by Cindy Kirk
But the endless sky was no longer a vivid blue. It was gray, and based on the clouds rolling in, a storm was headed their way.
By the time they got the bikes loaded, splatters of rain slapped the van’s windshield. As Andrew had left his car near Sylvie’s shop, they stopped there. She changed her clothes and they then drove in separate vehicles to Spring Gulch.
His friend’s house was a mammoth ranch with a stone front and a three-stall garage. Andrew pushed the remote for two of the doors and they pulled inside. When the garage door lowered, the rain began in earnest.
Andrew hopped out of his car to open Sylvie’s door, but she’d already stepped out. Her eyes scanned the interior of the garage, which was empty.
“It looks as if no one lives here.”
“Unless it’s ski season, no one does,” Andrew said over his shoulder as he unlocked the door leading into the house. He stepped back and gestured her inside.
Sylvie walked down the hall, past the laundry room and a bathroom, then stopped and stared. This place was bigger than the Teton Village condo where they’d stayed when they came to Jackson to ski. Lots bigger.
Andrew paused beside her. In front of them was the great room with soaring ceilings and a row of floor-to-ceiling windows that offered an amazing view of the Tetons. The house had an open floor plan with a well-stocked country kitchen with both a breakfast bar and a small eating area. The great room was his favorite in the house, with its stacked stone fireplace and rugged wooden mantel.
As rain continued to pelt the windows, Andrew decided that despite the earlier sixty-degree temperature, tonight he was going to enjoy a glass of wine in front of a fire.
He was contemplating the pleasure of it when he realized Sylvie still hadn’t spoken. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s so, so big.”
For a second he thought she was joking. Then he saw the awed look in those violet eyes.
If she thought this place was big, what must she have thought of his parents’ home with its suites of rooms and formal gardens? He recalled how she’d never seemed to fully relax when they were together there.
At the time, he’d attributed her unease to the fact that she hadn’t known his parents well and possibly sensed their silent disapproval. But now he realized it had been more.
The house had been too big, too different from her normal world, for her to be able to relax. Because he’d been caught up with his practice and his father’s attempts to involve him even more deeply in the business, he hadn’t done enough to make her feel at home.
But they were alone in this house. He could make her comfortable here. Sylvie had to feel safe to let down her guard. Only then would he be able to truly get to know her.
She appeared ready to relax. When they’d stopped at her place, she changed into leggings with boots and a top with jagged edges around the hem that brought to mind Robin Hood and his merry men.
The color was an eye-popping purple that brought out the violet in her eyes. She blinked those big, beautiful eyes and cocked her head. Lifting the sack with the sandwiches they’d picked up at Hill of Beans and planned to eat at Lake Jenny, she smiled. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starved. Are you ready to eat?”
“Right after I get a fire going.”
“It was sixty degrees this morning.” The wind punctuated her words by slapping a wall of water against the windows with the force of a hurricane blast. Sylvie appeared to reconsider. “On second thought, a fire sounds fabulous.”
“There’s a bottle of wine on the counter.” He gestured to the bottle sitting on the granite countertop. “I’ll pour us a glass after I get this fire going.”
With the help of a gas starter, a fire soon blazed in the hearth. When Andrew turned, he found Sylvie standing there, a glass of wine in each hand.
Behind her, on the coffee table, were two plates holding sandwiches, cut-up fruit and chips.
Taking the glass of wine she extended, Andrew surprised himself—and her—by leaning forward and brushing her cheek with his lips. “Thanks.”
He wasn’t sure what made him do it, other than he and Sylvie had always been affectionate with each other.
Bright pink flared in her cheeks, but she said nothing, only took a seat on the overstuffed leather sofa facing the fire. Tucking a foot beneath her, she peered at him over her glass.
Though there was lots of space on the large sofa, Andrew sat beside her.
“What?” he asked, seeing a question in her eyes.
Sylvie cocked her head. “I have a question for you.”
He sipped his wine, waited.
“What are we going to do now?”
Chapter Nine
Sylvie wasn’t sure what made her ask what was next, especially in a tone that had a hint of flirtation. That was the opposite of the cool, keep-your-hands-to-yourself persona she hoped to portray.
Andrew twirled the wineglass back and forth between his fingers, the glow from the fireplace making the red liquid shimmer. “We could, oh, I don’t know, talk about our day?”
“The day we spent together?”
“There hasn’t been much opportunity for us to discuss what happened on the trail.” His gaze shifted to the fire and his expression turned solemn. Then he appeared to blink away the clouds and shifted slightly in his seat to face her. “You kept your cool.”
Sylvie experienced a flush of pleasure. “I didn’t do anything. You are the one who saved George’s life.”
“Keeping his wife calm allowed me to tend to her husband without any distractions. Thank you.”
“She was so worried about him.”
“Of course. He was her husband.”
“I don’t believe my parents ever cared about each other like that.”
He reached forward and grabbed the plate she’d fixed, his gaze never wavering from her face. He washed a bite of the ham sandwich down with a sip of wine. “You once told me your father left when you were very young.”
Sylvie wondered how they’d gotten on the topic of her parents. She never liked thinking about them, much less talking about them. They were her past. She preferred looking ahead.
Yet Andrew was staring at her so expectantly she offered a resigned sigh and answered, “Though I was only four, I remember him. I remember when he used to lift me up on his shoulders so I could touch the ceiling of our apartment.”
“Is that all you recall?”
“He and my mom fought all the time. Yelling and screaming and blaming each other about everything. Even when I hid between my bed and the wall and put my hands over my ears, I could still hear them fighting.”
His gaze sharpened. “Did either of them ever hit you?”
Sylvie shook her head. She’d had it good there. She’d never been physically abused. “It scared me when they yelled. I think that’s probably the reason I shy away from conflict.”
He took another bite of the sandwich, his gaze thoughtful. “Tell me what else you remember about him.”
“Well, he ate breakfast one day, went to work and never came back.” She kept her tone matter-of-fact. The man had left a long time ago. She rarely thought of him anymore.
“Did he ever call?”
“Nope.” Sylvie let the delicious wine settle in her mouth before she swallowed. She slipped off her boots, then propped her feet up on a leather hassock. The fire warmed the undersides of her stockinged feet.
“Do you know where he is now, or what he’s doing?” Andrew pressed.
Apparently in his world people didn’t simply vanish.
“Never heard and not interested.” Sylvie remembered her mother crying, the initial worry that something bad had happened. Then the explosive anger when an uncaring cop had told her mother it wasn’t illegal for a man to walk away from a b
ad marriage.
“The night before he left, I pestered him to play with me, but he brushed me off.” She stared into the burgundy liquid. “They’d been fighting a lot and I think he was just tired of both her and me. I could be a real pain.”
Andrew lifted the glass of wine to his lips, but instead of drinking, he only gazed at her over the rim. “Your mother did the same thing to you when you were a teenager.”
The smile that lifted Sylvie’s lips held no humor. “I was thirteen. She waited until after supper to leave. She’d been acting strangely—”
“How?” Andrew leaned forward, his gaze focused on her face. “How was she acting strangely?”
Sylvie thought back to that time when she’d foolishly thought life couldn’t get any worse. They’d been living in a run-down apartment in Newark. Food had been in short supply. The landlord had been a frequent visitor that summer, demanding rent money.
Still, in her world none of that was unusual. Many of her friends were in the same boat. Her mother had been more interested in her boyfriends than what her teenage daughter had been doing. They’d gotten along just fine.
But there had been something in the air that last week before her mother took off. Sylvie had been worried, though she hadn’t been able to pinpoint why.
She blinked and realized that Andrew was waiting for an answer. “My mother always had a lot of boyfriends.”
“She and your dad divorced.”
Sylvie shook her head. “She didn’t have money for a divorce. She told everyone he was dead. That’s what she considered him to be.”
When Andrew spoke, his tone held heavy condemnation that he didn’t bother to conceal. “She picked one of her boyfriends over you. She left you alone.”
The words punched like a direct blow to the heart. For years, when Sylvie thought back to the time, it was always about her mother taking off. But that phrasing skirted a very important truth.
Her mother had left her.
There was no getting around that fact. The woman had left just as her dad had done. Without one word of explanation. Neither of them had cared about her enough to stay or even to leave a note of explanation.
She’d done the same to Andrew.
When he started to speak, she held up a hand. “It’s not necessary to mention the connection between what they did to me and what I did to you. I get it. And I regret it. Sincerely.”
Andrew’s shoulders were stiff against the back of the cushions.
Sylvie continued. “My parents knew me as well as any people on this earth. I believe in their own way they loved me. But they were also aware of my strengths and my weaknesses. In the long run, what they saw in me, what they felt for me, wasn’t enough to make them stay.”
“You believe I’d have eventually left you, too.”
“Of course.” Her heart swelled in her chest. She forced herself to breathe. “Your father was right. It would only be a matter of time.”
“My fath—”
“Everyone who knew, when they met me, saw us as an unlikely match.” She plunged forward, not about to take a side trip to discuss his dad’s very logical concerns. “You realized that, too, after I’d been gone awhile. That’s the reason you’re here now. You know that once you get to know the real me, you’ll be able to accept that you dodged a bullet, that I did you a favor.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it, took a drink of wine.
“I admit that, maybe because of my past, I’m not as open as I should be. That hesitation to let someone fully into my life extended to my relationship with you.” Sylvie clasped her hands in her lap to still their trembling.
Feeling as if she were about to plunge over the side of a cliff, she took a deep breath and took the leap. “I will let you into my world, Andrew. I owe you that. The woman you’ll get to know over the next few weeks will be me, no subterfuge, without artifice.”
Her gaze searched his face. “That way, when you board that plane back to Boston, you’ll be able to leave in peace, knowing that whoever you thought you loved, it wasn’t me.”
* * *
Andrew was sieged with an almost overwhelming desire to pull Sylvie into his arms and hold her close. He longed to murmur sweet words of reassurance in her ears. But that wouldn’t be fair to her or to him. And it made absolutely no sense.
This was the woman who’d walked out on him. Who, by her own admission, had never looked back. If he hadn’t sought her out, he knew as sure as he knew his own name they’d still be apart. Those weren’t the actions of a woman in love. Those weren’t the actions of the woman he thought he’d loved.
“I appreciate that,” he heard himself say. “To be fair, though you’ve already concluded whatever you felt for me wasn’t love, I promise to also fully be myself when I’m with you.”
It seemed only fair.
“I hate opera.”
Andrew blinked.
Her chin lifted in what could only be described as a defiant tilt. “I said I’d be honest. I might as well start now.”
Taken aback by the statement, Andrew took a moment to add another log to the fire, then refilled their wineglasses before resuming his seat.
“I know most people in your social circle adore the opera and the symphony, too. Neither does anything for me.” Though she spoke casually, bright patches of color dotted her cheeks and that chin remained stubbornly lifted. “I tried. I was bored.”
Andrew had taken her to the Boston Opera House several times when they were together. Up to this moment, he’d have sworn she’d enjoyed the evenings. “There wasn’t anything you liked about the performances?”
Instead of being offended, he found himself intrigued. Getting this glimpse inside her head was fascinating.
She thought for a moment, took a bite of sandwich, then washed it down with a sip of wine.
“I thought the opera house was incredibly beautiful. I loved the soaring ceiling, the columns with the gold leaf finishes and all the marble.” Her eyes took on a distant glow, as if she was looking back, remembering those evenings with the promise of summer in the air. “The chandeliers were breathtaking, and when the place was filled with all those beautiful people, well, all that stuff made sitting through the performances bearable.”
Andrew finished off his sandwich, finding the sound of rain pattering on the roof oddly soothing. Someone, either he or Sylvie, had turned on a light, and now, because of the darkening skies outside, the lamp bathed the room in a golden glow.
The area where they sat had turned suddenly small, almost as if their world had shrunk and they were the only ones in this warm little cocoon, where secrets could be freely shared.
“You liked the surroundings but didn’t like the opera or the symphony.” Andrew kept his tone conversational.
She nodded.
“What about the ballet?” They’d attended a performance of Swan Lake. Again, he thought she’d enjoyed it but now, thinking back, he wasn’t so sure. Each time his gaze had strayed from the stage to her, she was glancing around the concert hall.
“Not really.” She lifted her shoulders, let them fall. “Perhaps if I’d had some exposure to ballet as a child, I’d have a greater appreciation for all the moves, but—”
“Not your thing,” he said.
“Not my thing.” The words came out on a sigh. She took another sip of wine and her gaze shifted to the fire.
“Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?” Again, he strove for conversational, truly wanting to understand.
She shifted her attention back to him. “You were so excited to show me your world. I wanted to explore. I told myself to give them a chance. I hoped that opera and ballet and all that stuff would grow on me once it became more familiar.”
“It didn’t.”
“It hadn’t...but that’s no
t to say it wouldn’t have, given time.” She gave a rueful smile. “I’d planned to do some outside studying so I could appreciate it. Maybe even take a ballet class or two. But between the time we spent together and my baking, there never seemed to be any extra time.”
“Why bother at all?”
Her gaze met his. “You enjoyed it. You were important to me. I wanted the love of these kinds of things to be something we could share.”
The sentiment spoke to a generosity of spirit. It also made him wonder what would have happened if there had been something in her world that she’d liked and he didn’t. Would he have been so generous? It was a sobering thought and one he wasn’t ready to explore.
His lips quirked up. “Anything else you particularly hated?”
“I didn’t ha—”
“I’m teasing.” Andrew reached over and covered her hand with his. “Thank you for being honest.”
“I should have told you at the time.”
“You’re telling me now.”
Without warning she slipped her hand from his and rose to her feet. She didn’t speak, merely strode to the panes of glass now experiencing the full force of the storm’s wrath.
She was slender as a willow and so...alone.
He fought the urge to go to her now, to wrap his arms about her in comfort. The realization stirred something inside him.
Andrew pushed to his feet, quickly moving across the shiny hardwood to where she stood. When he wrapped his arms around her, Sylvie stiffened. After a moment she relaxed against him, her body soft against his.
“I wasn’t going to do this,” he said, his voice a soft, low rumble.
“Do what?” she whispered back, making no move to turn around.
“Come to you, comfort you.” He expelled a breath. “But I’d promised to be genuine during these weeks together and I—I wanted to hold you.”
“I’m glad you did.” Her voice was so soft he barely heard her. “I believe this forced interaction is going to be harder on us than we think.”