Chapter Eleven
“Okay.” Bailey sighed, dabbing the corners of her eyes with a crumpled-up paper towel. She leaned back against the fortress of pillows she and Pippa had piled on the floor in front of the couch. “You’re right. Elliott is the perfect name.”
They looked at each other, sniffled, each lifting a hand until the tips of their index fingers touched, and said, “‘E.T. phone home,’” then rolled their eyes and collapsed back on the pillows in a fit of giggles.
“We’re so hopeless,” Bailey said. “I’m sorry Jake got sick and couldn’t come, but now I’m glad. He’d never let me live this down.”
Pippa rolled her head to the side and looked at Bailey. “What, you think he’d have been unmoved? I think you’d have had equal ammunition. That’s all I’m saying.”
Bailey turned her head and looked at Pippa. “Yeah. You’re probably right.” Then she grinned.
Pippa rolled herself up to a sitting position, then leaned forward until she could reach the coffee table they’d pushed into the middle of the small space. She clicked a button on her laptop and made the screen go dark, then picked up the empty popcorn bowl. “I’m glad you liked it. I was six when my oldest brother let me watch it for the first time. He was babysitting us at the time. It terrified me. I had nightmares for weeks. My mum was so upset with him.”
“Yeah, six might be a little rough.”
Pippa sent her a worried glance. They’d talked about the movie beforehand, and Pippa had okayed it with Addie first, but still, perhaps she’d made the wrong call. It was hard to remember Bailey was only ten. “You were okay with it, though? I’d forgotten about the language. Sorry for that bit.”
“I loved it,” Bailey said. “And it’s not like I haven’t heard those words before.” She smiled and put a palm over her chest. “I promise I won’t use them in public, or out you as being a terrible influence on a minor.” She finally nudged Pippa’s shoulder. “Stop worrying. I’d have told you to turn it off. I wouldn’t have tortured myself.”
Pippa smiled, relieved, then laughed. “If only I’d taken that reasonable approach with Garrett.”
“You were six,” Bailey reminded her.
“I imagine you would have, at any age.”
Bailey thought about that for a moment, then nodded. “Probably. Or left the room, more likely. But I’m a special case.”
“A special girl, more like,” Pippa said, then leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, making Bailey roll her eyes. So, she kissed the girl’s cheek again, loudly this time. “A special girl who needs to learn that PDA between friends is a good thing, not icky.” Then she wrapped Bailey up in a hug, making her squeal, and they both fell over, with Pippa still hugging and Bailey grappling about until she could grab a pillow. Bailey swung first, which did make Pippa let go, but only so she could grab her own pillow. “I’ll have you know I have six brothers and sisters,” Pippa told her as they crawled around, swinging, ducking, and laughing so hard they were gasping. “I’m a pillow fight veteran.”
“I was raised in foster care,” Bailey shot back, taking a wickedly aimed swing at Pippa’s clutched pillow and knocking it behind the couch. “Pretty sure I can hold my own.”
Pippa raised her hands in mock surrender, and Bailey lowered her pillow, only to have Pippa grab it from her and swing, making Bailey’s eyes pop wide in surprise. Pippa merely shrugged, then grinned as she swung the pillow over her head like a lasso.
“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Bailey said, grinning like a fiend and lunging for another pillow while simultaneously ducking Pippa’s swing. “Game on.”
It was Bailey’s retaliatory fling that caught a very surprised Seth square in the face as he entered the cabin. He grabbed the pillow and kept it clutched in his fist. “I knocked,” he told them, “but it sounded like you were being attacked by banshees, so I thought I should come in and offer my assistance.”
Breathless, Pippa wrapped her arms around her pillow and held it against her chest, and Bailey collapsed back on the piles of blankets that had been the basis of their pillow fort. “Banshees are the heralds of death,” Pippa told him, still gasping for air. “And the only thing dying here are these poor, poor pillows.” She swung hers at Bailey, who took the hit with arms open wide. Then both she and Pippa fell back into the pile in another round of giggles.
“Draw?” Bailey said at length.
Pippa just nodded, then squealed when Bailey lunged over and planted a sloppy, wet kiss on her cheek.
Pippa finally looked back to Seth, who was a towering Viking inside her wee, wee cabin. It did all kinds of things to her insides, finally seeing him here, things she’d imagined in great detail, late at night, burrowed in her big bed, all alone, staring out into the night sky. The kinds of things she had no business thinking about with a child lying next to her. A very impressionable one at that.
“Are you my Uber?” Bailey asked him, before Pippa could say anything.
He nodded. “At your service.”
“I thought Addie Pearl was coming to pick her up on her way home from the mill,” Pippa said, when she finally had her breathing, if not her hormones, back under control.
“Addie’s weaving class ran long,” Seth explained. “She had a couple of students who had their class dates mixed up. Showed up on the wrong night, but they’d driven a long way, so she included them. That put her behind. Sawyer would have come, but he and Sunny are out having a date night in Turtle Springs. I was by the mill to talk to Will, and Addie pegged me since I was coming up this way to go home.” He looked at Bailey. “I’ve got to go by my place first; then I’ll take you on home. Addie should be there by then, but if not, I’ll hang out until she arrives.”
“I could have taken her,” Pippa said. “Addie should have just called and let me know. It seems silly to have put you out.”
“I’m not put out. Addie asked, and I said I’d be happy to do it.” He shrugged. “No big deal.”
“What?” Pippa asked, as she turned to gather up the pillows and caught the satisfied smile on Bailey’s face.
“Nothing,” Bailey said, suddenly the picture of innocence as she started to pick up the blankets. She put the heap on the couch, then collected their sodas and the empty popcorn bowl from the coffee table and carried them to the kitchen. “I’ll just be in the kitchen cleaning up. You adults talk amongst yourselves,” she added with a little bow, that same pleased smile back on her young face as she looked at the two of them.
Pippa looked back at Seth. “Do you know what’s gotten into her?” she asked, truly curious. Then she spied the dawning look on Seth’s face. “What is it? What am I missing?”
“She thinks Addie played us,” he said.
“Played—” And then it became clear. “Oh,” she said. “I see. Do you think?”
Seth nodded. “Fair bet.”
“Not Addie Pearl, too,” Pippa said with a sigh.
“Yes, Addie Pearl, too,” Bailey chimed in from the kitchen.
Pippa and Seth both shot her a quelling look, but even though Bailey lifted her hands in surrender, the smile didn’t waver. She turned and continued washing the cups and the bowl, started whistling a little tune too, as Seth and Pippa turned back to each other.
“Could I speak to you a moment?” Seth asked. “Outside? Away from adorable Eagle Ears over there?”
“It’s fine by me,” Bailey said over the running water in the sink.
Pippa smiled at that, even as she wondered what he was about. “Certainly.”
Seth stepped outside onto the tiny front porch. Pippa followed, glancing over her shoulder at Bailey with a wry smile and wiggling eyebrows.
Bailey just shot her a sudsy thumbs-up and continued with the housekeeping.
“What’s up?” Pippa asked, as she moved out into the warm April evening, closing the door behind her. The unseasonably warm spring had continued unabated, but the temperature still cooled off fast at night, especially up here in the hills. Pippa wrapped her arms around her waist, thinking she should have grabbed one of the blankets.
The porch was as wide as the cabin, meaning not wide at all, and not very deep. Seth took up the lion’s share of it, so Pippa sat down on the first step and turned to lean on the porch’s support beam. Seth walked down the three steps to the stone walkway, then sat down on the bottom step and leaned against the railing on the opposite side. “So, it’s not going away,” he said without preamble.
“What? The town’s plan to see us get together?” Pippa waved a hand. “I’m getting used to it. Don’t let it get to you. They’ll figure it out in time.”
It had been a little over a week since they’d spoken in front of the hospital. Spoken at all, actually. Another week of not going to the vineyard, which she’d known she would continue to miss, but she missed it more each day, not less. And not just because she missed Elliott or Dexter, both of whom were still housed there. Bailey had been firm about keeping the goats at the vineyard, more or less holding Elliott hostage, saying if Pippa wanted to see him, she should just tell Seth and make it happen.
Pippa smiled, remembering the conversation. If only it were that simple.
Pippa had spotted Seth here and there when she went down to the mill to meet with more of the artists, soak in the creative energy that fairly hummed inside that magical building, but they’d never even made eye contact, much less spoken. Then she’d all but bumped into him out at the magnificent old greenhouse that Sunny was still restoring, amidst the amazing work she was doing with endangered orchids. But they hadn’t spoken there, either. Pippa had spied Seth and Sawyer building shelves and tables in the rear of the place. She also hadn’t missed the speculation on Sunny’s face when she’d caught Pippa staring at Seth while he wasn’t looking.
It was true that Pippa was getting used to the knowing looks, the whispers, because they were all couched in affection. His friends wanted Seth to be happy. And they thought she was worthy of him. It was flattering, really. What she wasn’t getting used to was her own yearning. And not just for more of what they’d started that day on Mabry’s couch. Pippa felt like she’d made a dozen or more new friends in the few weeks she’d been in Blue Hollow Falls. Kind, decent people whom she knew would be there for her if she were to ask for anything, need for anything. She knew there was an element of her celebrity at play, but mostly they’d welcomed her because she’d arrived as a guest of Seth Brogan, and that made her a guest of the town.
And every day, as she developed those relationships, learned and experienced new things in and around the Falls, she found herself wanting to turn to him to share this thought or make that aside, to ask him for insight about this person, or share a laugh with him about that funny thing that happened. She could ask general questions of anybody, but that wasn’t the same as sharing those moments with somebody. And no matter how hard she tried to make it otherwise, he was her somebody.
“I’m not getting used to it,” Seth said, quietly breaking into her thoughts.
She looked at him and her heart clutched at his honesty, then glanced down at her hands. She’d taken to rubbing the tips of her fingers together in recent months, as if she still couldn’t get used to the fact that they weren’t callused any longer. She’d been away from the fiddle so long, they’d gotten soft again. She wanted to be honest with him, too. Tell him that it was true she didn’t mind the well-wishers, but she did mind not being with him. Only he looked so miserable, and that would only make things worse for both of them.
“Maybe I should go then,” she murmured instead, not knowing what else was left to say. She looked up. She hadn’t made the offer lightly. In fact, she’d been giving it a lot of thought.
To his credit, he didn’t respond right away, but took her offer as it was intended. “Are you finding what you came here looking for?”
His insight always surprised her. Even more surprising was that it never felt intrusive, or made her feel vulnerable. Quite the opposite. She nodded. “It’s funny. I didn’t come to Blue Hollow Falls for anything, of course. It was merely a spot to be in while I contemplated . . . everything.”
“But?”
She smiled briefly then. “But it’s turned out to be quite specifically the right spot.”
He listened to her, then tipped his chin down, studying his own fingers, which were laced on top of his bent knee. “Are you finding all the answers you need?”
She lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know yet.” She looked at him. “But I think I could, yes.”
“Then you should stay.”
“Seth,” she began, but he spoke over her, calmly, but with purpose.
“Moira said you’d originally wanted to stay longer. Now that you’re in the cabin, there’s not really a limit on the swap. So you should stay however long you want. However long you need.”
“Not if it’s compromising your life here,” she replied, without hesitation.
He looked at her then. “I’m not asking you to leave.”
She studied his face. “I know you aren’t,” she said softly. She thought about what he’d said, wondered if she should just go anyway. Only that would make him feel bad, too. Finally, she said, “If it’s okay, I’ll stick to the eight weeks Moira and I agreed on.”
“Actually, I had a different idea.”
Her eyes widened. She hadn’t expected that response. “Oh?”
He shifted his seat so he could look at her more directly. “So, it was watching that house-swap movie, The Holiday, that gave Moira the idea to do this whole thing to start with. Did Katie tell you that?”
“Yes,” Pippa said, even more confused now
“There’s another movie, with Julia Roberts and Dennis Quaid.”
Pippa frowned. “I know it. The one where he cheats on her, she kicks him out, then suddenly questions everything about her life and goes to live with Kyra Sedgwick. Something to Talk About, that’s the name of it, right?” Her mouth dropped open. “Are you suggesting that one of us should be seen in the company of another potential beau so folks know we’re not interested in each other?”
Now it was Seth’s turn to open his mouth to speak, then close it again. “That wasn’t my plan at all, actually.”
“It might work, though,” she said, now that she’d gotten past the shock of the suggestion. “If it’s really bothering you that much, I guess we could try that.” She instantly hated everything about the plan. The very last thing she wanted was to see him with another woman. But she was trying to be supportive, be a good friend to him. “Um, did you have someone in mind?” she said, not sounding so much like a friend, as like a woman trying not to be consumed with jealousy. Which was exactly what she was. She cleared her throat, tried again. “You are planning on telling the other woman it’s a ruse, right?” Then another thought struck her and any attempt at being casual about this escaped her entirely. Her expression fell. “Or is there really someone? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“No,” he said without hesitation, and seemed suddenly very interested in her reaction. “I also don’t think it would be wise to bring anyone else into this.”
Pippa tried not to look as massively relieved as she felt. Failed just as miserably at that, too, she was certain. She pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. Like that’s going to protect you. “So, what is your idea then?”
“I only mentioned the movie because the title came from an old Bonnie Raitt song.”
Pippa nodded and without thinking sang the refrain about a woman wanting to give people something to talk about. “Yes, I know it,” she said absently, her mind still fixated on this plan of his, on how kind he was being, and how badly she was blowing this “just be friends” moment. “Bonnie’s a brilliant musician. We actually performed together at a benefit once.”
When Seth didn’t go on, she finally glanced over at him, only to find him staring at her, almost as if he was transfixed. “What?” she asked. “You are aware I know some famous people, right? It’s not like we go shopping together, or go on holiday, but I have bumped into one or two.”
“Pippa,” he said, sounding quietly stunned.
“You sang.”
They both turned to find Bailey standing in the open doorway, staring at Pippa in much the same way Seth was.
“What?” Pippa said. “No, I was just—” Then she broke off, and immediately cupped her hand around her throat. She looked from Bailey to Seth. “Oh my God. I did, didn’t I?”
“You have a beautiful voice,” Seth said.
“Haven’t you heard it before?” This from Bailey, who looked rather disgusted with him.
He shook his head, but his gaze was on Pippa. “How did it feel?”
Pippa let out a little gurgle of stunned laughter, but kept her hand protectively wrapped around her neck. “Just fine, apparently. I wasn’t even thinking. I was just in the moment, like I used to be, and . . .” She leaned back and squeezed her eyes close, then shook her head, still dumbfounded. Then she laughed, and kept laughing.
“What?” Seth and Bailey asked at the same time.
She finally opened her eyes and looked at both of them, her mouth curved in a deep, wry grin. “It’s just, as you might imagine, over the past eleven—well, I guess it’s closer to twelve months now—I’ve given this moment a great deal of thought. What would be the first note I’d sing? What song would it be? Where would it happen? Would I be alone? In a studio? In the privacy of my own shower, perhaps? I’ve played it out so many times, so many ways.” She shook her head and tipped it back against the post. “Never once did I think it would happen and I wouldn’t even notice.”
Seth smiled with her, but there was still concern for her in his gaze, and that made her heart squeeze a little, too. Concern for her, not simply her voice. He wasn’t worried about her career, he was worried about how she felt.
“Did it hurt?” Bailey asked.
Pippa shook her head. “No. I’m healed. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be laughing, much less singing. And I couldn’t do that, either, for a very long time.” She reflexively continued to massage her throat anyway. How could she have spent almost a year all but paralyzed in fear, then gone and done it, and not even noticed? It made her feel even more ridiculous than before.
“So, why have you waited so long to try?” Bailey walked over and sat down cross-legged on the porch, right next to Pippa, her blue eyes as baleful as Pippa had ever seen them. “You’re afraid it’s going to happen again.”
Pippa nodded and felt the sudden sting of tears at the corners of her eyes, which was silly. It was over now, and about as anticlimactic as it could possibly have been. “Maybe not from singing one song, or two, or even a whole record of songs. But singing one song will lead to another, and someday another album, because that’s how my job works.”
“And a new album means touring, or at least performing, and not in the controlled environment of a studio,” Seth said. “But up on stage.”
Pippa looked at him, and their gazes met, held. She should have felt exposed in that moment, naked for the world to see, her deepest fear finally revealed. Instead, she felt ... protected. Seth understood, truly understood. He’d understood the moment she’d gotten her music back, too. He knew how monumental this was for her. And he was neither babying her nor bullying her. He was simply listening to her, being there for her. And that felt like the safest place in the world to her. “Aye,” she said.
“Like before,” Bailey said quietly, drawing Pippa’s attention back to her.
Pippa nodded. “It’s silly, mostly,” she said, not wanting Bailey to be afraid for her. “I mean, it could happen, but it takes a lot to do that kind of harm. I’d take better care, not strain my voice so badly. It’s not like I’m going to walk out, launch into a song, then—” She broke off as that moment flashed through her mind again, making her heart lurch in a painful squeeze, and her stomach to do a queasy little flip.
Bailey leaned over and clasped Pippa’s shoulders in a fierce hug. “I’d be afraid, too,” she whispered in Pippa’s ear before sitting upright again. “It would be weird if you weren’t.”
Pippa gave a watery little laugh at that. From the mouth of babes. “True, I suppose, when you put it like that.” She reached for Bailey’s hand, squeezed it. “Thanks,” Pippa told her.
“So, maybe you start slow,” Bailey said. “Maybe you record songs as you write them so there’s time in between. And you don’t have to do tours, right? I mean, you could just make records.”
“Yes, I could,” Pippa said. “But what feeds me as an artist, what pushes me to write music, to find the words to sing, the notes to play, is the performing. Not so much to stand up on a stage, but because that’s the only way to join together with others and let the music unite us. It’s hard to explain, but I don’t play or write music for myself. I do it to share with others, and I want to be part of that sharing.”
Bailey sat there and thought about what she’d said and Pippa took that moment to risk glancing at Seth. He had the same fierce, contemplative expression as Bailey and she smiled, thinking how lucky she was to have found two souls so intent on helping her save her own. And that should be enough, shouldn’t it?
“I’ll find my way,” she told Bailey, not wanting them to feel they had a responsibility to help someone who was still trying to figure out how to help herself. “That little bit just now was a bigger step than you know.” She smiled. “Who knows what’s next?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Maybe a whole advert jingle while washing dishes.”
Seth smiled at that, as did Bailey, but Pippa knew they didn’t buy her casual nonchalance, because she wasn’t buying it. She had some major thinking to do, but for that, she needed to be alone.
Something of that need must have shown on her face, because Seth pushed himself to his feet. “Why don’t you go grab your things,” he told Bailey. “I’m sure Addie Pearl is home by now. I’ll just take you there directly.”
Bailey nodded, scrambled up and turned to go into the cabin. She stopped in the doorway and looked back at them. “I’m really glad I got to hear it,” she told Pippa. “Your voice is even prettier now than on the songs Jake played for me. I promise I won’t tell anyone, about you singing again, okay?”
Pippa hadn’t even thought about that. It was a measure of just how deeply Blue Hollow Falls had lulled her into feeling safe and secure. It made her heart catch, thinking she had this little warrior looking out for her. “Thank you,” she said with heartfelt sincerity. Then she smiled. “It wasn’t much to listen to, but I’m glad you were here, too.” And she meant that, too.
Bailey flushed with pleasure, then ducked into the cabin.
Pippa stood and turned to find Seth standing on the step two down from hers, which brought their gazes level for the first time. Well, the first time when both of them were standing, anyway. She tried not to think about that, but it was hard not to because she was already all caught up in those soul-deep eyes of his, and thinking about what his hands had felt like on her, and that beautifully sensual mouth.
“What did you mean?” she asked, grasping for any conversational thread, trying to ignore the wobble he put into her knees, heck, her heart, when he looked at her like he was right now. “About Bonnie’s song, I mean,” she added. “We got off track.” She tried to run through the song lyrics in her head, but he’d lifted his hand to gently pull hers away from her throat. She hadn’t even realized she was still massaging it.
In response, he slid her hand to his shoulder, then took her other one in his, sliding his free hand around her waist. He swayed their bodies in a slow rocking motion, then lowered his mouth to her ear, his soft beard brushing the side of her neck, and stunned her speechless by quietly singing a stanza from the song. The one about how the singer thought that if folks were going to talk about her and a particular gentleman she knew, then maybe they should silence those rumors by . . . giving them something to talk about.
Her mouth dropped open in a silent “oh” as she turned her head just enough to meet his gaze, which put his lips so close to hers he had only to lean the tiniest fraction closer to mate them together.
It was as if everything else stilled around them, and there was only that moment, and only them inside of it. She searched his gaze, as he did hers, wondering if he meant they should pretend to—or if he meant he’d changed his mind and really wanted—but instead of waiting for answers, she decided to give him a few of her own. So she closed the space between them and kissed him gently on the lips.
In response, he slipped his arm around her waist and slowly pulled her fully against him, then kissed her back, until she melted into him and let all the rest drift away.
Behind them, standing on the porch, her pillows and hoodie clutched against her chest, Bailey smiled. “Finally,” she said under her breath. “Adults are so dense sometimes.”