Dance Away with Me(108)

Her career was falling into place, if not the rest of her life.

*

The health director had invited two Knoxville physicians to the meeting, both of whom were concerned about the lack of medical care for rural women. They were impressed with Tess’s background and eager to discuss a plan to move forward. Tess’s head was spinning by the time the meeting was over. It was all happening so fast.

Kelly, Tess had discovered, had a talent for finance. Thanks to carefully investing a small inheritance from her parents, she had money of her own and could easily afford better accommodations. But she loved the cabin far more than Tess did, and for now, Tess was happy to accommodate her, especially as Kelly had painted the walls and brought in pottery vases of fresh flowers.

Sometimes Ava stayed with her mother, other times with her father. Either way, Brad was a frequent visitor—at both the cabin and, unfortunately, the schoolhouse. Tess never offered him coffee, but that didn’t stop him from pouring his own.

“She’s like a whole new person,” he complained as he made himself at home in her kitchen.

“She’s the same person she’s always been. You weren’t paying attention.” Seeing him standing by the counter, in the exact place Ian used to stand, made her testier with him than usual. “The problem is, you’ve been a dick for so long it’s hard for you to change course.”

He stiffened. “I don’t know why I keeping coming here only to get abused.”

“Because I’ve seen the worst of you, and I’m not married to you, which makes this the one place where you don’t have to put on your public face.” She’d looked into Brad’s political record and been surprised to discover he wasn’t quite the reactionary she’d imagined, especially when it came to environmental issues. She pointed her cereal spoon at him. “You also come here because you think I can fix your marriage. I can’t.”

“Kelly listens to you. She respects your opinion.”

“You still believe you can win me over enough so I’ll persuade Kelly to kneel before you and beg forgiveness.”

“I’m not that unrealistic.”

“But that’s exactly what you want from me. Admit it.”

He shrugged. Neither admitting nor denying.

He was a lost soul, and she had to restrain herself from dumping all her frustration and all her sadness on him. Why did she have to have so many difficult people in her life? Ian, Brad, Savannah—although Savannah had declared Tess her best friend in the world. Which was a trial all its own.

“Best friends tell each other everything,” Savannah had said yesterday as she’d sat on her front porch nursing Zoro. “So tell me all about you and Ian North. He left you, didn’t he? I hate him.”

“He didn’t leave me,” Tess had lied. “He’s in Manhattan working.”

Ian, the most difficult person of all. His continuing silence proved that sending him away was the right thing to do, and one day she’d make peace with it. Today was not that day.

She forced her attention back to Winchester. Despite the way she groused at him, she felt a stab of sympathy for the state senator. He loved the old Kelly, but he didn’t handle change well, and the new one baffled him.

“Now she wants to go to college. And study finance of all things!”

“As I understand it, she’s been handling your finances since you got married. And doing a good job of it.” She was also helping Tess understand her own finances better.

He sulked. “Only because I didn’t have time.”

She threw up her hands. “Out! I’ve reached my Brad Winchester limit for the day.”

He stormed off, but she knew he’d be back. She’d become his therapist, whether she liked it or not.

*

Reinvention, my ass! He’d show her. She thought he was emotionally paralyzed. Unreliable. An unfit father! Screw that! He’d take his work in a brilliant new direction and throw the results at her.

Ian hauled three canvases from his studio into the alley and used a propane torch to scorch them. He threw paint at them, cut them with X-Acto blades, cut them again. He assaulted them with hydrochloric acid and ran them over with his car. When he was done, he stacked them against the wall of his studio, stood back, and assessed this new work.

It was bullshit. A thirty-six-year-old man impersonating a rebellious art school grad. He was a fucking poser pretending to give the finger to the system that had made him rich.

He destroyed it all and made himself more miserable by laying out the small canvas squares with the imprints from Tess’s body. The memory of that night, the beauty of it, was more than he could handle. He shut the door on the studio and didn’t go back inside for days.

He hated ultimatums. Despite the traffic and police sirens, this place was too quiet. He should drive to Tempest right now so he could hold his child, finish his tree house, and tell Tess they were going to do things his way.

So why didn’t he?

Because he couldn’t.

He was lost, besieged by loneliness and uncertainty—by the smell of diesel and the stench of rotting garbage from the trash bags piled at the curb. Would Wren even remember him when she saw him again? It had been only a few weeks, but he knew how quickly she changed, and he was missing all of it.

His anger with Tess butted straight up against his longing to be with her. Life without her was as pointless as soda that had lost its fizz. She’d opened him to new experiences, new emotions, to becoming part of a community that existed beyond the boundaries of studios and galleries. She’d shown him what it was like to make love with a woman who held nothing back. Life with her had unfolded in every hue of the rainbow.