Tribute

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    Copyright © 2008 by Nora Roberts
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Published simultaneously in Canada
    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
    Roberts, Nora.
Tribute / Nora Roberts.
p. cm.
    eISBN : 978-1-436-23357-6
    1. Child actors—Fiction. 2. Granddaughters—Fiction. 3. Motion picture actors and actresses—
Fiction. 4. Grandmothers—Fiction. 5. City and town life—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.O243T
813’54—dc22

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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For Jason and Kat, as you start your life together. May the garden you plant root strong, blossom with the colors and shapes each of you brings, and both of you tend, so the blooms flourish.

Part One
    DEMO
    The past cannot be presented;
we cannot know what we are not.
But one veil hangs over the past,
present, and future.
    — HENRY DAVID THOREAU

ONE
    A ccording to legend, Steve McQueen once swam buck-naked among the cattails and lily pads in the pond at the Little Farm. If true, and Cilla liked to think it was, the King of Cool had stripped off and dived in post The Magnificent Seven and prior to The Great Escape.
    In some versions of the legend, Steve had done more than cool off on that muggy summer night in Virginia—and he’d done the more with Cilla’s grandmother. Though they’d both been married to other people at the time, the legend carried more cheer than disdain. And since both parties were long dead, neither could confirm or deny.
    Then again, Cilla thought as she studied the murky water of the lily-choked pond, neither had bothered—as far as she could ascertain—to confirm or deny while they’d had the chance.
    True or false, she imagined Janet Hardy, the glamorous, the tragic, the brilliant, the troubled, had enjoyed the buzz. Even icons had to get their kicks somewhere.
    Standing in the yellow glare of sun with the dulling bite of March chilling her face, Cilla could see it perfectly. The steamy summer night, the blue wash from the spotlight moon. The gardens would’ve been at their magnificent peak and stunning the air with fragrance. The water would’ve been so cool and silky on the skin, and the color of chamomile tea with pink and white blossoms strung over it like glossy pearls.
    Janet would have been at her stunning peak as well, Cilla mused. The spun-gold of her hair tumbling free, spilling over white shoulders . . . No, those would have been spun-gold, too, from her summer tan. Gilded shoulders in the tea-colored water, and her Arctic-blue eyes bright with laughter—and most likely a heroic consumption of liquor.
    Music darting and sparkling through the dark, like the