Silent Honor by Danielle Steel

Peter's eyes met Hiroko's face for just a fraction of a second. There was a moment of understanding there, and then he was gone. She had barely spoken to him all evening. She didn't dare. But she thought him very intelligent, and very interesting. She was intrigued by his ideas, but she would never have dared to enter the conversation. In spite of all her father's efforts to draw her out over the years, she still couldn't bring herself to speak up with strangers.
    The time at the lake was easier for her. The things that they did were the same things her family did when they visited the mountains in Japan. They had gone for many years to a ryokan on Lake Biwa for their summer vacations. She liked going to the seashore too, but there was something very peaceful about the moun-tains. She wrote to her parents every day, and played with her cousins. She played tennis with Ken, and he taught her how to fish, although she had always refused to do so with Yuji. She teased her brother about it, and told him she had caught an enormous fish when she wrote to him in a letter.
    She tried water-skiing with Sally too, but the water was so icy cold that her legs kept getting numb, and she never seemed to be able to get her arms straight enough to get out of the water. She tried valiantly, but she must have fallen a hundred times before she finally gave up. But she tried again the next day, and by the end of the vacation she managed a short inn, and everyone in the boat shouted victoriously as her Uncle Tak laughed, proud of her.
    “Thank God. I thought she'd drown, and I'd have to tell her father.” He found he really liked the girl, she had lots of spunk and a bright mind. It just seemed a shame that she was so shy, but by the time they left the lake, she seemed considerably more at ease with them. She spoke without being spoken to first, and she made little jokes with Ken, and she had even worn a skirt and sweater once, just to please Sally. But she still wore her kimonos most of the time, and Reiko had to admit that they looked lovely on her, and she would be sorry to see her wear Western clothes once she went to college.
    But the real change in her showed when Peter came to dinner again. He had promised to bring his new girlfriend with him, but she had a modeling job in Los Angeles and couldn't come, which was just as well. The evening was more relaxed without her. He was just like family, and the children all greeted him with hugs and squeals and insults when he arrived for Sunday dinner the day after they'd returned from Lake Tahoe. Hiroko bowed to him as usual, and she was wearing a bright orange kimono with pale pink flowers on it, which looked fabulous with her suntan. Her hair was down, and shone like black satin as it hung down her back, but this time she looked at him and smiled. She had grown much braver in two brief weeks in the mountains.
    “Good evening, Peter-san,” she said politely as she took the flowers he had brought for Reiko. “You are well?” she asked, and then finally looked down again. But for her, it had been a very bold statement.
    “I am very well, thank you, Hiroko-san,” he said, bowing back to her formally. And he smiled as their eyes met again. “How did you like Lake Tahoe?”
    “Very much. I caught many fish, and learned to ski on the water.”
    “She's a liar,” Ken said casually as he strolled by. They were like brother and sister now, after two weeks at the cabin in the mountains. “She caught two, and they were the smallest fish I've ever seen. She did get up on skis though.”
    “I caught seven fish,” she corrected him, looking very much like an older sister, not taking any guff from him, as she grinned, and Peter laughed. She had blossomed in the two weeks they'd been gone, and it touched him to see it. She was opening up like a rare flower, and her face shone at him as she told him about the water-skiing and the fishing.
    “It sounds like you all had a great time.”
    “We did,”