“Don’t be silly.” Clint smiled at Wendy. “Of course you can go. The coffee’s done—it’s perfect, by the way, lots better than I ever make it. Everybody’s settled in. If you feel up to torture by twins, go for it.”
“The reception desk,” Wendy said quickly. “If someone phones—”
“I’ll handle it.”
“Say yes, Wendy! Say you’ll come. Please, please, please?”
She looked at the two hopeful faces. And at Seth, whose face bore no expression at all.
“A walk sounds lovely,” she said, and tried to ignore the way her heart lifted at the smile that curved Seth’s lips.
* * *
CLINT WAS RIGHT. Getting the children into their gear took a long time.
“It’s not easy to turn kids into Pillsbury Dough Boys,” Seth announced as they worked the girls’ legs into pants, their feet into boots. They pulled on sweaters, jackets and hoods. They buttoned, zipped and fastened, tugged on mittens and burst out laughing when the children waddled to the door.
“Heaven help us if they fall down.”
“Not to worry.” Seth grinned. “I can always attach a towline to my truck and drag ’em home.”
“Come on,” Randi said impatiently.
“Hurry,” said Robin, as if the night and the snow might suddenly end.
Seth and Wendy pulled on their own jackets. Seth wrapped a wool scarf around his throat. Wendy did the same, then added her knit cap. Seth looked her over and tried not to think back to the days when he’d call for her on a winter’s night, see her all bundled up like she was now, and try to shake hands with her scowling father and smile politely at her pleasant mother while his wicked brain created images of what it was going to be like to search out Wendy’s warm, satiny skin beneath all those layers of clothing.
Her eyes met his. Something flashed in their aqua depths. It was crazy, but just for that instant, he thought she might be remembering the same thing.
He cleared his throat. “Those boots going to be okay?”
“Fine.”
“You sure? They look kind of worn, and it’s cold out....”
His words trailed away as their eyes met again. This time, he knew they were thinking the same thing. They were sharing a memory from the old days when she’d worn these same boots. They’d get into the cab of his truck and he’d ask if she was sure the boots were okay because it was cold out, and she’d say yes, they were fine, and the whole silly conversation was only a lead-up to what she’d say next, that if her feet got cold, she could always put them in his lap and he could untie her laces, take off her boots, massage her feet with his warm hands....
Hell. This was never going to work. How could he have thought he’d be able to spend evenings so near her and not remember what had once burned between them?
“Uncle Seth?”
Seth looked down at the little face lifted to his.
“Okay,” he said briskly, “let’s move ‘em... Hey! Where’d these teddy bears come from? What happened to Randi and Robin?”
The girls giggled. “Here we are,” Randi said.
“Where?” Seth made a point of searching the room. “I hear you, but I don’t see you.”
“Right here,” Robin said. She poked him in the leg. “It’s me, Uncle Seth. See?”
“Aha!” Seth snatched up Robin and turned to Randi, but the little girl scampered over to Wendy.
“Can you take me, please?”
Wendy swallowed hard. “I’d love to, baby, but you’re such a big girl that I don’t think I can—”
“I know you can’t carry me,” Randi said with a child’s honesty. “You hurt your leg, right? I know ’cause you got a limp.”
Wendy felt as if someone had dumped cold water over her. Except for her doctors and therapists, nobody had ever been so blunt—and wasn’t that ridiculous? She did have a limp. It was the visible sign of her failure, her weakness, and she’d hated it for those reasons. Now, stated with such innocence, the word seemed to carry less meaning. Like the story about the emperor’s new clothes, it had taken a child to speak the truth.
Seth started to answer but she stopped him. “Yes, honey, you’re right. I did hurt my leg. And yes, I limp. So it might not be such a safe thing for me to carry you outside, when it’s slippery.” She smiled and reached for the child’s hand. “But we can hold hands. Would you like that?”
“That’s what I meant. We could hold hands.” Randi put her mittened fingers in Wendy’s. “How’d you hurt your leg, Aunt Wendy? Was it an accident?”
Amazing that such questions could be so easily asked—and even more amazing that they could be so easily answered.
“Yes. I had an accident.”
Seth held open the door. She caught a glimpse of his face as she and Randi went by. What was he thinking? She couldn’t tell. His eyes were hooded and his expression was noncommittal.
“My mommy had an accident. Lots of wood falled down on her.”
“I know. I heard about it.”
“But she’s almost all better now. Are you all better, too, Aunt Wendy?”
Was she? How did you answer a question like that? Her doctors said she was. So did her mother. And she suspected Seth would say she was, too.
“I—I’m lots better.”
“But not all?” Randi looked up at her. “You look all better. My mommy didn’t, not right away.”
“Randi,” Seth said from behind her.
“No. No, that’s okay.” Wendy tightened her hold on the child’s hand as they slowly made their way down the stairs and away from the porch. “I hurt my leg skiing,” she said matter-of-factly, “and I won’t really be better until I can ski again.”
“Oh.” Randi took a few seconds to digest that. “I like to ski.”
Wendy smiled. “Do you?”
“Uh-huh. Uncle Clint and Uncle Seth took us skiin’ right back there, behind the house.” She looked up at Wendy. “Can’t you ski if you have a limp?”
“You can, yes. But I...” But I what? Could she say, I don’t want to get on the slopes and have people pity me? I don’t want to be just another skier, I want to be Wendy Monroe, champion? Could she explain that she wanted to, had to, get that medal her father—well, she and her father—had worked toward for so many years?
How did you explain that to a three-year-old child when it was so hard to explain it to adults? When, more and more, it was hard to explain to yourself?
The sudden realization stole her breath away.
“Aunt Wendy?”
She looked at the innocent face still turned up to hers and found herself tongue-tied. Seth seemed to sense it.
“Hey,” he said, coming alongside them, Robin still riding his shoulders, “take a look at the size of those snowflakes!”
The diversion worked. Randi and Robin both tilted their heads back, oohed and aahed, stuck out their tongues to trap the flakes, and giggled.
“Thank you,” Wendy said softly.
Seth shrugged his shoulders. “That’s okay. It’s bad enough I subjected you to the third degree. No need for you to get it from the kids, too.” He cleared his throat and she could almost see him searching for a change of subject. “Quite a night, huh?”
Oh, it was. There was no wind, and though it was cold, it wasn’t the piercing cold that could come during a real New England snowfall. For now, the world was beautiful. Leafless oaks lined the driveway, holding their snow-laden branches to the blac
k night in offering to the pagan gods of the storm.
“How are you doing, honey?” Wendy murmured to Randi, trudging along beside her.
“Fine,” the little girl said, but she was puffing hard.
Wendy leaned toward Seth, her breath visible in the cold night as she spoke quietly to him.
“It’s a lot for her, Seth. Maybe we should go back.”
“I have a better idea.” He lifted Robin from his shoulders and put her down. “Okay, guys. Everybody wait here.”
“Where are you going?” Wendy called as he started toward the house.
“I’ll be right back,” he yelled, and he waggled his hand over his head. She thought about the night they’d bumped into each other at the Purple Panda and how the gesture then had been one of dismissal. It was so different this time, just a reassuring way of saying he’d be back.
How happy she was that he would.
Drawing the children close, she let them lean against her legs.
“Is it okay?” Robin asked softly.
Wendy knew the child was asking if it was all right to lean on her because of her limp.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s fine.”
And it was. She limped, yes, but years of determined exercise had made the leg strong, or as strong as it could be without Pommier’s experimental surgery. What if her mother and Seth were right? What if subjecting herself to a dangerous operation—assuming she could convince the doctor to perform it—was a mistake? What if she could have a life, a good and happy life, without the surgery? Without trying for something as ephemeral as a medal? Without trying to turn back the clock?
What if...
“Here we go.”
Seth ran toward them, pulling a children’s sled that sailed over the snow behind him like a small red ship. Wendy laughed. So did the twins.
“A sleigh ride,” Robin squealed.
“Yup. Let’s go, kids. Climb on.”
The girls scrambled into the sled. Seth had brought a heavy blanket, too, and he draped it around them until they were bundled up like travelers to the North Pole. Then he and Wendy set off down the driveway, past the old-fashioned street lamps that cast a warm yellow light over the curb. They crossed the empty road and headed for the village green. All around them, the tiny town lay quiet under its soft blanket of white fairy dust.