“Rod is—”
“Rod?” Wendy blinked. “Rod?”
There was a note in her voice he didn’t quite understand. An edge. A hint of anger.
“Uh-huh. See, he bought a cabin. An old ski chalet up on—”
“Rod did,” she said coldly.
Seth frowned. Things weren’t going exactly as he’d anticipated. There was definitely an edge to her words and a look in her eyes he didn’t like.
“Yeah. And I’m doing the renovations for him.”
“Since when?”
“Since he bought it. I don’t know, maybe ten days, two weeks ago.”
Wendy jerked her hands from his. “Let me get this straight. I’ve been going crazy waiting for a chance to meet this man, and all the time you’ve been working on his cabin?”
“Well, yes.”
“I suppose you have coffee with him, too, and discuss the work as it progresses.”
The edge to her voice took on the sharpness of a paper cut. Oh, yeah. Something was definitely wrong here. Seth reached for her hands again but she pulled away and sat rigid, her spine tight against the door.
“He’s been out of town, babe. Your father must have told you that.”
“My father isn’t on a first-name basis with the doctor, Seth.”
Let that go, he told himself. Just let it go.
“What I’m trying to tell you is that I talked to him this morning.” She didn’t answer and he plunged on to fill the silence. “I called him on his cell phone.”
“You called him on his cell phone,” she repeated, so coldly that he almost shuddered. Slowly, the light began to dawn. She was upset because he hadn’t told her sooner.
“Babe,” he said gently, “you’re ticked off because I didn’t tell you about Pommier before now. But I had my reasons.”
“Which were?”
“Well, I thought you were making a mistake. You want the truth? I still think that, but I finally realized you have to make your own decisions.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “Okay. I guess I can see how this looks, but—”
“How it looks,” she said softly, far too softly for his comfort, “is that you could have helped me but you didn’t.”
“Babe, you’ve got it all wrong. I thought about this a lot. I even talked to Pommier about you.”
“How generous of you.”
“Damn it, will you try and see this from my viewpoint? I’ve already admitted that I didn’t think you should have the surgery.” Her eyes flashed with condemnation and he winced, suddenly realizing that this wasn’t coming out as the gift he meant it to be. “Try to understand, Wendy. I was afraid for you, and afraid you wanted the surgery for all the wrong reasons.”
“So you decided to eliminate that possibility by thinking for me.”
“Yes. No!” Seth slapped the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. “It’s not that simple.” She was still looking at him as if she’d never seen him before. “Okay. I blew it. I made a mistake, but I did it out of love. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“Love isn’t an excuse for trying to run someone’s life. Isn’t that what you once said when you were trying to convince me that my father was running mine?”
“It’s not the same thing,” he said, making an effort to sound patient when what he felt was that he was sinking deeper and deeper into a pit of his own making. “Howard’s willing to let you risk everything for a medal.”
“And you’re not willing to let me risk anything. Either way, I don’t seem to have much to say about what happens to me.”
“Sweetheart, I wanted to protect you, that’s all.”
“But you can’t. Don’t you understand that? The accident changed my life. Nobody can protect me, not unless they can find a way to turn back the clock.” Wendy wrenched open the door and stepped from the truck. She looked back at Seth, her eyes hot with anger. “The fall took everything from me. I’ve spent all these years trying to live with the realization that the Wendy Monroe who left Cooper’s Corner doesn’t exist anymore. Now I have this one slim chance of regaining at least part of who I once was, and you took it upon yourself to deny it to me!”
“That’s not the way it was, damn it!” Seth jumped down from the truck and strode toward her. “And it’s exactly why I think you’re making a mistake. The surgery’s not just experimental and risky, it’s wrong.”
Wendy slapped her hands on her hips. “I see. You know what’s right, not me.”
Seth grabbed her by the shoulders. “Listen to yourself! The fall took everything from you? Huh? Is that what you really think?”
“Let go of me!”
He didn’t. If anything, his hands tightened on her. She was angry? Well, so was he. And, damn it, maybe he had more to be angry about. He could feel it rushing through his blood, vibrating along his nerve endings, something live and palpable that he knew he’d kept bottled inside him from the minute he’d opened the note that told him the woman he loved didn’t want him anymore.
“You almost died,” he said roughly, “but you didn’t.” She tried to twist away but he wouldn’t let her. “They said you wouldn’t walk, but you did. The truth is that you came through that accident better than anybody could have imagined.”
“You have no right to say these things to me!”
“I have every right, damn it!” He lifted her to her toes, his face dark with anger. “When did you get so selfish? When did you forget the people who love you?”
“Damn you, Seth—”
“No. This time, you’re going to listen. Your mother still cries for you. Do you know that? Do you even care? Gina misses you, but you’d rather nurse your wounded pride, your ego, whatever you want to call it, than think about what it’s like for her to spend every day thinking about you, four thousand miles from home, and wondering if you’re okay.”
“That’s between my mother and me. It has nothing to do with you.”
“The hell it doesn’t!” Seth bent toward her until he was all she could see. “It has everything to do with me. You were the best part of my life. You were my life, my dreams, my future—and then you had that accident and suddenly nobody else mattered except you.”
Wendy shook her head. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “That’s not true.”
“It damn well is! You didn’t lose everything. It was the rest of us, the people who loved you, who came out the losers.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Oh, I know, all right.” Seth dropped his hands to his sides, the anger gone and nothing but emptiness in its place. “Well, I’m done trying to figure it out. Pommier’s meeting me at Twin Oaks tonight at seven. Figure on showing up at seven-fifteen or so. That’ll give me enough time to talk to him and get out of there before you show up, because you know what, babe?” The corners of his mouth curved down. “I don’t want to see you anymore. Hell, I don’t want to see you ever again.”
Wendy recoiled as if he’d struck her. A sob broke from her throat as he got into his truck and
started the engine.
“Seth,” she whispered, “Seth...”
He drove away, the truck picking up speed as it went down the driveway toward the road. After a while, all she could see were the bright red dots of its taillights growing ever dimmer in the encroaching dark of the midwinter afternoon.
And then, finally, even those tiny beacons blinked out, and were gone.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
GINA MONROE SIGHED as she tied her apron strings and then turned on the kitchen lights.
The days were so short this time of year. Darkness crept in before you expected it.
She glanced at the clock. It was after six. Time to get dinner on the table. She’d spent the afternoon baking, something she’d done a lot more of now that Wendy was home.
She didn’t know how long her daughter would be here. The operation, assuming the doctor agreed... The risks...
No. She wouldn’t think about it. Not now. She’d think about how glorious it was to have her here—and what the protocol was for facing your adult daughter after she hadn’t come home all night.
“Isn’t Wendy here yet?”
Gina looked over her shoulder. Howard had been napping on the sofa. His hair was standing on end and his eyes were puffy. She knew he was upset, but she had no idea whether it was because Wendy hadn’t come home all night or because she’d been with Seth. Both, probably, she thought with a little sigh. Knowing that your daughter had spent the night with a man was a delicate issue for a mother, but it had to be twice as difficult for a father.
“Not yet, no.”
“You told me she called and said she’d be here for dinner.”
“I’m sure she’ll be here soon, Howard.”
“I don’t know how you can be so calm about this. Don’t you care that our daughter didn’t come home last night? Aren’t you concerned?”