Dancing in the Dark Read Online Free PDF

mind for a “she” who might fit the conversation, a woman he’d know well enough for Philo to ask him such intimate questions. Then he realized from the look in Philo’s eyes, from last night’s dream, from the memories that had been tormenting him...
    He knew who they were discussing, and what it meant.
    Wendy was home.
    Except he didn’t believe that you dreamed about what was going to happen. The images in his head were there because of the time of year, and all this proved was that he’d never quite gotten past thinking about her.
    “Is who back for good?” he said, as if Philo’s question might simply be about one of the winter visitors who’d asked him to do some repairs on her cabin.
    He thought he’d spoken with casual ease. One look at Philo and he knew he hadn’t pulled it off. The other man’s plump cheeks reddened. Even his ears seemed to burn with embarrassment.
    “Damn it,” he mumbled, “I’m sorry, Seth. I told Phyllis this wouldn’t be a good idea. ‘Phyl,’ I said, ‘honey, did it ever occur to you that the man might not want to talk about this? That he just plain might want to avoid—’”
    “I’m not trying to avoid anything. I just don’t understand the question. Who are we talking about, Philo?”
    Philo looked as if he wanted the floor to open up and swallow him. He lifted the poker, reached into the fire, made a show of rearranging the burning wood, then stared at the dancing flames as if they held the answer to Seth’s question.
    Finally, he looked up.
    “Wendy Monroe,” he said with a swift exhalation of breath. “And if you want to tell me to mind my own business about why she’s come back to Cooper’s Corner, or how long she’s goin’ to stay, that’s okay with me.”
    * * *
    T HE SUN WAS LOW in the sky, the wind had picked up and it had begun to snow again. Main Street was one long sheet of ice. The sanding trucks hadn’t come through yet.
    Seth drove carefully and fought to keep his mind on what he was doing. It wasn’t easy. All he could think about was Wendy. She was back. She was in Cooper’s Corner. The whole town probably knew it.
    Now he knew it, too.
    A car pulled out from the curb, skidded delicately to the left before its tires gained purchase. Seth braked gently, then fell in behind the slow-moving automobile.
    Philo had all the details, though he’d been uncomfortable providing them. She’d flown in yesterday. Alison Fairchild had picked her up at the airport in Albany and driven her to town.
    Seth’s jaw knotted. He’d seen Alison just a couple of days ago, at Twin Oaks, when he’d stopped by to double-check the dimensions of the corner where Clint and Maureen wanted to put the china cabinet he was making for the dining room. On the way out, he’d bumped into Alison. Literally. He’d been trotting down the porch steps, his head full of measurements; she’d been coming up, on her way to visit Maureen, and they’d collided.
    “Whoops,” she’d said with a quick smile, then apologized for having her head in the clouds. They’d had a perfectly normal conversation about how well the B and B was coming along, about the weather and the season and every damned thing in the world except the one that would have mattered to him—that Wendy was returning to Cooper’s Corner. There was no way he’d believe that Alison hadn’t known about it then.
    And what about Gina? He’d kept in touch with Wendy’s mother. They spoke often. Well, not so often now, but for the first few years he’d phoned at least once a week to ask about Wendy’s recovery. To hell with her father. It was Howard’s fault Wendy had the accident. If he hadn’t been pushing her so hard...
    Seth took a deep breath.
    There was no sense in going through all that again. It was over. So was what he’d once felt for Wendy.
    Calmer now, he understood that neither Alison nor Gina felt under any obligation to tell him Wendy was returning. In which case, why had he gotten so