Chapter Fifteen
“What on earth were you thinking?” she murmured under her breath, as she parked Bluebell in the driveway in front of Wilson McCall’s sprawling ranch-style home.
Wilson came out on the front porch as she turned off the engine. He didn’t lift a hand in a welcome wave, but neither did he look anything like the furious man who’d stormed into that music classroom.
She took a shaky breath, then another one, then forced herself to let go of the steering wheel and slide out of the truck. It was a beautiful spring day, though the breeze was a bit nippy. It was past the halfway mark in April now and the days had been mostly warm and sunny, with the occasional fierce thunderstorm tossed in to keep things interesting. She loved those days the most. The trees were budding out and starting to bloom lower down in the valley, but up here things took a little longer to get started.
As she walked up the stone pathway, itself a work of art, she noted the rows of pretty purple and white crocuses sprouting cheerfully all along the front of the holly shrubs planted in front of the house. She smiled at the perky little blooms and tried to will their jaunty cheer into her body.
She finally looked toward Will as she drew close enough to see his expression. He’d been short with her on the phone when she’d called and asked to see him, but he’d agreed. So it was no surprise that he didn’t seem overjoyed to see her, but at least he didn’t appear to be angry. Well, there’s a start.
“Beautiful place you have,” she told him, smiling as she closed the last of the distance between them. The home was a sprawling single level, just outside of Blue Hollow Falls proper, so not as high up as Seth’s place, or Addie’s, or her cabin, but still well above the valley. She could hear a rushing sound and realized it was water. “Is that Big Stone Creek?”
He nodded. “Just down the hill out back.” His expression remained impassive.
She extended her hand. “Let’s start over, okay? Pippa MacMillan. Please call me Pippa.”
Will took her hand and gave it a simple but decent shake. His palm was work-roughened and there were more than a few scars marking the back of his hand and his forearm, but she supposed that came with the territory for a stonemason. “Wilson McCall,” he said a bit gruffly. “Will is fine.”
“I’m guessing you did the stonework. It’s gorgeous.” The house was stained wood, stone, and glass, with a shaker roof and stacked stone chimney. The variety of materials blended together organically, and set deep in the trees as it was, the combination looked strong, earthy, and welcoming. It was an older-looking structure, but the remodel was breathtaking. Pippa paused before walking up the steps to the door to admire the inlaid stone landing in front of the bottom step. It was a sunburst, made entirely out of cut stone. She glanced to Will. “Your design?”
He nodded. “A present to my mother some years back.”
“It’s beautiful. I bet she loved it. Mabry Jenkins told me this place belonged to your grandfather?”
Will looked a bit caught off guard, and just nodded. “How’s Mabry doing?” Will asked, as he gestured for her to go on up the steps.
“Pretty well, everything considered,” Pippa told him. “He’s going to be moved to a rehab facility next week to start physical therapy.” She smiled as Will opened the front door for her and ushered her inside. “He’s a little grumpy about that, but the attitude will serve him well, I think, as long as he’s not too impatient.”
Will motioned her through the small foyer and living room toward the back of the house. “I thought we could sit on the back porch. I made some coffee.”
She smiled, surprised and encouraged by the effort. “That sounds perfect. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
He didn’t say anything to that, but led the way through the kitchen, where he picked up the pot of coffee sitting on the warmer, and nodded to the mugs, the small pitcher of cream, and the sugar bowl sitting on a little tray next to them. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
She scooped them up and then followed him out the sliding back doors into a deep, screened-in porch that extended out a good several yards off the back of the house. She quickly realized that the place had two stories as there was a basement below. The property fell away from the back of the house in a steep pitch down to the creek. So the porch was really more of a screened-in deck that ran about two-thirds the length of the house and provided a spectacular view of forest and hills behind the house. The sound of rushing water from the creek mixed with the bird calls and other forest creatures. She set the mugs down on the wicker coffee table that fronted a thickly padded wicker couch and walked to the fully screened-in wall in front of her. Small planters filled with various herbs lined the wood beam that separated the top half of the screen from the bottom.
“This is spectacular. So peaceful and serene.” She turned to him and smiled. “Jake described it pretty well, but I don’t know that any amount of words could do it justice.”
Will nodded, and motioned for her to take a seat.
Procrastination time was over.
She sat on the wicker couch facing the scenery and he sat in one of the two Adirondack chairs that faced the wicker couch on the other side of the coffee table. She offered him a mug but he waved it off. “I’d like to say something before you get into whatever it is you’ve come to discuss.”
Pippa set her mug down untouched and folded her hands in her lap. “Sure,” she said, trying to quell the sudden uproar of butterflies in her stomach and being entirely unsuccessful.
If she’d been expecting a more direct apology regarding his behavior at the mill—and she hadn’t necessarily been—then she was destined to be disappointed.
“Jake and I have talked about what happened at the mill,” he began.
“Mr. McCall, you don’t have to—”
“Will,” he said. “And I’d like to.” She nodded and he went on. “Jake has apologized for not talking to me about his plans, and I’ve apologized to him about coming in the way I did. He’s still grounded, and my decision stands on that.”
Pippa nodded again. “Understood,” she said. “I’m not here to talk you into letting Jake off the hook. I’m as disappointed in him in that regard as you are.”
That seemed to surprise Will a bit. Good, she thought.
“Given what you said at the mill, I know you’re familiar with my music and it’s come to mean something to you,” she went on, apparently surprising him again with her directness. With that, she gained a little more confidence. “I know that might be more about who my voice reminds you of than me personally, but I’m touched nonetheless.” She paused, and though she saw him tense, he didn’t immediately escort her out, so she went on. “From one fiddle player to another, that’s high praise.”
His expression began to shut down at that, as she’d anticipated it would, so she hurried on.
“If it’s okay with you,” she pushed on, “I’d like to tell you a bit about what’s been going on with me this past year.”
His expression was unreadable now, but he motioned for her to go on, and picked up his coffee mug, which she took as a good sign.
Pippa told him pretty much the same things she’d told Addie the night before. She didn’t give him much, if any room, to comment, nor did he seem inclined to do so, but he appeared to be listening, and that was all she could hope for.
“I guess you can hear from me talking to you that my voice isn’t the same as it was before, so that adds to the anxiety,” she said, as she concluded her story. “I think it will be interesting to find out how it affects the songs I want to sing, the stories I want to tell, but there’s also the chance that it won’t be a sound that will resonate with the fans of my past music. So that adds to the worry.”
“At the risk of sounding rude,” he said, finally interrupting, “what does any of that have to do with me? Or Jake?”
Pippa could feel the tremors in her fingers, and her knees, and carefully set the mug back on the table. Moment of truth time. “I know everyone was a little taken aback when you came into the music room that day. It was obvious you were angry, and that there was pain behind that anger.” She leaned forward then, and her voice softened. “But what I latched on to wasn’t the anger, or even the pain. It was the other thing I saw that I recognized right up close and personal. Fear.”
Will put his mug down and started to rise.
“Please,” Pippa said quietly. “Please just let me say this—then you can toss me out and I won’t bother you again.” She looked at him until he met her gaze, and she let him see everything she felt, all of it, including the utter terror she’d experienced in the past year. “It’s been a lot longer for you, since you closed yourself off. And I fear—feared—that’s exactly where I was headed.”
Will sat back in the chair, but there was nothing relaxed about him now. His gaze was fierce and agitation fairly radiated off of him.
“I’m not passing judgment on your choice. I know it sounds like I am, but that is something I would never do. The difference between us is, I don’t want to be closed off. I want to confront the fear.” She clenched her hands into fists as her tone became more intent. “I want to conquer it! I want to stomp it down until it can’t ever scare me like that again. Music, song, was my best and closest friend, it was my companion and my protector. So I simply won’t let it go,” she said, heat rising now in her own voice. “And yet, here I sit, a full year later, and what have I done to thwart the fear? Not a single thing.”
She rubbed her now damp palms against the legs of her trousers. “Until I came here.” She looked at him, her walls and defenses completely down. “It felt like my last chance. To figure everything out, or just give up. But how do you make your music come back? Sure, I could just up and force myself to start singing again, but I couldn’t force the music back into my head, or into my soul.”
He was listening now, and despite the tight set of his jaw and his shoulders, the ferocity in his gaze was tempered now, with compassion. And yes, maybe with a little empathy, too. It was more than she’d hoped for and she felt instantly humbled by it.
“Deep down,” she continued, “I honestly didn’t think coming here would make a difference. I did it because my sister Katie really wanted me to, and I wanted her to think I was really trying. I didn’t—don’t—want to let her down, or any of my family, though they’d support me if I never sang again. At first, I was just so . . . relieved to be here, to not be back home in the midst of everyone tiptoeing around me, waiting to see if I’d sing again, that I was happy. And then I immediately got caught up in the life here.” She paused then, and took a sip of her coffee. She’d been speaking so earnestly, her throat was tight to the point of feeling raw.
Will said nothing, just waited for her to continue, and for the first time, she thought maybe putting herself through this might actually help someone other than just herself.
“Blue Hollow Falls reminds me of my home in County Donegal. Not the mountains, but the farms, the slower way of life, and most definitely the people. Everyone pitching in, doing for others, gossiping their fair share, too,” she added, trying for a smile, but too caught up to wait for it. “People willing to give whatever is necessary to help a neighbor. Meeting Mabry, Seth, Noah, Bailey, and your son, I felt instantly welcomed and immediately part of things.” She set her mug down again. “Then Mabry had his accident, and I got caught up taking care of goats and making friends with a llama. I got to see the mill, meet all the artists, and I got so swept up in everything that I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself, or worry about what would happen if I never sang again. And then ... to my utter shock, my music came back. Or it’s started to. I want to build on that before I can chicken out, so it won’t disappear on me again.”
She stopped talking then and just looked at Will. When he realized she was waiting for him to say something, he said, “I . . . appreciate your being so forthcoming with me.” He sounded sincere, and there was a surprising thickness underlying his words. He paused and cleared his throat. “I can relate, as I suspect you’re aware, to some of the issues you’re going through, only mine weren’t so much physical.”
It was all Pippa could do not to get up and hug the man. He looked genuinely miserable now, and she felt awful for pushing his own memories on him by talking about hers. But she let him take his time to find his words, as he’d done for her.
“I guess what I’m not sure about, is what, exactly, you’re asking of me.”
“For me? Nothing. You’ve made your choices, about your gifts, both in playing and in making your instruments, and those choices are only yours to make. If you’re at peace with them, then that’s all that matters.” She took a slow breath, and forged her way into the hardest part. “How you reacted to Jake borrowing your fiddle—and you know him, so you know he’d never harm it—suggests you’re not really at peace with any of it. And maybe peace is too big a thing to ask for, given the losses you’ve suffered. That is something I have no experience with, so I would never presume to say I understand, or know how you feel, or even what I’d do in your shoes, because I don’t know.”
“Pray to God you never do,” he said quietly, perhaps a bit forcefully, but not angrily. And her heart broke even more for him.
“So, I’m here not so much with a request, but an offer,” she said. “If I could ask for anything, I’d ask that you consider—just consider—going on this path with me. Me to get back to composing and singing, you to playing. Maybe creating.” She lifted a hand to stall his immediate response. “I said if I could ask anything. It’s my wish, that’s all. I thought it might make it easier, or at least be helpful, to both of us, to have the support of someone who is also facing such a monumental task, trying to get back a part of themselves they thought was forever lost, or forever closed off. Maybe we could do it together.”
She’d been looking at her lap, at the fingers she was twisting together, subconsciously rubbing at the spots that used to have calluses. She looked up at him now, not expectantly—she didn’t think she’d get an answer—but just to connect with him.
He didn’t say anything at all, and eventually ducked his chin and broke eye contact.
She let out a shaky sigh. I laid my heart down on the table. I can’t do more for him, or myself, than that. “Thank you for listening,” she said. “For agreeing to meet with me.”
He nodded, but didn’t look up as yet. She had no idea what was going through his mind, but his shoulders weren’t so rigidly set now. She suspected he was just trying to hold himself together.
She stood up, knowing she’d intruded enough. She turned toward the door to the kitchen, then stopped and looked back. “I might not have been entirely truthful about one thing.”
He looked up, his expression as bleak as she’d ever seen on anyone, save herself, and it was like a sucker punch to the gut.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, the words out because she couldn’t not say them. “I am.”
He nodded, then took a breath. “What untruthful thing?” he asked, and his voice was like gravel now.
“I do have one request. It’s a big ask, but it is one I truly hope you’ll consider.”
“What, you want to use my fiddle for your big comeback?”
She started, and her mouth dropped open, she was so surprised that that was the mental leap he’d made.
“I appreciate what you’re doing. I don’t know why you’re doing it, but I know you’re sincere,” he said. “But the way to get to me will not be through that fiddle. That I can guarantee.”
“I appreciate that. I wasn’t . . . trying to be tricky. I’m a direct person. I think we can both agree on that.” He nodded and she went on. “I wasn’t asking for the fiddle. Not because I wouldn’t be honored to play it. But this isn’t about getting to you. I’ve said all I can say on that.”
That seemed to surprise him.
“I have my own fiddle,” she told him. “One I’ve played since I was a little girl. It’s special to me, as I know you can well imagine. If—when—I get back up on stage and sing again, she’ll be with me.”
He nodded, as if he did indeed understand that much. A frown furrowed his brows. “Then what is the ‘big ask’?”
“You’ve made your choice, about creating instruments, about not playing anymore.” She softened her voice. “Shouldn’t Jake get to make his own choices, too?” She immediately put her hand up to stall his response. “I’m not asking for him to get to play your fiddle, either. I would never do that. Just as I’d hope no one would ever assume I’d lend mine out.” She held his gaze. “Even to someone I love very much.” She worked up a smile, a gentle one. “Jake wants to play. Or he wants to learn to play. I don’t know if this is because he wants to connect to you or his family history. Or if he simply has that desire in him, like you did, like I do. Like his mum did.”
“What are you asking?” Will said, jaw flexed again, but his tone was surprisingly quiet.
“Just that you give him permission to learn. I’ll teach him, if you’d rather Drake didn’t, but we’re both willing. I wasn’t planning on charging him anything, because the selfish side of this is it would help me, too. I enjoy spending time with your son.” She smiled. “He’s a wonderful young man with a great big heart. I can’t think of anyone I’d be happier to have along on my journey back into music.” Her voice got softer still. “Save maybe his dad.” She took a shaky breath. “I guess I’m hoping that maybe by teaching him, I’ll find my way back to it in a way that’s not so . . . terrifying.” She let her smile grow. “One squeaky note at a time.”
Will stood up. “Miss MacMillan—”
“Pippa,” she said, and hurried on before he could end the conversation. “I have it worked out so he doesn’t have to play here, if that’s a concern.” She hitched her purse strap over her shoulder and smoothed her damp palms over her hips. “Jake knows nothing about this,” she told Will. “And I won’t ever say a word unless you give your permission.” She held his gaze more steadily now, pushing for Jake’s sake, if she couldn’t push for Will’s. “I don’t go around tooting my own horn, but if it helps to sway your thinking, your son has the chance to learn how to play the fiddle from one of the better fiddle players in the world. I’ll provide the fiddle and the place for him to learn and play. All you need to do is give him your permission. Your blessing, too, if you find it in your heart. He’s growing up, Mr. McCall, and I think his thirst is real. I know, and you know, how that feels. If he thought you supported him—”
“He’s never once told me,” Will said, somewhat abruptly. “That he wants to learn.”
Surprised by the sudden comment, Pippa looked down for a moment, then back up to him. “I think it’s possible he didn’t think you’d take it well?” She dared to let a hint of a smile curve her lips.
Will closed his eyes at that, but perhaps the tiniest flicker of a smile twitched the corners of his mouth, rueful though it might have been. Then he ducked his chin and shook his head. She thought she might have heard him swear under his breath. She waited for him to look up again and extended her hand.
“I’m really glad we had the chance to meet and talk. I wish things were different, because I’d be all over you about that fiddle Jake brought with him the other day. You do gorgeous work, Mr. McCall. And I’d love to hear you play someday.”
“Will,” he said, a bit gruffly. “And thank you. That part of my life is over, but ... I’ll give some thought to your request.” He looked directly at her then. “I know it wasn’t easy, doing what you did here today. I appreciate it, for my sake and for Jake’s. It was kind of you, as well as generous. And I’m not sure I deserved your kindness, much less your generosity, after the way I behaved the other day.”
Pippa had to work to keep her mouth from dropping open at the utter sincerity in his quietly spoken words. The anger was gone now, replaced by resignation, but also by an attempt to make things if not right, at least better. This was the Will McCall she’d been hoping to meet, the one everyone had been telling her about.
He took her hand and shook it, then held on a moment longer. “I don’t know how I feel about Jake playing. It’s mixed up with ... a lot of other stuff. And I won’t lie to you, either. I really wish he wanted to do anything but that.” He let her hand go. “It’s an honor, what you’ve proposed, and I’m grateful. I just . . .” He looked away then, and she could see this was a torment for him, wanting to do what was right for Jake but trying not to torture himself more in the process.
“I do understand that. That’s why I said it was a big ask.” She smiled. “I surely won’t think less of you if you say no.”
He surprised her further by chuckling at that. “I’m not sure you could think any less of me at this point.”
“That’s where you’d be wrong,” she told him. “You’ve served your country, you’ve been a loving husband, and you’ve raised a wonderful young man. I couldn’t hold you in higher regard.” On impulse, she reached up on her toes and shocked them both by giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. “And you like my music,” she added with a grin. “So how bad could you be?”
She dashed at the corners of her eyes, thinking one of these days she really had to stop being so leaky, and left the porch, walking through the house and out to the front steps. She turned when she was on the stone pathway, heading to her truck, to find Will standing on the top step of the porch. She lifted her hand in a wave, and felt a sense of relief and rightness when he lifted his in a brief reply. It wasn’t a yes, but she believed he would think about it, and that was more than she’d dared hope for when she pulled up.
She strapped herself in and turned the key, then patted the dashboard. “Well, Bluebell, we’re one step closer than we were before.” She smiled and pulled out of the drive.