Sleigh Bells in Valentine Valley (27 page)

They looked at each other. Ethan would be his height soon, would be a man far too quickly for Tony's peace of mind.

His boy finally smiled. “Yeah, I guess you gotta take risks or you never get something you really want, right?”

Tony grinned. “Right.”

“Well, I gotta get back to the bake sale stuff.”

Tony briefly put his hand on Ethan's shoulder and squeezed. “And I'm gonna see what my parking lot looks like.”

By three o'clock, the light snow had stopped, and the sun peeked lazily out from behind the clouds. Tony's normally grungy parking lot was
not
full of customers ready to rock and eat; instead, it was full of senior citizens. He loved the widows as much as the next person, but had word of the festival only spread to their friends? Had Kate's vaunted social media brought no new customers—hell, not even his regulars? Tony threaded through them, looking for Kate.

“Lovely day for a festival, Tony!” called his dad's elderly receptionist.

“Rock on, Tony!” said an old man wearing leather and shaking his cane over his head.

Tony thought he might be the patriarch of the local funeral home. “Kate?” he called anxiously as he got near the bake sale booth.

She heard him and turned around. Her expression told him of her guilt.

“What the hell's going on?” he whispered.

She winced. “I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't have the heart to refuse, and you really didn't pay attention to the lineup, which meant you trusted me and I appreciate that—”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the loudspeakers boomed.

Tony turned around to see Will Sweet on the stage. It hadn't taken much effort on Kate's part to coerce him into being their announcer. He always loved to be the center of attention.

“Fresh from a Christmas Eve gig in Denver, it's time for . . . Frankie Rudinski and the Polka Dots! Let's polka!”

The senior citizens let out a big cheer, and Tony felt his mouth dropping open. The accordion started to play.

Kate tugged on his arm so he'd bend for her to speak into his ear. “The widows were so excited that the Polka Dots were in Denver. They've done so much for us—how could I refuse to invite one of their favorite bands? Mrs. Ludlow's husband was in the army with Frankie Rudinski. And a polka band played at Woodstock!”

“Woodstock?”

“Well, Woodstock 1999, anyway.”

He found himself chuckling. “Thank God they're on in the middle of the afternoon. Maybe we won't scare away every rocker in town.”

Kate looked relieved, and he patted her hand on his arm. She'd been trying to please everyone, mostly him.

“You've done a great job, Kate!” he yelled so she could hear over the sounds of “Roll Out the Barrel.”

She briefly leaned her head against his arm. “Thanks for saying that—I wanted this to be a success for you.”

“I know you did.”

They smiled at each other, and for a moment, he saw the sadness deep in those purple eyes, the shadows beneath, as if she hadn't slept enough.

“Kate—”

She backed away, blinking too fast. “Oh, I almost forgot. I promised my mom I'd take videos. Better get to it!”

As he watched her hurry off, he felt another tug on his elbow, only to find Mrs. Thalberg there, looking smart in a winter parka with a big fur-lined hood.

“Tony, you have to buy a selection of cookies and vote for the best one.”

“Sure, Mrs. Thalberg.”

“And then you have to go find Kate and tell her you love her.”

She'd had to yell, and surely all the widows could hear, but they were looking at him expectantly as if they'd known all along.

“It's not that simple,” he began.

Mrs. Palmer, who wore earmuffs clamped down on the center of her big blond wig, said, “Nothin's simple, boy! If we waited for things to be easy, we'd never do anythin'!”

He waved and escaped.

H
ours later, Kate was tired. The sun had long since set, and so many people kept telling her what a great time they were having. She even saw Vince, her lonely customer who'd told her that Double Cyn was his favorite group. For once he wasn't wearing a suit, and he didn't take his phone out of his pocket. He stood kind of rocking back and forth as they performed their hit “Tell Me Another One.”

Kate stopped beside him. “Hi, Vince!” she yelled into his ear. “Having fun?”

“This is the best!” he yelled back. “I haven't been to a concert in years.”

She smiled up at him, and for just a moment, she let happiness wash over her. She hadn't done much beside talk to Vince about music, but it felt good to help remind him that there were other things in the world beside sorrow. She thought of Tony, doing that every day for people.

She knew she helped people as a lawyer, too, but for some reason, this felt just a little more special, personal, a small step she'd helped Vince take.

When Toke Lobo and the Pack were performing, Ned and Ted actually found her in the crowd and made her dance with them to “Full Moon Lady.” They were sweetly disappointed when that was the last number of their favorite band and the stage techs started dismantling their equipment. She promised to dance with them later. She had a feeling the three of them might be the only non-teenagers dancing during The Dead Can Sing.

She was just watching the tarot-reading booth, where Mrs. Palmer was reading the cards for an enthralled Chef Baranski, when she heard the speakers give a loud screech. Too loud. She rushed forward, threading her way through crowds who were standing around waiting for The Dead Can Sing. There were more teenagers there than during the polka band, that was for sure.

The speakers gave an even louder screech just as she got near the stage. To her surprise, Tony got there at the same time she did. He gestured for her to go first. She went around behind the portable stage, through the security guards, until she reached the lead singer, who she remembered from the concert. He was standing offstage, urging a sound crew member to turn the speakers up louder.

“Hey!” Kate shouted. “I'm running this event, and my permit says you can't play that loud. Please turn it down to the level we'd agreed on.”

The singer was a cute young guy, with a tattoo on his neck and a ring in his lip, but he had a little sneer going on that amused her more than anything.

“Lady, this is what my fans want,” he said.

He didn't flinch when someone strummed a guitar so loud that she felt it clear down to her belly button.

“Well, the fans can't have it.”

“Then we don't go on.”

She thought of Ethan's excitement for this band, and how he'd gotten all his friends to help with the bake sale with the reward of enjoying this silly group.

“Look here, kid. If you turn it all the way up to eleven—”

“Hey, that's from
Spinal Tap
,” he said, laughing.

“No kidding, but if you turn it up, I will sue you back to the Ice Age.”

“Yeah, well, your lawyer ain't here.”

“
I'm
my own lawyer—Kate Fenelli.”

She saw Tony out of the corner of her eye. He was barely keeping a straight face, but he let her do the talking.

“Well, talk to my manager.” The kid pointed to a guy standing by the fence out back, smoking a cigarette.

“
You
talk to your manager and see what he says.”

With a loud sigh, the kid went down the stairs, and Kate and Tony followed.

Tony took her arm when she would have joined the conversation. “Maybe we should give the manager a minute to talk sense.”

The taped music had been turned off in anticipation of the band taking the stage. Crowds of people milled and talked and laughed, but Kate had no problem hearing the manager say, “Kate Fenelli? She's the chick who represented the performing arts center I told you about—the one who sued Billy's band. She's a terror. Turn down the music before we get fired.”

The kid tried to argue, then ended up stomping past Kate. She resisted the urge to smile in triumph; instead, she looked up at Tony and said, “I'm a terror. Did you hear that?”

To her surprise, he slung an arm around her shoulder. “Tell me about it.”

And suddenly, her throat closed up and she started to tremble. Will, who was heading up onto the stage for the next announcement, did a double take when he looked at them. She wasn't sure what he saw in her face, but she tried to get a hold of herself.

“What is it?” Tony asked in her ear.

“I just . . . I just didn't want to fail, not again, not for Ethan, not for me. God, I feel like an idiot,” she said, dabbing at her eyes.

“Fail? The great terror, Kate?”

But her lips trembled as she looked up at him. “I failed too much, Tony. You trusted me with this, and that's important.”

“Kate—”

“I know, I know, it's just a band, and everything's going great and I'm worrying for nothing, but—”

“Kate.”

To her surprise, he put his arms around her. Though they were backstage, they could be seen. She stiffened and tried to pull away.

“Tony, don't—”

But he wouldn't let her go. “I failed, too.”

She felt a flash of hot disbelief. “You? Tony, you never failed. You might not have known what you wanted right away, but you made your dreams happen, one step at a time.”

“Then I learned that from you. And I was able to do it with your help, even after the divorce. When we were married, I failed to even ask about our future, just assuming we'd always want the same thing. And I took it so personally when that wasn't true.”

Her eyes widened. “No, oh, Tony, no! I was so focused on what I thought was right, how desperately worried I was about our family's future. It wasn't right of me to assume that my way was better, that only some big degree could provide a future for Ethan. But I was so scared, so afraid I couldn't make it work—that I'd fail you. I didn't mean to make you think I didn't trust you—I did everything wrong—” Her voice broke, and she covered her mouth on a sob. “God, why am I saying all this now, when it doesn't matter? I'm so sorry. I need to—get away before people wonder what the hell is wrong with me.”

She turned and ran, past security, out the side entrance, away from the festival. She went in the back door of the tavern through the kitchen, where the line cooks stared at her.

She tried to close herself in Tony's office, but to her surprise, Tony grabbed the door and forced his way in.

She groaned and backed away. “I don't want to do this now. I never should have brought it up. But I can't stop thinking, can't stop remembering, now that any chance for us is over.” She sank down in his office chair and covered her face.

He pulled her hands away and held them between his, dropping to his knees. “I don't want it to be over. I love you, Kate. I've never stopped.”

Her eyes flooded again. Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she stared at him as if trying to read the truth in those warm brown eyes.

“But . . . but you said . . . last night—”

“Yeah, I broke it off. I was afraid of feeling too much, of feeling like I did nine years ago.”

“When I left you,” she whispered, her stomach roiling.

“But I left you first,” he said. “I took Ethan and came back to Valentine Valley when you were still in law school, instead of working through our problems.”

“But we agreed on that! Ethan was so upset in Denver, and so much happier in Valentine. I had to study too much, and I was afraid he'd think me a terrible mother—”

“Stop it, please. You're making me feel even worse, that I let you think of yourself that way. You were never a terrible mother. Never once. Yeah, we stupidly didn't talk about our plans, and I was so proud and self-righteous when I thought you might be leaving me behind.”

“Leaving you behind?” she whispered, aghast.

“I know, it was stupid. I always thought I was perfectly prepared for marriage because of my love for you, but I wasn't. And neither were you. We were young and stupid, but we've got to stop beating ourselves up for the mistakes we made back then. The point is—can we put them behind us?”

“I . . . I want to, but Tony, we haven't even discussed what we'd do—”

“I don't care what we do, as long as we're together.”

The flare of hope shocked her. “But Ethan is worried his life will change—”

“We haven't raised a dummy. He already suspects we've been trying to be together again. He's okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Am I sure about Ethan? Of course. I need you to be sure that I love you, Kate Fenelli, that I don't ever want to be apart from you again. Last time my heart broke leaving you, and this time, it would be ripped out of my chest if we can't be together. God, I can't believe I just said something so sappy,” he added, shaking his head.

“Oh, Tony,” she whispered, then flung her arms around him and kissed him through tears and laughter and desperation. Then she cupped his face in her hands and stared into his eyes. “I love you, too. I want to be with you. I'm resigning from the firm.”

Now it was his turn for his eyes to go wide, then search hers. “Kate, I'm not demanding you move back here. We'll find a way to make it work. I saw the way you were with Michelle—your job's important.”

“No, you don't understand. Remember how the partners wouldn't let me ask GAC Biochemical about the file I shouldn't have seen? Turns out after all the angst, the disagreements between me and the senior partners, the way they thought they were punishing me with the sabbatical—well, GAC just voluntarily let the firm know they'd accidentally included a file from a different research project. Can you believe it? All I wanted to do was ask, and everything would have been easily explained.”