Carrying his briefcase, he opened the door leading from the garage into the kitchen. Mrs. Merkle was busy with dinner preparations. Her meals were culinary masterpieces, but he had little appetite this evening.
“You have company waiting in the study. Ms. Maxwell,” the housekeeper announced, and then lowered her voice. “I thought you two could do with a bit of privacy.”
Seth smoothed the hair away from his brow. “I suspect you’re right.” He wasn’t looking forward to a confrontation with Reba, and there was sure to be one. He hated to disappoint her. Hated to let her down.
Reba was pacing the room and turned to stare at him when he entered.
“Hello, Reba.”
“Seth.”
Her eyes held his, and he felt the burden of her frustration, the weight of her disappointment. He longed to help her, but she didn’t seem to realize what she was asking. His stomach clenched with dread. He’d never expected to fall in love again. Finding her was one of the biggest surprises of his life. Love had taken him by storm, and it was all about to be ruined. And he’d have no one to blame but himself.
“I came because I had to talk to you once more about helping me out.” Her eyes implored him, and he found it impossible to look away. The urge to take her in his arms and soothe away her worries nearly overwhelmed him, and at the same time he found himself fighting his anger. He’d already told her no, and he resented her pressing the issue. This had to do with Pamela and him, not Reba.
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” He sat on the ottoman and buried his hands in his hair, holding on to his head. “Music was something I shared with Pamela.”
“She’s gone,” Reba reminded him gently. “But you’re still here.”
“You don’t understand.”
“The music didn’t go away with Pamela.”
“It did for me.” He struggled to keep from shouting.
“You’re using this thing with the piano to hold on to your grief. You’ve got to let go if you’re ever going to get on with your life.”
Her timing was damned convenient, he noticed. “So I can play the piano in some church program because you want me to? Isn’t that just a tad self-serving?”
She exhaled sharply, and he realized his words had hit their mark. “The Christmas program isn’t the only reason I’m asking.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“All right, all right. I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t for the Christmas program, but—” She stopped abruptly, and he noticed that her hands trembled as she clenched them and raised them to her lips.
“You’re saying that I’m clinging to my grief.”
“Yes!”
“You might take a look in the mirror. You don’t have any right to talk. If anyone’s clinging to anything, it’s you. I saw the look in your sister’s eyes the other day, and it was a reflection of what you were feeling. Everything in you longs to make peace with Vicki, but you’re clinging to your anger with both hands, because heaven help you if you ever let go.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reba insisted.
“You don’t have a leg to stand on,” he continued. “The truth is, if you settled your differences with your sister, you’d have to take a long, hard look at some things in yourself. Like maybe the real reason you agreed to marry John in the first place. You told me your sister made a play for him because he was yours, but admit it, Reba—wasn’t it more the other way around? That maybe you wanted him because of how your sister felt about him?…That was the big attraction, wasn’t it? Walking off with something just so your sister couldn’t have it.”
The blood drained from her face, and she knotted her hands into tight fists.
“For the first time in your life you had something your sister didn’t.”
“Stop it!” she shouted, and covered her ears. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t come here to talk about Vicki, I came to ask for your help with the Christmas program.”
“You have my answer.”
She stiffened, grabbed her purse, and swung it over her shoulder. “You’re right, I do.” She started toward the door as if she couldn’t escape him fast enough, then stopped abruptly and glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and she offered him a sad smile. “I apologize, Seth. I should never have come. Good-bye.”
The finality of her words didn’t strike him until she was gone. An immediate sense of sorrow seeped into his being, saturating his head and his heart. The pain was familiar, the feeling of loneliness, of facing life without friends, without a partner. Alone again. Terribly alone.