Dancing in the Dark (13 page)

“Seth.” Wendy put her hand on his sleeve. “I’m so sorry. I just wanted to do the right thing. I mean, I saw you and—and Joanne, and I thought about how we’d probably keep tripping over each other and that I couldn’t run away each time....”

She stopped, caught her breath as she realized what she was saying, how much she was saying, but it didn’t matter. Seth hadn’t been listening. He was looking at her in a way that made her heartbeat quicken.

“Nine years,” he said. “Nine long, endless years you stayed out of my life, and all of a sudden, here you are.”

“I came back to Cooper’s Corner, not to you.”

“Every time I turn around, you’re there.”

“Every time
you
turn around?” Wendy’s chin came up. “Don’t think you can lay this on me!
I
didn’t come bursting into
your
house.
I
didn’t follow
you
to the Burger Barn. And tonight, when I tried to do the...the polite thing—”

“Aren’t you going to ask me what Jo said when I told her we weren’t going to see each other anymore?”

“I am not! Frankly, I don’t much—”

“She said, ‘Is it because of Wendy Monroe? Is it because she’s back and you never got over her?’”

“I hope you told her the truth. I’d hate to think you used me as an excuse to break up with the woman.”

Seth closed his hands around her wrists. “You are some piece of work, you know that?”

“Let go.”

“You think you’re the only one whose world turned upside down when you took that fall? I’ve got news for you, lady. My world took a pretty bad hit, too, but you never gave a damn about that.”

“Okay. That’s enough. I don’t have to stand here and listen to this garbage!”

Wendy pulled free and started toward the restaurant. Seth went after her, caught her arm and turned her toward him.

“You want to get on with your life? Well, so do I. But I can’t. And if you’re honest, you’ll admit that you can’t, either.” He moved closer to her, his shoulders blocking out the night, this man who had once been her lover but who had become a stranger. “That’s what I told Jo. I said I didn’t know what in hell I felt for you, but my life has to be on hold until I find out.”

Wendy was trembling. From the cold, she told herself, surely not from the feel of Seth’s hands, from the emotions she could see warring in his eyes.

“We need to settle things, Wendy.”

“We did settle things.” Her voice was a papery whisper and she cleared her throat and started again. “We broke up.”

“No,” he said bitterly, “
we
didn’t break up. You broke us up.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“The hell it is! When you left Cooper’s Corner, you were my girl. Then you took that fall and you didn’t want to know me.” His hands tightened on her. He stepped closer, cupped her elbows, drew her to him. “I’ve waited a long time for answers, but, by God, I’m going to get them.”

“The answers you want belong to the past.”

“That’s the trouble,” he said gruffly. “I don’t know what’s in the past and neither do you.”

“You’re wrong—”

“Am I?”

She saw the warning flash in his eyes and she put her hands up to ward him off, but his mouth came down on hers, hard and hungry, just as it used to on those hot nights in his cold truck up on Sawtooth Mountain, and even as she told herself she didn’t want this, she felt the need for him ignite deep inside her.

He felt it, too. She knew he did, because his mouth softened on hers and his kiss became tender and sweet, and suddenly she was eighteen and he was nineteen, and nothing mattered but each other.

She trembled, moaned Seth’s name. He groaned, thrust his fingers into her hair, kissed her again and again, and she opened her mouth to his, caught up in the moment, in the memory, in a dream.

Somewhere in the distance, a door opened and closed. Voices carried on the still night air. “Good night,” people called. “Drive safely.” Footsteps crunched on the snow-crusted pavement.

“Come with me,” Seth whispered against Wendy’s mouth. “Sweetheart, come with me.”

“Wendy? Wendy? Where are you?”

Lost,
Wendy thought.
Oh God, I’m lost!

“Wendy? Are you out here?”

“My mother,” she gasped, twisting her face away from Seth’s.

“I don’t care.” His voice was thick with desire. “Come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes. You can. You can do whatever you want, sweetheart. We’re not kids anymore. We don’t need anybody’s permission to be together.” He gathered her closer in his arms. “Nothing’s changed. Not a thing, in all these years.”

“You’re wrong.” Wendy slapped her hands against Seth’s chest and pulled back in his arms. “Everything’s changed. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Wendy? Wendy! Oh, there you are. I’ve been calling and call—” Gina’s eyes widened. She looked from one flushed face to the other. “Oh. I’m sorry. I had no idea... Look, why don’t you two just—I mean, I’ll drive home and you two can...”

“That’s all right, Gina.” Seth’s voice was cool. “Wendy and I were just catching up on old times. Isn’t that right, Wendy?”

Wendy lifted her chin. “Good night, Seth.”

She waited for him to say goodbye but he didn’t. He just went on looking at her while her throat constricted and her heart beat faster and faster, and then he took a step toward her, as if they were alone in the universe instead of standing on a street corner with an audience of one.

“This isn’t finished,” he said quietly.

“It was finished years ago.”

“I used to think about the kind of woman you’d grow up to be.”

“This is all very interesting, Seth, but my mother and I—”

“Your mother’s on her way to her car.”

“All the more reason for me to say good-night.”

“Not yet,” he said gruffly. “Not until we get things settled.”

“We’ll never settle anything this way. And I don’t want to quarrel whenever we see each other.” Wendy tried a tentative smile. “Can’t we just be friends?”

“Friends?” He caught her by the wrist, moved closer until they were a breath apart, until she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. “We have too much history just to be friends. When we talked in the diner, you handed me some garbage about knowing it was over between us. I prettied it up with how we’d only been kids. And you know what? Not a damn bit of it was the truth.”

“Does it really matter, after all these years?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it matters. I was a kid, head over heels in love, so crazy about you that I was happy to wait for you until there was nothing to keep us apart. No coaches. No crowds. No you flying off to Colorado and me staying behind. I used to daydream about it, you know? The time we’d finally be together.”

He was right, and that made it even worse. He’d never demanded anything of her except her love, and what had she given him in return? Oh God, if he knew the truth...

“Seth.” Her eyes swam with tears. “Please. Let’s just say goodbye.”

“Winning that damned medal was all you talked about, all you lived for, but I figured okay, I could understand it. I could deal with it because we had a future all planned. That was what I hung on to. What it would be like when you married me, when we settled down and had kids.”

The pain that shot through her at his words was almost unbearable. Wendy clamped her lips together, certain she was going to tell him her awful secret...certain when she did he’d hate her even more than he had for the last nine years.

Instead, she wrenched her arm free. She’d had years to prepare for this moment and she’d been doing fine until she’d been foolish enough to let him kiss her.

“That’s exactly why I broke off with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“That future you had all planned.” She took a deep breath, dug her hands into her pockets to stop their shaking. “I lay in that hospital bed in Oslo, staring at the ceiling. You know how they say your life flashes in front of you when you’re dying? Well, what flashed in front of me was the future I wasn’t going to have.”

She dragged another breath into her lungs. The winter night was turning as frigid as the look in Seth’s eyes. She could almost feel her heart turning to ice, too.

“And that was when it came to me. The future I wasn’t going to have had nothing to do with the one you wanted. Settling down. A house in the country. Kids.” She heard her voice quaver and she curled her hands into fists, felt the sharp bite of her fingernails into her palms. “Those dreams were yours, not mine. I wanted to ski until I was too old to pick up a pair of poles. And...and I didn’t know how to tell you that.”

She saw his face go white.
Don’t stop,
she told herself fiercely,
just keep going.
She didn’t want to do this but it needed doing. He didn’t want to believe they had no future, but she knew better. How else to convince him except like this?

“What saved me then was determination. I swore that if I lived, I’d find a way to compete again. I knew you’d try to talk me out of it, and I decided to do what I had to do, for my own survival. It was better to break things off cleanly than to let them drag on. If I hurt you in the process, Seth, I’m sorry.”

She watched the color come back to his face, watched his eyes and mouth harden.

“So what you’re telling me,” he said, “is that there never was a future for us.”

“It isn’t that simple.”

“The hell it isn’t. It’s as simple as a dumb kid spinning dreams for a girl who never shared them.”

“I didn’t know, not until the accident.”

“Sure you did. That’s why it didn’t mean a damn to you when we spent weeks apart, while you were off skiing in some tournament your old man said you needed to win.”

“My father has nothing to do with this.”

“He has everything to do with it!” Seth’s eyes narrowed, and the fury she saw burning in their depths stole her breath away. “Amazing, isn’t it? There were two men in your life. Me and your father. Each of us saw a future with you in the starring role. The difference is that I wanted you for yourself. He wanted you so he could live out his own dream through you.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“He still wants that. This damned risky surgery—”

“Don’t start that again! It’s my choice. My life.”

“Yeah. It is. And it’s a good thing you figured it out before I trapped you here, in a dull existence you never wanted.”

“No. Oh, Seth, I didn’t mean—”

She put her hand on his arm. He pulled back as if she’d burned him.

“Hey, no problem. In fact, I’m glad it’s all come out. Jo accused me of still carrying a torch for you. She said that was the real reason I was ending our relationship, and you know what? Maybe she was right.”

“Seth. Please—”

“Seeing you again set me back. Stupid, but everybody knows that old habits are hard to change.” His mouth narrowed. “I got it right the other day at the Burger Barn when I said we were just kids. We didn’t know the difference between love and sex.”

“That’s not...”

“Not what?” His words were sharp and quick.

Wendy shook her head.
Not true,
she’d almost said, but what was the point? He was hurting her because she’d hurt him. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized just how badly.

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I think we’ve said enough, don’t you?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she began to walk away as quickly as she could manage.

Seth saw her limp, and his heart began to ache at the sight. Not all wounds were visible. Sometimes the ones nobody could see were the most painful of all.

He went after her.

“I’m not done,” he said gruffly.

“Yes, you are,” she said without stopping. “We have nothing more to say to each other.”

“I think you’ll want to hear this.”

What Wendy wanted was to find a place where she could curl into a ball and weep, but there wasn’t a way in the world she’d ever let him know that. She turned around, head high, and looked at him.

“What more could you have to say that I’d want to hear?”

That you’re still in my blood.

The words were right there, on the tip of his tongue, but Seth didn’t say them. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be, not after the things she’d told him tonight. Still, the sight of her pale face, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears, made him long to draw her into his arms.

“Wendy.” He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to end like this.”

“No.” Her voice trembled. “Neither did I.”

“Listen.” He ran a hand through his hair, searching for words. “About this surgery—”

“Please, Seth. Not again!”

“Wait.” He reached out and clasped her hand. She hadn’t put her gloves on; her fingers were icy against his. “If you decide, really decide that you want it—that
you
want it, not your father—”

“He has nothing to do with it. What will it take to convince you?”

Seth gave a quick, uncertain smile. “That’s just it. I don’t know what it will take. But when you’re sure you know what you want, let me know.”

“Let
you
know?” Wendy tugged her hand away. “Why would I do that?”

“For old time’s sake, okay?” He took a step back. “Until then, babe, I’ll see you around.”

Babe?
Babe?
So much for feeling she’d wounded him. The word, his arrogance, even the way he turned and strolled off infuriated Wendy. She wanted to go after him, grab him by the scruff of his neck and shake him until what few brains he had rattled in his head.

“Do you honestly think I’d come to you for approval to get on with my life? Seth? Damn you, answer me!”

He raised a hand and waggled it without looking back.

“Seth? Seth!”

From the corner of her eye, she saw the headlights on her mother’s car blink on and off. Wendy glared after Seth’s retreating figure. Then she started toward the Volvo, her pace quickening with each step.

She wasn’t looking back, either. Not anymore.

CHAPTER EIGHT

C
LINT
C
OOPER
SQUATTED
next to Seth, protected from the bite of the wind by the walls of the woodshed behind Twin Oaks. Firewood lay scattered all around them; above, snow fell lightly through what, until the evening before, Clint had thought was a perfectly good roof.

Seth ran his hand along the edge of a rafter that had supported the roof, and frowned. He poked at a couple of the logs and turned them over. Finally, he stood, took off his gloves and slapped them against his jeans-clad legs to rid them of snow.

“Well?” Clint got to his feet and tucked his hands into the pockets of his coat. “What do you think?”

Seth heard the impatience in Clint’s voice. He’d called him a couple of hours ago, sounding upset. Maureen had gone out to the shed the night before for some wood, and a section of the roof had collapsed on top of her.

“Is Maureen okay?” Seth had asked.

Clint said she had a couple of bruises and that she’d been a little shaken by the accident.

“But she keeps insisting she’s fine,” he’d said wryly, and then he’d asked if Seth could stop by and see about repairing the shed. Seth had said he would, but ever since he’d gotten here, Clint’s questions had dealt more with how the accident could have occurred than with fixing the woodshed.

Seth decided it was time to confront that, head-on.

“Come spring, I can fix the shed easily enough,” he said, watching Clint closely. “But I get the feeling there’s more to your question than how long it’ll take me to get that roof back up.”

Clint hesitated. “You might say that, yes.” He looked up at the empty space. “The thing is, I can’t figure out why the roof would give way.”

“Snow can be really heavy, Clint. You know that as well as I do.”

“There wasn’t any more weight on that shed than usual. Less, maybe. I shoveled it off just a couple of days ago.”

“Still, stuff like this happens.”

Clint sighed. “Does it?”

“Sure. You’re dealing with wood. This shed was built a while ago, near as I can tell. There are termites and carpenter ants, hungry little buggers that can weaken a piece of wood over time. A building can go all to hell if it isn’t maintained properly, especially with lots of snow, icy rain... I’ve been working over near Williamstown. There’s a farm I pass each day. Old place, with lots of small outbuildings. Monday, this little structure that looks like it might have been a pumphouse was fine. Tuesday, I drove by, noticed that a section of it had collapsed.” Seth smiled. “Welcome to the country, pal.”

“Yeah.” Clint nodded. “I guess I feel guilty, that’s all.”

“About what?”

“About the roof coming down on Maureen instead of me. She always insists on bringing in the wood, but I’d noticed that there were only a few logs left by the fireplace in the gathering room and said I’d do it. Then the phone rang and I got sidetracked.” Clint’s mouth turned down at the corners. “If I’d only ignored that telephone...”

“You guys run a B and B.” Seth smiled. “Ignore that phone enough and there won’t be anything to run.”

“You’re right. I just feel...well, I’d rather this hadn’t happened at all, but to have it happen to my sister...”

“Did she notice anything wrong before the accident?”

“No. She just opened the door, stepped inside the way she’s done hundreds of times...” Clint looked up at the hole in the roof again “...and just like that, the roof came down and took the whole wall of logs with it.”

“But you said Maureen’s okay, right?”

“She’s got some bruises on her shoulder and a mild concussion. Nothing serious, thank goodness. Doc Dorn stopped by, checked her over, then convinced her to go for an X ray.” Clint rolled his eyes. “It took a lot of fast talking, but then, you know my sister.”

“She’s lucky. Damn lucky. Those logs are heavy.”

“I know.” Clint’s jaw tightened. “She could have been badly hurt. As it is, if she’d been trapped under the logs much longer...” His voice trailed off. “It was bitter cold last night.”

Seth nodded. “Yeah. It’s a good thing you found her when you did.”

“Tell me about it.” Clint rocked back on his heels and peered at the roof again. “So, you figure it was the weight of the snow, huh?”

Seth picked up a splintered piece of the two-by-four brace that had held up the logs. “I can’t think what else it could have been.”

“Just an accident, right?”

Seth looked at him. Clint’s expression was impassive, but something in his tone was troubling.

“Do you have reason to think it wasn’t?” he asked quietly.

Clint opened his mouth, then shut it again. “No. Of course not.”

The denial wasn’t convincing. “Because if you do,” Seth said, “you might want to contact the police.”

“There’s no reason. I’m sure this is just what you said it was. Too much snow on the roof.” Clint slapped his hand against one of the walls. “So, what do you think?” he said briskly. “Should we repair it or rebuild it? This shed’s got to be, what, almost as old as the house?”

“Darned close.”

“Uh-huh.” Clint clapped him on the back. “Tell you what. Come on up to the house. We’ll have some coffee and you can explain the pros and cons of repairing the roof as opposed to building a new shed.”

“Does that coffee come with homemade scones?”

Clint laughed. “It does.”

“In that case, it’s a deal.”

The men walked slowly up the hill toward Twin Oaks. Seth craned his neck and looked back at the ice-bound river, then at the snow-covered hills surrounding them.

“One heck of a view,” he said.

“Yup. The Cooper that built here sure knew a nice piece of land when he saw it.”

“So did you and Maureen,” Seth said, smiling. “Took you, what, ten minutes to fall in love with the place and decide to move here?”

“Move
back
here, you mean.”

“Right. I keep forgetting you lived in Cooper’s Corner as a kid.”

“Yeah.” Clint opened the back door and motioned Seth to move ahead of him. “I was here till I was nine, and all those years, I don’t ever recall a woodshed roof collapsing because of the snow. But then, I was only a kid. I guess I didn’t pay much attention to those things.” He toed off his boots, shrugged off his coat and hung it on a peg beside the door. “Take off your jacket,” he said as he washed up at the utility sink, “and sit down.”

Seth glanced down at his feet. “My boots are going to leave tracks on the floor.”

Clint grinned. “That’s one of the benefits of a stone floor. Nothing ruins it. Go on. Take a load off while I pour us some coffee.”

“Sounds good.” Seth took his turn at the sink. “If you have some paper and a pencil, I’ll work up a rough estimate of building a new shed.”

Clint took a notepad and pencil from the counter and put them on the table. “What about fixing up the old one?”

“Well, I’ll give you a rough idea of that, too, but it probably makes sense to start from scratch.”

While Seth made his calculations, Clint poured coffee and piled scones on a plate.

“Okay. Here’s what I figure it’ll cost you, both ways.” Seth turned the pad toward Clint, who frowned as he read the numbers.

“So cheap?”

“Of course.” Seth reached for a scone from the plate Clint had placed on the kitchen table. “You’ll do it yourself. Zero labor costs.”

“Hey. I didn’t mean—”

“Come on, man. You know you’re just looking to put me out of work.” The men grinned at each other.

“Hey, Castleman,” Clint said in a Western drawl that would have made John Wayne proud, “are you tellin’ me this town ain’t big enough for the two of us?”

Both men laughed. They’d fallen into the friendly routine ever since Clint and his sister inherited Twin Oaks and decided to convert the old house to a bed-and-breakfast. Clint was an architect by training and had always gone in for hands-on participation in the projects he designed. He was a more than competent carpenter, but he cheerfully admitted he couldn’t hold a candle to Seth when it came to things like cabinetry or furniture making.

“Okay. Thanks for the estimate.”

“No problem. I can even give you a couple of recommendations to some lumberyards where you can buy well-seasoned wood.” Seth bit into the scone and rolled his eyes. “Did you ever think about opening a restaurant, adding a little class to the valley? I know, I know. Cooking’s just a hobby, but you’re damned good.”

“That’s just what we need, all right.” Clint smiled, amused. “A gourmet restaurant to compete with the ones in Lenox. I was surprised enough when that new place opened in Stockbridge. What’s it called? The Purple Panda?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Clint looked at him. “What?”

“Nothing. I just...I was just remembering that I ate there the other night.”

“And? How was it?”

A sudden image of Wendy’s face, pale and distraught as she looked up at him in the darkness of the parking lot, flashed through Seth’s mind.

“It was—it was okay, I guess.”

“Not exactly what you hoped for, huh?” Clint shrugged. “Well, that’s life. Lots of things aren’t quite what you hope they’ll be.”

Seth nodded. “No,” he said softly, “they aren’t.” He looked up. Clint was eyeing him with concern. “Hey,” he said briskly, pointing his finger at a glass-fronted cabinet. “I just noticed—is that new?”

Clint smiled. “Maureen picked it up a couple of weeks ago. Nice, huh?”

“Very. You’ve done great things with this room.”

“Well, she gets all the credit. She was right. I mean, we both agreed to keep the stone floor, but pulling down the wallboard was Maureen’s suggestion.”

“Who knew we’d find that great fireplace, and all this old brick?”

“Our guests seem to like it, the feeling that you can step back in time without giving up twenty-first century comforts.”

“Bookings are good?”

“They’re great. First the leaf peepers, now the skiers. We’re off to a good start.” Clint pointed to Seth’s cup. “How’s the coffee?”

“Your one failing in the kitchen, right?” Seth teased. “It’s good enough so I figure it must be Maureen’s.”

“She insisted on making it,” Clint confessed. “I wanted her to stay in bed, but no way would she do that.”

“She’s feeling better today?”

“Yeah. Almost a hundred percent, she says. But she’ll need to get off her feet every now and then for a few days—when I can convince her to do it.” He hesitated. “Is there a way for me to build the new shed so the roof’s really tight?”

Seth studied his friend closely. “Clint, what’s on your mind?”

“Nothing. I guess I was a city boy for a lot of years. You live in a big city, you learn to be suspicious of damn near everything. Besides, what do I know about snow on a roof?”

“A lot, I’d bet.” Seth kept his eyes on the other man’s face. “An architect would know about rafters and roofs and bearing loads.”

“Theory isn’t the same as reality.”

“That’s true. These scones, for instance.” Seth reached for another buttery biscuit. “They don’t taste anything like the ones I buy at the supermarket.”

“Yeah, well, don’t buy ’em there. Stop by here and take home a doggy bag whenever you like.” The men ate and drank in silence for a couple of minutes. Clint got up, went to the stove, got the coffeepot and topped off their mugs. “You know, when Maureen and I first talked about opening this B and B, if anybody had asked me how to keep a houseful of guests happy, I’d have said, ‘Give ’em comfortable rooms and good food.’”

“Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming?”

“But,” Clint said, “I’d have been wrong. Nice rooms, homemade breakfasts are part of it, but there’s more. People are on vacation. They want to feel as if they’ve gotten away from their real lives.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning they need TLC. Tender loving care.”

“Ah. A piece of chocolate on the pillow at night.”

“More than that. A pot of coffee on the sideboard in the gathering room. An urn of tea, maybe another one filled with hot water and some packets of hot cocoa, especially in the evening when they feel like sitting around and winding down. A glass of wine, some crackers...”

“Yeah. I heard. The license came through, huh?”

“Yup. And it’s worked out just fine. All we’re serving is wine, brandy and cognac, but that’s what folks want when the fire’s going in the gathering room.”

“Well,” Seth said, crumpling his napkin and putting it on his plate, “it sounds as if you’ve got the TLC thing under control.”

Clint grinned. “We’ve just got one problem. We’re making our guests feel comfortable, but we’re shorthanded. I want Maureen to take it easy for a while—and if you quote me to her, I’ll deny everything.”

Seth laughed. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Actually, I’ve hired someone to come in evenings. You know, take phone calls, pour some
vino,
make sure the coffee’s hot, chat with guests who feel like chatting—”

“And leave alone the ones who don’t.”

“Uh-huh. Like Rod Pommier. The guy sure keeps to himself.”

“Well, I can understand it,” Seth said “The media drove him crazy in New York. Anyway, he’s not around now, is he? He told me he was going to spend a few days in Vermont.”

“Right. I forgot, you’re doing that chalet he bought. How’s it going?”

“Terrific. Pommier’s the best kind of client.”

Clint laughed. “An absent one.”

“No, seriously. The guy knows what he wants and what he doesn’t want. He trusts my judgment and he can afford to make that chalet into something special.” Seth took a swallow of his coffee. “So, did you run an ad in the paper for help?”

“Didn’t have to. You know how it is in this town. Say something to someone, the wind picks it up and it spreads. Matter of fact, she starts tonight.”

“Well, that should help smooth things for you.”

“Oh, it will. Now, if I could just find a way to keep Randi and Robin occupied for more than five minutes at a clip....”

“Maureen’s twins?” Seth’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, I’ll bet. Those little girls have more energy than a tornado.”

“That they do, and here’s another reality bite. It’s tough to say ‘no’ or ‘in a minute, sweetheart’ to three-year-olds.”