby now that it’s in our new house,” Daniel said when they’d arranged the pieces. “And sparse.”
“It’s fine,” Chloe insisted, tucking her hand through his arm. “We’ll have more as we go along.”
Daniel covered her small hand with his larger one. In the year and a half that had passed since they’d gotten married, this was the first time she’d talked about the future with any sense of permanency.
“What’s important is that it’s a new beginning,” Daniel said, almost to himself.
Eyes shining, Chloe turned to face him and took both his hands in hers. “Yes. A new beginning.” Then her face dimmed a little and she bit her lip. “Daniel, I should tell you, I’ve been doing something I shouldn’t. You see…”
“Don’t.” He squeezed her hands, not wanting to hear the words spoken aloud. “You don’t need to say anything.” He hadn’t found any new letters in several months and he’d assumed that she’d finally gotten over the Australian doctor. He might have known for sure if he’d actually read the correspondence, but he’d refused to invade her privacy.
Her forehead creased in a worried frown. “But…”
He searched her face. “You meant it when you agreed this is a new beginning, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” She gazed back steadily and an understanding passed silently between them. With a tentative smile she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. “I swear I’ll be a good wife to you.”
Daniel stroked her hair, savoring the closeness. “Don’t be silly. You already are. Do you want to take a walk on the beach?”
Chloe’s glance shifted to the window and the bright blue sky. She hesitated and then she said, “Not right now. I’d like to unpack some of those boxes, and Brianna’s going to need something to eat soon. You go.”
Daniel followed the path he’d cleared on previous walks through the salal bushes down to the small beach. The coastline curved outward in either direction to a rocky point where waves surged and foamed. Here in the center of the cove, the water was calm. A breeze ruffled his hair and brought the tang of salt and seaweed close. Brianna would learn to swim here, the way he’d learned to swim on the west coast of the island near Tofino where he’d grown up. The water was cold, but that just made a person strong.
He walked along the shoreline, his boots crunching in the loose shells and gravel, stooping now and then to pick up an abalone shell and admire its opalescent inner surface. A crow flew overhead, cawing, and settled with a noisy flap of black wings high in a fir tree at the edge of the beach.
As Daniel rubbed a smooth stone between his fingers, thoughts of Chloe flitted through his mind. The sweetness of her smile, her eagerness as she surged beneath him, her passionate feelings for their new house. Just when he thought he was beginning to understand her, she surprised him. It would probably always be that way with them. The fact that she was his wife at all was still astonishing.
Daniel stopped and looked up at the house and felt his heart fill with pride and hope for the future. This was their home. His and Chloe’s and Brianna’s. Someday there would be more children.
He frowned and blinked. Was that a wisp of smoke coming from the fireplace chimney? Daniel stared hard for another minute, then shook his head. The sky was perfectly clear. He must have been imagining things.
Pocketing the abalone shell to show Chloe and Brianna, he headed back to the house.
Humming the celebrated pas de deux from Swan Lake, Chloe twirled across the kitchen floor between the fridge and Brianna’s high chair, setting a small tub of yogurt on the tray with a flourish. Brianna rewarded her performance with a giggle and a clap of her sticky fingers.
“You like that?” Chloe said to her. “You should have seen me dance the solo.” She mimed the dying swan princess, folding her crumpled wings and slithering to the floor where she rested motionless, collapsed. Brianna leaned over the side of her high chair, watching intently to see if her mother would rise again.
Chloe lifted her head and Brianna smiled.
“Ah, Brianna, if only…” Chloe slowly rose to her feet. If only what? Her audience wasn’t a fourteen-month-old child? Her life hadn’t telescoped from opening nights and nationwide appearances to diapers and vacuuming? She loved Brianna and adored the house and Daniel was an angel, but there was no point in denying that her life lacked excitement.
It had been two long months since they’d moved in. Daniel reveled in the wildness and solitude of the ocean and the forest, but Chloe missed people—especially during the work week when her friends were all busy in the city. She still missed walking out of her apartment and strolling down the street to the corner café or going out to a concert in the evening.
She was foraging through the sparse pickings in the fridge for