Dancing in the Dark

“I was there, remember? You were so tired you were like a sleepwalker. You were sick to your stomach, too, or don’t you remember throwing up the night before you left Cooper’s Corner?” Seth clasped her shoulders. “You were exhausted!”

“I was pregnant!”

Wendy’s shrill cry seemed to echo in the room. She heard her mother gasp, heard her father’s equally sharp intake of breath, but most of all, she saw what she’d been afraid to see for nine long years, the shock and then the dawning look of pain in Seth’s face.

“I was pregnant,” she said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. “That’s why I was tired and sick, Seth. I didn’t know it but I was carrying our baby. I lost it. I lost our child. Seth, I’m so sorry. I’m so—”

Her voice broke. She buried her face in her hands. Her sobs were deep and wrenching. Seth wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, but all he could think was that she had lost their baby. His baby. Her ambition had taken away the only things he’d ever wanted: her love and the family he’d dreamed of having.

Gina was the first to recover. “Oh, my sweet girl,” she said, and reached for her daughter. But Wendy shot past her and rushed from the room.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FOR WHAT SEEMED an eternity, the little group standing by the fireplace seemed frozen in place. Then Howard and Gina ran after their daughter.

Seth didn’t. He had the feeling his legs would give way if he tried.

Rod grabbed a ladder-back chair and turned it around. “Seth? Sit down.”

Seth shook his head. “I’m fine.”

Rod put a hand on Seth’s shoulder. “Sit,” he said firmly. “Doctor’s orders,” he added with a trace of a smile.

Seth lowered himself into the chair. He stared blindly at the wall, looking up only when Rod pressed a glass into his hands.

“Brandy.” Rod pulled up a footstool. “I always keep some on hand for medicinal purposes. Go on, man. Drink it.”

Seth tried. The brandy was rich and aromatic. Any other time, he’d probably have enjoyed it, but now, one sip and he handed the glass back.

“Thanks, but I don’t...” He blinked, felt the hot bite of tears behind his eyelids and took a ragged breath. “God,” he said thickly, “oh God...”

“Yeah.” Rod sighed. “Sometimes life is really a bitch.”

“I never knew. I never even dreamed... We’d talked about having children someday, but I had no idea—”

“No. Of course not.”

“Jesus.” Seth looked at the floor, then got to his feet. He walked to the window, looked out on a perfectly normal January evening in Cooper’s Corner. Down the hill, on the village green, the Minuteman gazed solemnly over the darkened town. Life was going on as if things were normal, but nothing would ever be normal again. How could it be, after what he’d just learned?

Wendy was pregnant when she left him nine years before. She’d lost their child on a snow-covered mountain in Norway.

“Why didn’t she tell me? I flew to Europe to be with her. She wouldn’t even see me. She...she sent me a note, said she didn’t love me....”

Rod joined him at the window. “Trauma does funny things to people,” he said. “Wendy expressed it best. She lost everything in one devastating moment.”

“But why didn’t she tell me?”

“You’ll have to ask her, Seth. I can only speculate. Perhaps she was afraid of how you’d react. You’d been opposed to her going to Norway, right? Well, maybe she figured you’d blame her for losing the baby.”

“I’d never have done that.” Seth’s mouth twisted. “It was her father’s fault.”

“Seth.” Rod hesitated. “This is really none of my business, but don’t you think you’re going overboard? I admit, I don’t know all the details, but from what I heard and saw a little while ago, Wendy’s father just wanted her to succeed at something she loved.”

“Succeed?” Seth laughed. “He pushed her. I’m telling you, he set down the rules, dragged her from competition to competition—”

“Wendy didn’t enjoy skiing?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“She didn’t like entering those competitions?”

“I didn’t say that, either. She loved to ski. She lived for it. And she loved to win. And...” Seth shut his eyes, then blinked them open. “Are you saying he didn’t push her?”

“I’m saying that there are two sides to every story. Whatever problems may exist between Wendy and her father, they didn’t have anything to do with the fall she took.”

Seth looked out the window again. “You’re right,” he said after a minute. “That was strictly my fault. She was carrying my baby, and she was feeling sick and tired and—”

“It wasn’t anybody’s fault. Don’t you see? She didn’t know she was pregnant. Neither did you or Howard Monroe. The bottom line is that Wendy was an experienced skier who suffered a bad accident. That’s it. End of story.”

“You’re wrong, Doc. The end of the story is that she needed me and I let her push me away. I let us lose each other. I was angry at her father for taking her from me, and at myself for not being the only thing she needed. Hell, I was angry at Wendy for going to Lillehammer!” Seth thrust his hand through his hair and looked back at Pommier, his expression anguished. “I know it sounds crazy but that’s the way I felt.”

The doctor shook his head. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were only, what, eighteen? Nineteen?”

“I was a fool, and I’m not going to make the same mistake twice.” He moved past Rod, stopped at the door and looked back. “You may have missed your calling, after all,” he said quietly. “You’re a fine surgeon, but you’d have been one hell of an Aunt Agatha.”

Rod smiled and raised a hand in salute. Seth returned it, then went out the door and down the stairs.

Nine years wasted, him nursing a dented ego and Wendy blaming herself for what had been nobody’s fault. They should have been together, helping each other understand that nothing mattered but that they faced the darkness together.

“Seth?”

It was Clint, calling out to him, but Seth kept moving. “Later,” he said. Whatever Clint wanted could wait. The only thing that mattered was Wendy.

He went out the door with his keys already in his hand, and dashed to his truck. The tires kicked up rooster tails of snow and the transmission protested as he floored the gas pedal and sped down the drive. Moments later, he came to a skidding stop at the Monroes.

Howard and Gina came to the door before he reached it.

“Oh, Seth,” Gina said shakily, “we didn’t know! She kept it from all of us. She must have told her doctors not to say anything about her being pregnant and losing the baby.”

“Where is she?”

“Gone.” Howard said, putting his arm around his wife. His face was chalk-white. “Wendy took Gina’s car keys and drove away.”

“Did she say anything?”

“Only that she wanted to be alone someplace where she could think.”

Sawtooth Mountain. Seth knew it instinctively. “I’ll find her.” He started to turn away, then looked at Wendy’s father. “Sir.” This was hard but it needed doing. “I owe you an apology.”

“No.” Howard shook his head. “You were right, Seth. I never saw it that way, but maybe...maybe I was trying to live my dreams through my daughter.” He blinked hard. “But she loved skiing. She loved competing. At least I thought—”

“She did. She loved all of it.” Seth hesitated. “We both love Wendy, and we both wanted what we thought was best for her her. I guess we should have stopped and tried to find out what Wendy wanted for herself.” He took a deep breath. “I’m only sure of two things, Mr. Monroe. Her fall was nobody’s fault. And if I’d known she was pregnant, I’d

have come to you, told you I loved her and that we were getting married.”

Howard nodded. “Find her, Seth. Tell her that we have a lot to talk about, and that I was wrong about a lot of things—especially about you.”

The men’s eyes met in understanding. Howard stuck out his hand. Seth smiled and shook it. He gave Gina a quick hug and went to find Wendy.

* * *

FINDING HER WAS EASY.

He’d figured right. He spotted Gina’s car pulled onto a wide spot on the shoulder of the road that led up the mountain. Footprints in the snow disappeared into a grove of oaks that marked the start of an old hiking trail.

Seth pulled his truck alongside Wendy’s car, got out and started up the path.