Dancing in the Dark

“Well, I’ll see you whenever you get the chance to stop by.”

“How’s tonight sound?”

“It sounds great. Maybe this place will seem less like bedlam with my nieces driving you nuts and somebody in the gathering room letting the guests do the same thing to her.” Clint winked. “Only kidding. Guests at Twin Oaks never drive anybody crazy.”

“But if they do,” Seth said, “don’t let it be the owners, huh? Who’d you hire, anyway?”

Clint stepped back as Seth opened the door.

“Oh,” he said, “we hired the Monroes’ daughter. Her name’s Wendy. Do you know her?”

“Yes,” Seth said calmly, as if his gut hadn’t just tried to tie itself into a knot, “I do.”

“She’s perfect for the job. She was a champion skier—had a nasty accident that ended her career, poor kid. I guess you know that.”

“Yeah.” Obviously, Phyllis and Philo Cooper were slipping if Clint didn’t know that Wendy had once been Seth’s girlfriend.

“She’s been living in Europe. Gives her a nice sophisticated touch. Besides, if people have questions about skiing in these parts, she can answer them. She made a point of saying she didn’t expect to be in town very long, but I figured, what the heck, maybe she’ll change her mind.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Seth warned.

“Maureen said the same thing. Well, at least this gives us time to look for another person.”

“Right.” Seth zipped his jacket and put on his gloves. “See you later, Clint.”

“Fine. Oh, and Seth?”

Halfway down the porch steps, Seth looked back over his shoulder.

“Thanks. You can’t imagine what this means to me. You offering to come by in the evenings.”

“I’m sure I’m going to enjoy every minute of it,” Seth said, and half expected a bolt of lightning to strike from the cloudless sky and turn him into a puddle of melted flesh and bone.

* * *

GINA STOOD IN the doorway of Wendy’s bedroom, watching as her daughter slipped on her new black cashmere turtleneck, then ran her hands down the front of her equally new white wool pants.

“You look lovely, sweetie.”

“Thanks.” Wendy caught Gina’s eye in the mirror and smiled. “I’m glad we finally got to that mall.”

“Me, too. Wasn’t it fun?”

“It was great.”

Was “great” overdoing it? Maybe, but it made Gina smile back at her. The smile was definitely preferable to the look her mother had been giving her lately, the wary kind parents usually reserved for small children in potentially dangerous situations.

“Gina? I can’t find any cookies. Gina? Honey? Do you know where the cookies are?”

Her father’s voice rose plaintively up the stairs. Wendy smiled. Her mother sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Honestly,” she said, “men can be such babies.”

“Gina?”

“I’ll be right there, Howard.” She stepped into the room and gave Wendy a quick hug. “See you downstairs.”

“Okay.”

Wendy sat down on the bed and pulled on a pair of well-worn hiking boots. Of all the things she’d figured on dealing with during her visit here, the one thing that had never crossed her mind was how difficult it would be to have left her parents’ home a teenage girl and returned to it an adult.

“Where are you off to?” her father said in the evening if she put on her coat and headed for the door, and she’d have to explain that she and Alison were taking in a movie or going for a drive. It was silly but she resented it. It was like stepping back a decade—except now, her father didn’t smile, tell her to enjoy herself, and then remind her, as if she’d ever forgotten, that she had to be up early for practice.

Wendy went to the dresser and picked up her brush.

Still, dealing with her father was easier than dealing with her mother. Gina probably asked her if she was okay a dozen times a day.

Wendy sighed and ran the brush through her hair.

Actually, she couldn’t blame her. The scene her mother had stumbled across outside the restaurant the other night had to have been unsettling, to say the least, and Wendy knew she hadn’t improved things by refusing to discuss it.

“I’m here if you want to talk,” Gina kept saying.

What was there to talk about? She’d made a fool of herself, or maybe it was Seth who’d made a fool of her. Either way, she was determined to put him out of her mind, not just out of her life.

Wendy checked herself one last time in the mirror, then made her way down the stairs. Her father and mother were in the kitchen. Gina was pouring coffee; Howard was seated at the counter, munching on oatmeal cookies and reading the paper.

“Okay.” Wendy put on her jacket and plucked her mother’s keys from the hook on the wall where house keys and car keys hung. “I’m on my way.”

Her father looked up. “You sure you want to go ahead with this job, Wendy? I told you, Gil—the orthopedist I ski with—Gil says Pommier’s gone up to Vermont for a few days.” He frowned. “I don’t know what he expects to find on the Vermont slopes that he can’t find here.”

“Longer, steeper, more challenging runs,” Wendy said lightly as she slipped on her coat. “Daddy, honestly, this is perfect. When Pommier does get back, he won’t be able to avoid me.” She smiled. “I’ll serve him coffee or tea or whatever he wants to drink until he’ll agree to give me five minutes of his time just to get rid of me. Besides, I really want to do some kind of work. I’m not accustomed to doing nothing all day.”

“Nothing?” Gina snorted. “An entire afternoon doing leg lifts and riding on that stationary bike isn’t my idea of ‘nothing.’”

“See you guys later,” Wendy said quickly, and headed out the door.

Outside, she paused just long enough to take a deep breath of the cold air. The night was a dark colander, with stars piercing the inky bowl of the sky. That last night she’d spent with Seth, nine years ago, had been just like this, the air crisp, the stars dazzling against the endless darkness.

Wendy got behind the wheel of Gina’s car and backed out of the driveway.

Main Street was silent. It had been that night, too, with nothing but the sound of the tires on the wet road and the soft music coming over the truck radio.

They’d driven to their special place on Sawtooth Mountain, and all the way there, Seth kept asking her if she was cold. How could she have been cold, when she’d known what would happen as soon as he parked? As soon as he took her in his arms and kissed her? Touched her? As soon as he opened her jacket and she opened his shirt, her fingers trembling, her heart racing, and...

...and why was she thinking about Seth?

Too much time on her hands, that was why. The best thing she’d done was find herself a job. She’d fill at least a handful of empty hours each day by doing something useful and pleasant. What could be unpleasant about chatting with guests, or taking phone calls, or seeing to it that the coffeepot was full?

“People will want to ask you things,” Clint Cooper had advised her. “About the area. You know, what there is to do, places to see, to ski.”

He’d said it so naturally, so easily, that she realized he’d never thought she might be self-conscious about who she’d once been and who she now was.

Maybe he didn’t know.

A minute later, she’d found out that he did.

She’d said yes, she’d love the job, providing he understood she couldn’t tell him how long she’d be available. They’d started to chat about the town, the mountains, the place where she’d lived in Paris—Clint knew the city pretty well, it turned out. Then he’d said matter-of-factly that he’d heard she’d skied every slope between here and the Canadian border before her accident

, and had she managed to get in any skiing since she was back?

She’d been stunned. It had taken a couple of seconds for her to manage an answer.

“But I can’t ski,” she’d said. “My leg...”

“Oh.” Clint had looked chagrined. “Sorry. I just thought...I mean, I’ve known several people with disabilities who were still able to...”

His sister had come along just then and the conversation had mercifully turned to other things, but Wendy still wondered how he could have asked her such a thing. Ski? Ski disabled? What was the point in standing on top of a mountain if you couldn’t fly down its face with your heart pounding as the edges of your skis bit into the turns and the trees rushed by on your way to the finish line?

Wendy turned onto Oak Road. On the village green she could make out the statue of the Cooper’s Corner Minuteman, softly illuminated by lights set around the base, standing stoically on his pedestal as he had for more than a century.

She slowed the car, signaled and made a right into the Twin Oaks driveway, followed it uphill to the lot and parked among several other cars and trucks.

The house was gaily lit. Clint had explained that they’d been open only a few months but business was good, and some of the locals had taken to dropping by the gathering room in the evenings.

Wendy turned up her collar, trudged up the steps to the porch, started to reach for the bell and then realized that all she had to do was open the door.

She took a deep breath, dusted some snow that had fallen from the trees off her shoulders, turned the knob...

And walked straight into Seth.

CHAPTER NINE