“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.
Ten long minutes later, he saw her standing in a little clearing that overlooked the valley, her back to him. She had to have heard him coming; the sound of the snow crunching under his workboots was loud in the mountain silence. But she didn’t turn around. She stood with her hands tucked into the pockets of her anorak, her head tilted down, and he thought how lonely she looked, how lonely she’d been all these years.
It broke his heart.
He wanted to go to her and take her in his arms, hold her and comfort her and tell her how much he loved her, but there was such fragility in her posture that he was afraid. Instead, he called her name, softly. Then he waited, while time seemed to stand still. At last she turned and faced him. Her eyes were wet and dark, her face pale against the red hood of her coat.
“Seth. Seth, I’m so sorry....”
“No,” he said quickly, “no, sweetheart, I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have been with you. You never should have carried this burden alone.”
“I didn’t know about the baby.” Tears streamed down her face. “If I had, I’d never... No medal in the world was that important, Seth. You have to believe that.”
“Sweetheart.” He moved toward her, his eyes locked to hers. “You don’t have to explain. I’d never think—”
“I hadn’t had my period in a month, but that wasn’t unusual. Sometimes, when women athletes train really hard...” She inhaled deeply, then let out a breath that turned to frost on the frigid air. “The nausea didn’t mean anything, either. I’d had that happen before, when I was stressed out. Sometimes...sometimes I couldn’t keep anything down a couple of days before a race, so I didn’t once imagine...”
A sob burst from her throat. Seth covered the few feet that separated them and took her in his arms.
“Wendy.” She felt stiff and cold; her face was tear-stained and bleak. “Sweetheart, please. Listen to me.” He put one hand under her chin, applied gentle pressure until she yielded and lifted her face to his. “If only you’d told me, once you knew. If only I’d had brains enough to see through that brush-off.”
Wendy closed her eyes. “Oh, God,” she whispered, “that horrible note...” She looked up at him. “I couldn’t face you. I thought you’d hate me.”
“Hate you?” Seth gave a broken laugh. “I could never hate you, babe. You’re my life. My heart. My only love. But when you wouldn’t see me, it was like—it was kind of what I’d always expected. That one day you’d say to yourself ‘What did I ever want with a guy like Seth Castleman?’”
Wendy framed his face with her hands. “I wanted a life with Seth Castleman,” she whispered. “That was all I wanted, from the minute we met.”
Seth bent and kissed her mouth, salty with tears. When the kiss ended, he sighed and drew her head to his chest.
“After the first operation, I asked when I’d be able to ski again. They told me I wouldn’t,” Wendy said into his jacket. “I lay there thinking what that would mean.”
“No chance for an Olympic medal. It’s all right. I understand what that meant to you.” He held her shoulders, stepped back just far enough so he could see her face. “I always wanted you to win, honey, but maybe...maybe I was a little jealous, worried that once you had that medal, you’d want to leave Cooper’s Corner and the life we’d planned.”
Wendy shook her head. “You didn’t let me finish,” she said. “I thought, okay, I won’t be able to ski. But I’m alive...and then they said I’d never walk again. I couldn’t believe it. Me, never walk again? ‘But you’re alive,’ my mother kept telling me, and I tried and tried to think that was enough—” Her voice broke. “And then, the next day, they told me the rest, that I’d been pregnant and I’d lost the baby. That was when I knew how meaningless everything else was, that all that had ever mattered was you.” She began to weep. “Oh God, Seth! I wanted to die.”
Seth held her closer. He remembered his flight to Norway, the suffocating fear that he’d have lost Wendy by the time he reached Oslo.
“Don’t,” he said. “Sweetheart, don’t.”
“Everyone said it was a miracle that I’d lived, but when I looked in the mirror, all I saw was a woman who’d lost everything.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “You. Our baby. And me, the me that I knew. And of all those things, the only one I could recover was the last. I could get me back.” She gave a sad laugh. “So I made up my mind that I’d walk again, but once I could, I still woke up each morning feeling as empty as the day before.”
“Wendy, please. You don’t have to explain.”
“I have to, Seth. I should have done it long ago.”
He sighed, then stroked her hair as he brought her head to his chest again.
“One day,” she said, her voice low, “I looked in that mirror and thought maybe the real me never existed anywhere but on a ski slope. Maybe that was all that I’d ever been, not a woman, not a girl who loved you, but a skier. Maybe if I could ski again, race again, I’d have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And then, just as if fate had touched me, I stumbled across an article about Dr. Pommier.”
Seth cupped Wendy’s face. “I love you,” he said clearly. “And I’m with you, all the way. You want this surgery? I’ll be there for you.” His voice softened. “I’ll be there, no matter how it works out.” He smiled into her eyes. “Just say you still love me.”
“You’re my heart, Seth. My soul. I’ll always love you.”
“Wendy. Will you marry me?”
She laughed, even though tears sparkled like diamonds on her lashes. “I thought you’d never ask.”
They kissed and held each other while time slipped by. Then, hand in hand, they walked back to where they’d parked.
“I want to tell your folks,” Seth said.
Wendy nodded. “Yes.”
“But we should stop at Twin Oaks first.” He lifted her gloved hand to his lips and smiled. It was a stiff smile, because he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t afraid of what could happen to this woman he loved with all his heart when Pommier operated on her, but it was her life and her choice to make. “The doc’s probably still trying to figure out what happened.”
“Well, we’ll just have to tell him.” Wendy put her hands on Seth’s chest. “I’ve decided against the surgery.”
“Sweetheart, you don’t have to do that for my sake. Whatever you have to do—”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “And I don’t have to race to be happy. All I need is you and the life we’ll make together.”
“The children we’ll have,” Seth said, smiling back.
“The stories I’ll tell them.” She laughed. “Heck, the stories I’ll write.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “You really think I can do that?”
“I know you can.”
Wendy grabbed Seth’s collar and dragged his mouth down to hers. “Then there’s only one thing left to ask you.”
“Ask me anything. You want the moon? The stars?” He grinned. “A house on the top of Sawtooth Mountain? You can have ’em all.”
“I have the moon and the stars.” She kissed him. “And, thanks t
o a very fine carpenter, I have that house on Sawtooth Mountain, too. I need only one more thing from you, Seth Castleman.” Her lips curved against his. “Will you take me skiing tomorrow?”
Seth tried to answer but he couldn’t. There was a lump in his throat. Instead, he gathered Wendy close and kissed her.
The sky had cleared and the moon and stars shone down brightly on the town by the time they reached Twin Oaks. Arms around each other, they went into the B and B. A fire blazed cheerfully in the massive fireplace. Rod Pommier was sitting in front of the hearth. When he saw Seth and Wendy, he rose to his feet.
“Doctor,” Wendy said, “I’m sorry I ran off.”
“No need to apologize, Miss Monroe.”
“Please, call me Wendy.” She took a deep breath. “I want to thank you for your time, Doctor.”
“Rod.”
“Rod. Thank you—but I’ve decided not to have that operation.”
The doctor looked from Wendy’s smiling face to Seth’s. “Why do I get the feeling congratulations are in order?”
Seth’s smile became a grin. “Must be those Aunt Agatha genes kicking in.”
Wendy furrowed her brow. “Who’s Aunt Agatha?”
Both men laughed. “A mutual friend we’ll have to be sure to invite to the wedding,” Seth said, and hugged her close.
“Who’s a mutual friend?” Clint asked as he joined the group.
“You are.” Seth held out his hand. “If it weren’t for you and the twin terrors, Wendy and I might not be announcing our engagement.”
A slow grin spread across Clint’s face. “Hey. That’s great.” He shook Seth’s hand, kissed Wendy’s cheek. “That’s terrific, you guys. Congratulations.” He looked up, spotted Maureen coming into the gathering room from the door that led to the back of the house. “Sis? Want to hear some good news?”
Maureen hesitated. She had some news herself, but she wasn’t sure it was good. She’d gone out to the woodshed a few minutes ago. Clint had asked her not to do that anymore, but a guest wanted firewood in a hurry and Maureen couldn’t see hunting up her brother for something so simple.
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