Till the End of Time by Judith Gould

From the Publisher

For years, Leonie Corinth lived the best of all possible lives in New York City, married to a successful investment banker and running her own Soho antique shop. Now Leonie's happiness is gone and, as she faces the aftershocks of a bitter divorce, she realizes she must leave Manhattan. She intends to build a new life for herself, and to never again depend on a man. Moving to the beautiful countryside of upstate New York, Leonie buys an old, rundown Octagon-style house that she can restore while restoring her own battered soul. On the way to a meeting with her architect, Leonie accidentally hits another car. The accident is minor and easily forgotten, except for the alluring blue-green eyes of the other driver. In an inescapable twist of fate, the driver, Sam Nicholson, is the architect. Trapped in a loveless marriage, his creativity stifled by his wife's demands, and wishing for another life, Sam finds in Leonie a talented collaborator and an understanding listener. As they work closely together to make Leonie's dream house a reality, they realize they have fallen in love. Their love has emerged against all odds, but can it last till the end of time?

Publishers Weekly

The heroine of Gould's (Second Love) bittersweet ninth novel flees Manhattan's ex-wives' clubs to lick the wounds of divorce in pastoral simplicity. For Leonie Corinth, a brassy, independent type who "attracts attention whether she asks for it or not," the peace and quiet of the Hudson River Valley seems ideal. Her man-bashing interior monologue stops on a dime, however, when she meets Sam Nicholson, the architect she's hired to help redesign her house. The obstacle to their love--that Peter's married to a wheelchair-bound heiress whose accident he helped to cause--leaves an unexpected Sam wracked with guilt. He is nonetheless unable to resist Leonie. But will the wife's slow revenge make life intolerable for the lovers? The virtues of this novel--at heart a formulaic romance--are its lively pace, its nimble plot turns and its ability to tug, oh, so gently, at the heartstrings. (Dec.)

Library Journal

Recovering from an ugly divorce, New Yorker Leonie Corinth moves upstate--right into the arms of the architect who's helping restore her new home.

Product Details

• Read a Sample Chapter

Read a Sample Chapter

Chapter One

For once, Leonie Marie Corinth, who normally paid at least a semblance of attention to the posted speed limits and warning signs, was decidedly not in her usual attentive, organized—even, some would say, pragmatic—state of mind. But she had Alberta Hunter in the cassette player, and listening to her rendition of "Always," Leonie shook her head and scowled. According to the song, love was for always. Maybe, she thought. Maybe for Alberta Hunter and whoever wrote the music, but not for Leonie Corinth. Ha! What a joke the whole notion of love was. She had loved and lost and never wanted to love again.

    She was also distracted by the vibrant spring weather here in the Hudson River Valley. The sky was cerulean perfection, with huge puffy cotton balls of the whitest clouds scudding across it. Had the sky in Manhattan ever looked this beautiful? she wondered, Had the air ever smelled so fresh? So clean? Had the light—that famous light that artists loved so much—ever been this beautiful in New York's canyons? She didn't think so. Manhattan had its own charms, to be sure, but this! Well, it was a whole new world of earthly delights, full of heavenly colors, smells, and sights.

    As she blithely swung off the Taconic State Parkway at the Chatham exit, she must have been doing at least fifty, glorying in the beautiful Spring day; Alberta Hunter's flawless inflection, phrasing, and poignantly eccentric voice; and her own extraordinary luck. When the Range Rover loomed up directly in front of her, its dark-green rear end like an impenetrable wall filling her windshield,she was caught completely unawares.

    Jesus!

    With an audible gasp and maneuvers worthy of Richard Petty, she slammed on the brakes with a screech and swung the wheel sharply to the right shoulder of the road, agonizingly gritting her teeth as the rear end of her car fishtailed to the left. She gripped the steering wheel with all her might, as if by sheer willpower alone she could make her ancient Volvo station wagon grind to a stop before making contact.

    To no avail.

    There was a dull thump as Volvo met Range Rover, and she watched in horror as the Range Rover jumped forward, then jerked to a halt. After a long moment of paralysis, Leonie finally loosened her grip on the steering wheel and expelled a lengthy lungful of air.

    Oh, God, no, she thought. What now? I'm going to be late. Late!

    The Range Rover's driver's side door quickly swung open, and Leonie's eyes widened in alarm as she watched a man leap out and take quick, purposeful strides to the rear of his car, a not-at-all-pleasant scowl etched into his features.

    He stopped between the two cars, hands on hips, intently examining the damage in what was undeniably a posture of fury.

    Well, at least he doesn't look like a gun-toting Neanderthal that'll blow my brains out, Leonie thought. Nevertheless, she took a deep breath, squared her shaky shoulders, and opened her car door with a feeling of trepidation. Here goes, she thought. A lamb to the slaughter. She unbuckled her seat belt and slid out of the car to stand on the pavement, tossing her head to the side to flip her rich chestnut hair out of her eyes.

    Now the man was squatted down with his back to her, running a finger along the mud-coated bumper of his Range Rover. He didn't look up. In fact, he didn't indicate in any way that he was aware of her presence. Finally, Leonie cleared her throat and stepped forward, impatient with nervous energy.

    "I ... I'm awfully sorry," she blurted. "I hope you're all right?"

    She was met with stony silence.

    She almost danced on her feet, barely able to contain her anxiousness. "Is there much damage?"

    Nerve-racking silence.

    Jesus! What was it with this guy?

    "I'm in a terrible hurry," she said. "To a very important meeting. I ... I didn't even see you."

    The stranger shifted around on his feet and studied the front end of her car. He still ignored her, deigning neither to look up nor to speak—something as alien to the beguilingly intense and commanding Leonie Corinth as a pox.

    At five feet, ten inches in her stockinged feet, with a trim, well-toned body and a head of rich chestnut hair highlighted with streaks of darkest ruby and magenta, Leonie Corinth was not used to being ignored. Far from it.

    She was considered strikingly, if not conventionally, beautiful by one and all—even other women, who had to concede that Mother Nature had gone out of her way to endow Leonie with a physicality so rare that it could not be ignored.

    And few were the men who could look into the depthless pools of her button-black eyes, set like obsidian gemstones in skin as porcelain pure, unblemished, unlined, and fresh as a newborn's, and not be mesmerized. Her full lips seemed to have a life of their own, but they always held promise; and her straight, aquiline nose spelled well-bred refinement. Her exquisitely fine bone structure seemed the work of a Michaelangelo, rendering her face with high, prominent cheekbones, her limbs and torso with elongated elegance.

    Hers was not a voluptuous beauty, not a voluptuous body, but its elegant proportions invited and intrigued.

    Above all, Leonie exuded presence. There was an air of intensity, of undeniably being there, that customarily attracted attention whether she asked for it or not.

    That this was not the case now was baffling to her.

    Well, this is no time to play the shrinking violet, Leonie thought. I've got to get the hell out of here.

    With that, she sprang forward, leaning over the stranger to inspect the damage for herself. God! Both cars were so dented, so battered, so coated with filth from the springtime roads, that she couldn't really tell whether or not the accident had caused any damage. What's more, she didn't really give a damn, right now. Certainly not about her old heap of a Volvo. And as for his Range Rover! Well, it looked like it had been driven through the Kalahari and back more than a few times.

    "Look," she asked with a tinge of exasperation in her voice and a fretful tap of her foot, "couldn't we just exchange names and addresses or whatever we need to do for the insurance companies?" She looked at the gold Cartier Tank watch on her wrist. Damn! "I've really got to get—"

    The man suddenly looked up and locked his eyes on her, seeming to take her in, in one brief but all-encompassing, all-knowing sweep of her body. Then his features relaxed, the lines of concern—or was it anger?—disappeared, and she glimpsed a flash of white teeth as a smile crossed his face. He seemed, in his short scrutiny of her physical attributes, to have come to some sort of decision, as if he were a judge at a beauty contest—or a dog show, she thought.

    Slowly tie eased himself up to his full height—what a tall drink of water he was!—still eyeing her with what now appeared to be obvious relish, tucking his hands, palms out, in his back pockets. After what seemed like an eternity to Leonie, he shrugged. "No harm done," he said with a hint of amusement in his voice. "I don't think either one of these cars is any the worse for wear."

    Leonie felt a wave of relief flood through her. Thank God, she thought. He's not going to be a shit. "Oh, that's great," she said, her voice brimming with gratitude. "I don't need this headache right now. You know what I mean."

    "Forget it," he said. "I don't think our insurance companies even need to know about this."

    Leonie cupped a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun and returned his look for the first time. And she was stunned. Yes, she, Leonie Corinth, blasé woman of the world and nobody's fool, was stunned—by the wickedly penetrating green—blue?—of his eyes. She felt the power of that relentless gaze, and looked away, strangely discomfited.

    Normally never at a loss for words on any given occasion, Leonie was suddenly speechless and felt herself flush with embarrassment. But finally, the urgency of her errand propelled her tongue back into action. "I really appreciate it," she said. "Thanks again. I ... I'd better be going now."

    He smiled again. "We can both get a move on." But he stood there, making no moves toward his car, his eyes boring into her.

    After a moment's hesitation, Leonie forced herself to turn on her heels and head for the Volvo's open door. She waggled her fingertips at him over her shoulder, the flippancy of her act a transparent cover for her disconcertedness.

    She slid onto the driver's seat, closed the door, fastened her seat belt, then fired up the engine. When Alberta Hunter's voice boomed out of the tape deck, she quickly turned the volume down. He must think I'm a complete fool. Then she shifted the Volvo into reverse and backed up a few feet, put the car in drive, and started to pull away.

    Through her windshield, Leonie could see the stranger, arms folded across his chest, feet planted firmly on the pavement, watching her with a grin—or was it a smirk?—on his face. Then he turned and lazily sauntered back to his Range Rover.

    Easing her car by him, she paused at the Yield sign, then hooked a right, on her way west.

    God, she thought. I hope this isn't some sort of an omen.

    But considering the accident, Leonie very practically decided that if indeed it was an omen, it was a good omen. After all, the man had said forget it, hadn't he? And he could have been a real bastard, right? Right. No doubt about it. So. So, she had lucked out.

    Yes, she had lucked out, had a reprieve. And even if she felt a bit unnerved by the accident and the mystery man, she was not going to let anything, certainly not a trifle like this, interfere with this glorious spring day. No. She would put the whole unpleasant business out of her mind. The man, too. Especially the man. And his predator's eyes.

    I will not let this take the shine off of my day! she told herself.

    She reached over and turned the volume on the tape player back up, and began singing happily along, her voice a discordant warble even she herself had to admit was anything but easy listening. Speeding on, she was a bit more cautious now.

    The countryside quickly absorbed her attention as she glanced around, observing this pristine land coming to life now after winter's long, deep sleep. On both sides of the road, the stately conifers rose in darkly beautiful contrast to the muted pastels of the new growth of the deciduous trees—maples and birch, beech and oak, ash and cherry, aspen and poplar—all unfurling their springtime foliage in every conceivable shade of green, grateful for the ravishing sunlight of the Hudson River Valley.

    It was a light of such beauty and rarity, such golden-pinkish luminosity, Leonie thought, that it was no wonder it had influenced a whole school of painting with its own inimitable style.

    It was this special light that bathed the gardens of the well-tended farms dotting the landscape she gazed at. She reveled in the colorful tulips and daffodils and hyacinths, was thrilled by the virginal wedding veil lushness of spirea—and the lilacs! She couldn't wait to fill vases to overflowing with these heavy purple wonders. She would mix them with her favorite, palest pink peonies. Yes, lilacs and peonies, her favorites, bar none. And even in her trusty old Volvo, Leonie thought she could imagine the air redolent with a perfume so sweetly ethereal, yet so sensuous, so—yes, voluptuous!—it almost made her woozy.

    She rolled the window down all the way, and took a deep, intoxicating breath of the cool spring air. Ah, bliss, she thought. Pure, unadulterated bliss!

    She drove on at a steady pace, thinking about this magical valley she had found almost by chance and had fallen so in love with. She'd heard about the Berkshires to the east and the Catskills across the river to the west, but she had known almost nothing of the valley itself. It was, she had discovered, a land that seemed truly lost in time. And she had come to think of it as God's country.

    She loved its gently undulating hills, and she loved the old houses which populated them—throwbacks to a more gracious, less hectic era. There were simple vernacular farmhouses, grand Georgians and Federals, Eyebrow Colonials and Greek Revivals, Queen Annes and Victorians, Gothic Revivals and Arts-and-Crafts—you name it, the length and breadth of American architectural history was represented here. And it was, in part at least, the architecture which had brought her here.

    It was strange, Leonie thought. Strange that because of her passion for old buildings and their architecture she had ended up moving to a place she had barely known.

    She'd had an architectural salvage shop in New York City's Soho. Architectural Elements, as she had named it, had flourished in her capable hands. To keep it stocked, she had regularly scoured the countryside around New York City, usually New England and New York State, for merchandise that appealed to her, and as her business had proven, her choices had appealed to a large and wealthy clientele. Business had been phenomenal. Which is how she'd first come to the Hudson River Valley—so close in physical proximity to the city, yet light-years away in every other respect. She'd found it a rich depository of architectural artifacts, and she'd been successfully mining it for several years.

    During those years of shopping, she had never imagined that she would live here. That she would, in fact, ever leave New York City. But she hadn't known the extraordinary changes the failure of a marriage could bring about.

    She and Henry Wilson Reynolds, her husband of fifteen years, had divorced after a marriage she'd thought had been made in heaven had turned into—what? Hell? No, not that. At least not precisely that, unless hell was a kind of nothingness. Because that was what had happened: Their marriage had simply turned into nothing. They had drifted so far apart while living together that they were virtual strangers, and hard as she tried, Leonie couldn't bridge the gap. Hank Reynolds hadn't wanted her to.

    If their drifting apart had made her unhappy, Hank's increasing coldness and ruthlessness had put the lid on the coffin. She had slowly begun to feel like a victim of one of his corporate takeovers, and ultimately like nothing more than an ornament for his arm on those occasions when he felt it was important and appropriate for her to be there.

    It had not been an amicable divorce, and Leonie did not miss Hank Reynolds. Hell, no! But she sometimes worried that she would miss the city and her shop. She was that rarity: a native born-and-bred New Yorker, and she had always felt at home there. The city was in her very bones, and all that concrete and pavement had been like a security blanket—at least that's what she had thought. But after the divorce battle, she felt she needed a change, and new challenges.

    Sometimes, she was not altogether sure what she wanted and even had doubts about her instincts, those same instincts that she had once trusted implicitly. But who wouldn't, she thought, after finding out you'd married some kind of a monster?

    There were, however, a few things Leonie Corinth had absolutely no doubts about. She relished her newfound independence, and even though she knew there would be lonely nights—and hadn't there been lonely nights with him?—she also knew that she wasn't about to sacrifice her independence just for someone's company. She wanted to stand on her own two feet for the first time in years and not be beholden to anybody. Certainly not to a man.

    She felt burned—used, duped, and humiliated—by Hank Reynolds in particular, and men in general, and she didn't know if she could ever trust another man.

    But another thing she did know was that she was not going to be a victim. No, ma'am, thank you, ma'am. She was going on with her life—a new life, in a new place. She was going to carve out a home for herself and, come what may, she would not dwell on the past. The past may be a part of her, there was no denying that, but it was not her. No. She had made up her mind to live very much in the present, in the here and now, with an eye on the past and the future.

    She gave a snort of derision as she slowed down for a Stop sign on the road ahead. Ex-wives clubs were not for Leonie Corinth! No way, she thought. No fucking way! Let other women continue to identify themselves through the men they had once wed and bed, but she wasn't about to. It was a trap all too easy to fall into in New York City, or anywhere else, she imagined. She'd seen it happen to too many of her friends.

    She had quickly grown sick of being the extra woman for dinner parties—as if there weren't enough more-than-presentable divorcees swimming around in New York's social scene like so many starved piranhas. She wasn't about to join their hungry, oftentimes unhappy, vindictive, and bitchy hordes! And she truly detested being referred to as the ex-Mrs. Henry Reynolds. Had hated it so much, in fact, that she'd gone to court to take back her maiden name. Corinth. That's me, she thought. Plain old Leonie Corinth.

    She laughed aloud and gave the steering wheel a slap with her hand. What have I done? she asked herself for the thousandth time. Soon hitting the big four-oh, my biological clock ticking away like a time bomb, with no husband, no children, and some would say, no prospects. I've moved to this truly beautiful, but utterly foreign, valley, plain old Leonie Corinth, the proud owner of a derelict house that no one else wanted—at least no one in his right mind—and only one single friend to my name in the entire county. One.

    Have I lost my mind? Definitely not. Am I a little scared? Damn right I am!

    And it was a truly frightening prospect, this new adventure, especially on the heels of a divorce she was still reeling from. The fears of loneliness, of being financially strapped, of being a stranger in town, of actually living in a place she had only visited—these fears reared their ugly heads with alarming regularity. But she constantly reminded herself that she wanted this new life, a new beginning in a new place. She wanted to shed her past like so much old, familiar snakeskin and venture forth into the unknown, as frightening as that may be.

    New York City, although familiar, had begun to reek of failure, and the reminders of a former married happiness were too often like smacks in the face. Her wounds were still fresh, too livid to take the constant beating that the city so freely offered.

    Now, she took some comfort from the ravishing pinks, oranges, purples, and golds painting the late afternoon sky as she slowed down, nearing the picturesque village of Kinderhook. Somehow the play of the light and color reassured her.

    Yes, she had made the right decision. A good decision. A sensible decision. Above all, a practical decision. And practical she had to be at this stage of her life.

    She may have survived the divorce in spirit, but she had barely gotten out alive financially. With Hank's power and money and his influential friends in very high places—plus a very serious threat to ruin Leonie's best friend, Bobby Chandler—he had managed to take virtually everything they had built up together over those fifteen years of their marriage.

    The duplex on Park Avenue and its art and antiques—his. The huge shingle-style mansion in Southampton with its lavish contents—his. Their brilliantly performing portfolio of stocks and bonds—his. The Bentley Turbo and the Jaguar convertible—you got it!—his.

    It was not a common scenario, though becoming more so. She knew divorcées like herself who had wound up with settlements in the tens of millions of dollars or more. But Hank Reynolds had succeeded where lesser—or more noble—men had failed.

    Leonie had wound up with her shop in Soho, Architectural Elements, which she had put on the market. It was now sold, for a handsome sum, except for some final paperwork that she and Hank had to sign once it was drawn up. The shop's healthy bank account had also been hers to take, as well as the old Volvo station wagon she was now driving. Luckily she'd had an assortment of furniture and assorted decorative items in storage—all of it possessions that she and Hank had gradually replaced with finer and pricier objects over the years. She'd planned on sending everything to Christie's to auction, but now she was grateful that she had all this booty because some of it was sure to come in handy decorating her new house in the country.

    Leonie took a deep breath to steady herself. Now that she'd bought the house with the shop's bank account, she could probably slide by financially for another year, two, at most, if she was extremely careful. But that was about it. The proceeds from the sale of the shop would pay for the house's renovation and leave some living expenses.

    Knowing that she would soon be low on cash, she'd developed a plan. Her Recovery Plan. Part of her recovery effort was to buy this property, renovate it, decorate it, and sell it for a handsome profit to reinvest in another property. And repeat the process, until? Well, she didn't know right now. She only knew that with her innate taste, her abilities for decorating and landscaping, and her knowledge of what the property should look like, she couldn't go wrong. She would do what others feared to do—and make them pay the price.

    She had the wealthy client list from her former shop, and she felt confident that many of them would spring at the chance to purchase a property that she had renovated and decorated, so taken with her style were they.

    She was also debating the idea of opening another shop here in the valley—at home, perhaps, or in Hudson. A small town on the river, Hudson was home to over sixty antique shops, and was swarming with curiosity seekers and buyers from all over the Northeast on the weekends. That, plus her invaluable list of former clients, just might make a shop not only feasible, but quite profitable, at that.

    In any case, she was going to take it a step at a time, a day at a time, and test the waters of possibility.

    She stepped on the gas now, anxious to get to her new home sweet home, ruin that it may be, and her friend of long standing, Fiona Moss. Mossy, dear Mossy. Mossy of the caustic wit, the devastating irony, and the unerring eye for the meat of any matter—along with a heart and soul of purest platinum. It was Mossy, a local real estate agent, who had sold her the property—the Dump on the Lump, they had affectionately dubbed it—and it was Mossy, she knew, who was waiting at the house with a local architect who specialized in renovating historic buildings.

    Leonie felt confident about a lot of the work that needed to be done. Certainly the interior decoration. God knows, she thought, I've had enough experience. But when she was restoring an old house in Southampton, she'd discovered that she really needed an architect's help to get some things exactly right.

    It had irked her to realize that she needed help, but it had been a good experience, allowing her to discover her strengths and her weaknesses. She had also learned that the architect had probably saved her both time and money in the long run, because she wasn't making mistakes that required costly redoing.

    Now, nearing her latest challenge, she was determined to rely on as little outside help as possible. Finally emerging from beneath the very powerful and suffocating thumb of Hank Reynolds and his whole stuffy, Wall Street-Park Avenue-Social Register set had only served to fuel her drive for independence, to reinforce her instincts to keep her own counsel.

    Now, she wanted nothing more than to prove herself capable of going it alone.

    Home alone, she thought. Not most ex-wives' idea of a good time, to be sure. But in my case, just what the doctor ordered.

    Little did she know that fate had an entirely different future in store for her.