Star by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

seemed so peaceful. It was her domain, finally. And she lay in bed, thinking of Spencer as she drifted off to sleep. And in his bed, in a hotel room in San Francisco, Spencer Hill was thinking of Crystal.

Tom and Becky’s first baby was born ten months to the day after their wedding. He was born in the cottage on the ranch, with Minerva and Olivia standing by, and Tom pacing the porch of the main house as he waited. He was a healthy baby boy and they named him William after Tom’s father, William Henry Parker. Becky was fiercely proud of him, as was Tom. It was a bright shining moment in what had otherwise been a difficult year for the Wyatts. Their crops had been poor after torrential rains, and Tad had come down with pneumonia and never quite seemed to recover. He was still weak when the baby was born, but he tried to pretend that he wasn’t. Only Crystal knew how desperately tired he was. They went on shorter rides now, and he always seemed grateful to come home and go to bed, sometimes without even eating his supper.
    But he began to improve finally by the time they christened the baby on the day that India became independent, two days before Crystal’s sixteenth birthday. Hewas christened in the same church where Tom and Becky were married the year before, and Olivia invited sixty of their friends for lunch. It was a less elaborate party than the wedding, but it was festive anyway. Ginny Webster was godmother, and Tom asked Boyd to be his godfather, which was a sensitive subject with the Wyatts. Hiroko was still as shunned as she had been the year before. Crystal was her only friend now and even she didn’t know that Hiroko was pregnant. And the local doctor had refused to take care of her. His own son had died in Japan, and he told her bluntly that he wouldn’t help bring her child into the world. Boyd had had to take her to San Francisco to find a doctor, and he couldn’t afford to take her there often. Dr. Yoshikawa was a gentle, kind man. He had been born in San Diego and lived in San Francisco all his life, but he had still been interned with the rest of his people after Pearl Harbor. For four years he had cared for them in the camp, giving them what little help he could with the limited supplies at hand. It had been a time of anguish and frustration for him, but he had earned the respect and devotion of the people he had cared for and lived with. Hiroko had heard about him from the only Japanese woman she knew in San Francisco, and she had gone to him trembling, after the embarrassment of being turned away by the doctor everyone thought so well of in the valley. Boyd had stood beside her as Dr. Yoshikawa examined her, and he assured them both that everything seemed to be normal. Only he knew how difficult it was for her, being in a strange land with people who hated her because of the color of her skin, the slant of her eyes, and the fact that she’d been born in Kyoto.
    “You should have a nice healthy baby in March, Mr. Webster,” he told Boyd, and then smiled at Hiroko. He spoke to her in Japanese, and Boyd could see her relax asthe doctor spoke to her. It was as though for these few moments she had come home, and she could trust him. He told her to rest every afternoon, and to eat well, and recommended a diet of all her favorite Japanese foods, which made her giggle.
    And Boyd was helping her prepare one of them when Crystal knocked on the door the day after they’d been to the doctor in San Francisco. She had dropped in from time to time, just to say hello and chat for a little while, ever since Becky’s wedding. No one knew that she came, and Boyd was wise enough not to divulge the secret.
    “Hi, there, anyone home?” She had left one of her father’s horses tethered outside, and she walked in cautiously, her hair piled high on her head, under a cowboy hat, and she was wearing blue jeans. She was even prettier than she had been the year before, and even more womanly now, but there was still an