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“He came to see me when he was home last Christmas. Asked about you.” She fumbled again, cleared her throat. “Joanie’s still here.”
“Joanie Tucker?”
“It’s Joanie Knight now,” Loretta told her. “She married young Jack Knight three years ago. They have a beautiful baby.”
“Joanie,” Vanessa murmured. Joanie Tucker, who had been her best friend since her earliest memory, her confidante, wailing wall and partner in crime. “She has a child.”
“A little girl. Lara. They have a farm outside of town. I know she’d want to see you.”
“Yes.” For the first time all day, Vanessa felt something click. “Yes, I want to see her. Her parents, are they well?”
“Emily died almost eight years ago.”
“Oh.” Vanessa reached out instinctively to touch her mother’s hand. As Joanie had been her closest friend, so had Emily Tucker been her mother’s. “I’m so sorry.”
Loretta looked down at their joined hands, and her eyes filled. “I still miss her.”
“She was the kindest woman I’ve ever known. I wish I had—” But it was too late for regrets. “Dr. Tucker, is he all right?”
“Ham is fine.” Loretta blinked back tears, and tried not to be hurt when Vanessa removed her hand. “He grieved hard, but his family and his work got him through. He’ll be so pleased to see you, Van.”
No one had called Vanessa by her nickname in more years than she could count. Hearing it now touched her.
“Does he still have his office in his house?”
“Of course. You’re not eating. Would you like something else?”
“No, this is fine.” Dutifully she ate a forkful of salad.
“Don’t you want to know about Brady?”
“No.” Vanessa took another bite. “Not particularly.”
There was something of the daughter she remembered in that look. The slight pout, the faint line between the brows. It warmed Loretta’s heart, as the polite stranger had not. “Brady Tucker followed in his father’s footsteps.”
Vanessa almost choked. “He’s a doctor?”
“That’s right. Had himself a fine, important position with some hospital in New York. Chief resident, I think Ham told me.”
“I always thought Brady would end up pitching for the Orioles or going to jail.”
Loretta laughed again, warmly. “So did most of us. But he turned into quite a respectable young man. Of course, he was always too handsome for his own good.”
“Or anyone else’s,” Vanessa muttered, and her mother smiled again.
“It’s always hard for a woman to resist the tall, dark and handsome kind, especially if he’s a rogue, as well.”
“I think hood was the word.”
“He never did anything really bad,” Loretta pointed out. “Not that he didn’t give Emily and Ham a few headaches. Well, a lot of headaches.” She laughed. “But the boy always looked out for his sister. I liked him for that. And he was taken with you.”
Vanessa sniffed. “Brady Tucker was taken with anything in skirts.”
“He was young.” They had all been young once, Loretta thought, looking at the lovely, composed stranger who was her daughter. “Emily told me he mooned around the house for weeks after you…after you and your father went to Europe.”
“It was a long time ago.” Vanessa rose, dismissing the subject.
“I’ll get the dishes.” Loretta began stacking them quickly. “It’s your first day back. I thought maybe you’d like to try out the piano. I’d like to hear you play in this house again.”
“All right.” She turned toward the door.
“Van?”
“Yes?”
Would she ever call her “Mom” again? “I want you to know how proud I am of all you’ve accomplished.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.” Loretta studied her daughter, wishing she had the courage to open her arms for an embrace. “I just wish you looked happier.”
“I’m happy enough.”
“Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
“I don’t know. We don’t really know each other anymore.”
At least that was honest, Loretta thought. Painful, but honest. “I hope you’ll stay until we do.”
“I’m here because I need answers. But I’m not ready to ask the questions yet.”
“Give it time, Van. Give yourself time. And believe me when I say all I ever wanted was what was best for you.”
“My father always said the same thing,” she said quietly. “Funny, isn’t it, that now that I’m a grown woman I have no idea what that is.”
She walked down the hall to the music room. There was a gnawing, aching pain just under her breastbone. Out of habit, she popped a pill out of the roll in her skirt pocket before she sat at the piano.
She started with Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata, playing from memory and from the heart, letting the music soothe her. She could remember playing this piece, and countless others, in this same room. Hour after hour, day after day. For the love of it, yes, but often—too often—because it was expected, even demanded.
Her feelings for music had always been mixed. There was her strong, passionate love for it, the driving need to create it with the skill she’d been given. But there had always also been the equally desperate need to please her father, to reach that point of perfection he had expected. That unattainable point, she thought now.
He had never understood that music was a love for her, not a vocation. It had been a comfort, a means of expression, but never an ambition. On the few occasions she had tried to explain it, he had become so enraged or impatient that she had silenced herself. She, who was known for her passion and temper, had been a cringing child around one man. In all her life, she had never been able to defy him.
She switched to Bach, closed her eyes and let herself drift. For more than an hour she played, lost in the beauty, the gentleness and the genius, of the compositions. This was what her father had never understood. That she could play for her own pleasure and be content, and that she had hated, always hated, sitting on a stage ringed by a spotlight and playing for thousands.
As her emotions began to flow again, she switched to Mozart, something that required more passion and speed. Vivid, almost furious, the music sang through her. When the last chord echoed, she felt a satisfaction she had nearly forgotten.
The quiet applause behind her had her spinning around. Seated on one of the elegant little chairs was a man. Though the sun was in her eyes and twelve years had passed, she recognized him.
“Incredible.” Brady Tucker rose and crossed to her. His long, wiry frame blocked out the sun for an instant, and the light glowed like a nimbus around him. “Absolutely incredible.” As she stared at him, he held out a hand and smiled. “Welcome home, Van.”
She rose to face him. “Brady,” she murmured, then rammed her fist solidly into his stomach. “You creep.”
He sat down hard as the air exploded out of his lungs. The sound of it was every bit as sweet to her as the music had been. Wincing, he looked up at her. “Nice to see you, too.”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Your mother let me in.” After a couple of testing breaths, he rose. She had to tilt her head back to keep her eyes on his. Those same fabulous blue eyes, in a face that had aged much too well. “I didn’t want to disturb you while you were playing, so I just sat down. I didn’t expect to be sucker-punched.”
“You should have.” She was delighted to have caught him off guard, and to have given him back a small portion of the pain he’d given her. His voice was the same, she thought, deep and seductive. She wanted to hit him again just for that. “She didn’t mention that you were in town.”
“I live here. Moved back almost a year ago.” She had that same sexy pout. He fervently wished that at least that much could have changed. “Can I tell you that you look terrific, or should I put up my guard?”
How to remain composed under stress was something she’d learned very well. She sat, carefully smoothing her skirts. “No, you can tell me.”
“Okay. You look terrific. A little thin, maybe.”
The pout became more pronounced. “Is that your medical opinion, Dr. Tucker?”
“Actually, yes.” He took a chance and sat beside her on the piano stool. Her scent was as subtle and alluring as moonlight. He felt a tug, not so much unexpected as frustrating. Though she sat beside him, he knew she was as distant as she had been when there had been an ocean between them.
“You’re looking well,” she said, and wished it wasn’t so true. He still had the lean, athletic body of his youth. His face wasn’t as smooth, and the ruggedness maturity had brought to it only made it more attractive. His hair was still a rich, deep black, and his lashes were just as long and thick as ever. And his hands were as strong and beautiful as they had been the first time they had touched her. A lifetime ago, she reminded herself, and settled her own hands in her lap.
“My mother told me you had a position in New York.”
“I did.” He was feeling as awkward as a schoolboy. No, he realized, much more awkward. Twelve years before, he’d known exactly how to handle her. Or he’d thought he did. “I came back to help my father with his practice. He’d like to retire in a year or two.”
“I can’t imagine it. You back here,” she elaborated. “Or Doc Tucker retiring.”
“Times change.”
“Yes, they do.” She couldn’t sit beside him. Just a residual of those girlish feelings, she thought, but she rose anyway. “It’s equally hard to picture you as a doctor.”
“I felt the same way when I was slogging through medical school.”
She frowned. He was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and running shoes—exactly the kind of attire he’d worn in high school. “You don’t look like a doctor.”
“Want to see my stethoscope?”
“No.” She stuck her hands in her pockets. “I heard Joanie was married.”
“Yeah—to Jack Knight, of all people. Remember him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He was a year ahead of me in high school. Football star. Went pro a couple of years, then bunged up his knee.”
“Is that the medical term?”
“Close enough.” He grinned at her. There was still a little chip in his front tooth that she had always found endearing. “She’ll be crazy to see you again, Van.”
“I want to see her, too.”
“I’ve got a couple of patients coming in, but I should be done by six. Why don’t we have some dinner, and I can drive you out to the farm?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because the last time I was supposed to have dinner with you—dinner and the senior prom—you stood me up.”
He tucked his hands in his pockets. “You hold a grudge a long time.”
“Yes.”
“I was eighteen years old, Van, and there were reasons.”
“Reasons that hardly matter now.” Her stomach was beginning to burn. “The point is, I don’t want to pick up where we left off.”
He gave her a considering look. “That wasn’t the idea.”
“Good.” That was just one more thing she could damn him for. “We both have our separate lives, Brady. Let’s keep it that way.”
He nodded, slowly. “You’ve changed more than I’d thought.”
“Yes, I have.” She started out, stopped, then looked over her shoulder. “We both have. But I imagine you still know your way out.”
“Yeah,” he said to himself when she left him alone. He knew his way out. What he hadn’t known was that she could still turn him inside out with one of those pouty looks.
Chapter 2
The Knight farm was rolling hills and patches of brown and green field. The hay was well up, she noted, and the corn was tender green shoots. A gray barn stood behind a trio of square paddocks. Nearby, chickens fussed and pecked at the ground. Plump spotted cows lolled on a hillside, too lazy to glance over at the sound of an approaching car, but geese rushed along the bank of the creek, excited and annoyed by the disturbance.
A bumpy gravel lane led to the farmhouse. At the end of it, Vanessa stopped her car, then slowly alighted. She could hear the distant putting of a tractor and the occasional yip-yipping of a cheerful dog. Closer was the chatter of birds, a musical exchange that always reminded her of neighbors gossiping over a fence.
Perhaps it was foolish to feel nervous, but she couldn’t shake it. Here in this rambling three-story house, with its leaning chimneys and swaying porches, lived her oldest and closest friend—someone with whom she had shared every thought, every feeling, every wish and every disappointment.
But those friends had been children—girls on the threshold of womanhood, where everything is at its most intense and emotional. They hadn’t been given the chance to grow apart. Their friendship had been severed quickly and completely. Between that moment and this, so much—too much—had happened to both of them. To expect to renew those ties and feelings was both naive and overly optimistic.
Vanessa reminded herself of that, bracing herself for disappointment, as she started up the cracked wooden steps to the front porch.
The door swung open. The woman who stepped out released a flood of stored memories. Unlike the moment when she had started up her own walk and seen her mother, Vanessa felt none of the confusion and grief.
She looks the same, was all Vanessa could think. Joanie was still sturdily built, with the curves Vanessa had envied throughout adolescence. Her hair was still worn short and tousled around a pretty face. Black hair and blue eyes like her brother, but with softer features and a neat Cupid’s-bow mouth that had driven the teenage boys wild.
Vanessa started to speak, searched for something to say. Then she heard Joanie let out a yelp. They were hugging, arms clasped hard, bodies swaying. The laughter and tears and broken sentences melted away the years.
“I can’t believe—you’re here.”
