It was maddening.
I saw him every Tuesday, and Thursday night for lessons, and starting next week after school let out, we’d add Sunday and Monday, too. When we weren’t at his house, at his piano, I saw him mesmerizing the crowd at The Kinky Starfish.
It seemed every facet of my life was tied up in Reese Walker in some way.
When we were on top of that mountain, I’d seen a side of Reese I knew for a fact he didn’t show anyone. And ever since then, that version of him had been put under lock and key again. The first couple of lessons we’d had after that felt heavier, like by asking me to be vulnerable, he’d agreed to do the same. But just as quickly as that wall had come down, it was up again, and we were back to only talking about piano and music and tension and technique.
We didn’t talk about the Incline, or that night, or the woman he loved who was married to someone else.
And even though that was normal, and that was what our relationship as teacher and student should have been, I couldn’t get the other version of Reese out of my mind.
There were so many layers to him, so many sad, broken, busted-up pieces that made the man who sat down at that piano every night and left the residents of Pittsburgh speechless with his musical ability.
I’d only gotten a glimpse, but it was enough to make me crave more.
“Relax, Sarah,” he said again, this time a little firmer as I moved with the music.
I blew out a breath, closing my eyes and focusing on the notes I brought to life. I felt the keys under my hands, the pedal under my foot, the music in my soul. That song was meant to be played with emotion, and I felt it — I truly did.
Until Reese told me to relax again.
I huffed, tossing my hands up in the air as the song came to an ugly end, the notes dying all at once as soon as my hands were off the keys.
“Damn it, I am relaxed!” My chest heaved as I found Reese standing in the corner of the room. He was leaning against the wall, in the shadows, like he wanted to disappear and leave me alone with the piano.
Except he kept interrupting me.
He just watched me as I tried to steady my breathing, not affected in the least by my outburst. “Clearly,” he finally said, kicking one foot off the wall behind him. He crossed the room until he stood next to the piano, and he pointed one finger down at the keys I’d abandoned. “Try again.”
“I think I need a break.”
“Just… try again, Sarah,” he said, voice softer. “Please.”
His eyes were patient, but tired — like my own. Still, even with what seemed like the weight of an entire lifetime resting in that expression he wore, he was handsome. Tragically so. And though I’d noticed the beauty in his music, in his playing ability, that was the first time I noticed the beauty in him.
For a moment, I wondered what he had looked like when he was my age, before life had creased the skin around his eyes. He was still dressed in the teacher get up I assumed he wore the entire day at Westchester — khaki slacks, dark brown chukkas, a navy blue button-up with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows, the top two buttons unfastened, tie hung haphazardly on the chair in the corner of the room. His long hair was pulled back in a loose bun at his neck, just the slightest bit of stubble peppering his strong jaw.
I wondered how many young middle school girls had his name sprawled across their notebooks, outlined with little hearts.
I sighed the longer he looked at me, finally rolling my shoulders a few times before my hands hovered over the keys again. I closed my eyes, steadied my breath, and began to play.
I hadn’t made it twenty seconds in before Reese spoke.
“I can feel your tension from here.”
“I’m not tense,” I almost sang, forcing a smile as I continued to play. I opened my eyes and glanced up at where he stood as my fingers still moved over the keys. “I’m relaxed, and if you’d stop talking, you’d be able to see the emotion in my playing, too.”
“Not with every part of you wound up like that, I won’t.”
He moved until he stood behind me, and I frowned, still playing but with a bit of nerves now that he was out of sight. I still felt the heat of his body radiating off him and warming my back as I closed my eyes again. The song was sad and slow, and I found myself considering what the composer felt when he created it, when these notes were sewn together and a new piece of music was born.
“The technique is there,” Reese said from behind me while I continued playing. “And I see you closing your eyes, see the way your face twists with each note, like you feel it, like you’ve lived it.”
He paused, and I nearly missed a note when his hands found my shoulders, light and easy, without any pressure or demand.
“Relax,” Reese said.
Relax, I heard another voice say in the back of my mind. It was a darker voice.
The voice of my wolf.
I flinched away involuntarily, the notes crashing together chaotically before I picked the song up again.
“Sorry,” I murmured, my next breath burning on the inhale. I could still feel the heat of his hands, even though they were gone now, back at his sides.
Reese was quiet a moment before he cleared his throat. “No, no, I’m sorry. I should have warned you. I, uh… I just want to illustrate something. Is that okay?”
I nodded, though my heart was galloping like a wild stallion in my chest. I focused on the music, on not missing another note as his hands came down to rest on my shoulders again.
The instinct to pull away again was strong, but the warmth of his hands, of his care, permeated through that instinct the longer he held the touch. It was gentle, easy, and light — like he was ready to pull away again if I said the word.
He’s not your wolf. He won’t hurt you.
“Like I was saying,” he continued when I didn’t pull away. “The technique is there. But, with your shoulders tied up to your ears like this, I don’t believe it. And I don’t feel what you want me to feel.”
Gently, he pressed his palms down on my shoulders, his thumbs pressing into the muscles that framed my spine, and I let him guide me until my shoulders were back and relaxed. I somehow felt the weight of his hands everywhere in that moment, like he’d slid them down over my collarbone and ran them the length of my back at once. Without him even instructing me, a long, breathy exhale left my chest, and every muscle relaxed.
“See?” he said, a tone of satisfaction in his voice like he’d made his point.
I couldn’t register much at the moment, other than the fact that someone was touching me, and I was okay with it.
“Stop playing for a moment,” he said, removing his hands.
Chills broke over every inch of my skin at the loss of heat, but I did as he asked, straightening as he took a seat next to me on the bench. And just as quickly as that heat had been stolen, it was back again, his leg just barely grazing mine under the piano. My stallion heart picked up speed again as I stared at that point of contact, nearly racing out of my chest completely before I finally scooted over a few inches, putting space between us.
“Okay, place your hands on the keys like you’re about to play,” Reese instructed, oblivious to my inner freakout.
I did as he said, pulling my focus back to the lesson.
“Now, relax your elbows, like you would if you were resting and not playing.”
I looked down, surprised to see that I was holding my elbows out from my side. When I relaxed, they dropped in, and my shoulders fell with them.
My eyes widened.
“Press your hands on top of this piano,” Reese said, demonstrating with his own massive paws sprawled out on the wood.
His knuckles were white from pressing down, and I copied him, pressing my own hands on the wood.
“Now, release.”
When I did, I felt the ease of tension up to my shoulders again. “Wow,” I breathed.
Reese nodded, hands falling back to his lap. “You’re always going to be battling s
ore muscles if you don’t learn to relax while you play. If it’s not your wrists, it’ll be your shoulders. If it’s not your shoulders, it’ll be your fingers. Have you ever experienced pain in your right pinky?”
I gaped at him. “Oh my God, all the time, actually.”
He nodded again. “You curl it when it’s inactive instead of letting it rest, and that’s putting too much tension on the muscles keeping it wrapped up like that. It’s like gripping a pencil too tight and writing a two-thousand-word essay.”
I stretched my hands out in front of me, feeling the stiffness as if I really had been gripping a pencil too tightly.
“We can work on that next,” Reese said. “I have some finger exercises, some ways to practice relaxing the muscles you’re not using. But for now, I want you to try that song again, and this time, check in on all of those areas I just pointed out. As you play, actively relax your shoulders, your elbows, your wrists. Let them flow with you, with the music.” He raised both brows. “Okay?”
He was so close, sitting there on that bench beside me, that I noticed the gold flecks in his otherwise emerald eyes. They’d always seemed so dark to me, like they were brown or almost black. But there they were just a few inches from view now, green and gold and everything I never saw before.
I nodded. “Okay.”
Reese stood, making his way back to the corner, and I felt the loss of his heat like taking a jacket off in the middle of a blizzard. A shiver ran through me, but I ignored it, resting my hands on the keys a moment and mentally touching all the places he’d just pointed out before I began to play.
“Good,” Reese said when I was almost to the chorus. I glanced over to see him nodding, his thumb and forefinger framing his chin as he listened. “Much better.”
There was a knock at the door, and Reese’s eyes darted to it the same as mine. We both glanced at each other, Reese’s brows tugged inward before he pushed off the wall.
“Keep going,” he said, disappearing into the foyer.
I did as he said, mentally checking my shoulders and elbows before ascending into the next verse, but I craned my neck to get a better look when I heard a woman’s voice at the door. I couldn’t stretch back far enough to see who was there without my hands coming off the piano, but I could see Reese, and his hand was gripping the back of his neck like it was the only thing keeping him grounded at that moment.
He stepped back, and I got a flash of a purse swinging through the door before I ripped my gaze away and pretended I hadn’t taken my eyes off the piano. Reese stepped back into the room, and right behind him was a petite little brunette who had to be around his age. She was slight, like a bird, her skin a creamy porcelain white and eyes wide like saucers. Her bright smile doubled when she saw me, and she clasped her hands together, watching like I was what she’d come for.
My eyes found Reese, and he held my gaze for a short moment before clearing his throat and dropping his eyes to the piano.
I watched him a moment longer before offering the woman a tight smile, then I pulled my attention back to the piano, and focused on relaxing as I finished the song. When the last note played, I chanced another look in Reese’s direction.
And he was smiling.
I did it.
“Beautiful,” the woman said before Reese could speak, and I pulled my hands away from the keys, smiling at her again. She clapped softly, lifting her steepled fingers to her lips when she was done. Her eyes were wide with adoration. “That was just… stunning. So moving. So slow and sweet and romantic. You’re quite good, Miss Henderson.”
She knows me?
I folded my hands in my lap, noting Reese’s furrowed brows as he glanced between me and our new guest. “Thank you.”
“That was much better,” Reese finally said. “Much better, Sarah.”
I couldn’t help the way my smile spread at his words, at his affirmation. I could feel his pride like it was swelling in my own chest.
“Thank you,” I said again, cheeks warming.
The corner of his mouth quirked up, but it fell quickly, his eyes flashing to our guest before he cleared his throat again. “Sarah,” he said, gesturing to the woman. “This is Charlie Pierce. She’s a teacher at Westchester, and a long-time friend.”
His lips flattened with the end of that sentence, like the word friend tasted bitter on his tongue. And when my eyes snapped back to the woman, to Charlie Pierce, to the soft, sweet eyes and shining smile — everything clicked into place.
It’s her.
There was no other explanation for Reese’s sudden tension, for how he looked like he wanted to crawl out of his skin all of a sudden. He wasn’t introducing me to Charlie the way he would an actual friend. The introduction was laced with a sense of foreboding, and when he glanced at me again, the plea in his eyes was all I needed to put the puzzle pieces together.
I stood, smoothing my hands over my long, burgundy skirt before extending one toward Charlie. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Pierce.”
“And you, Miss Henderson,” she said, shaking my hand firmly. “Your uncle is a good friend of mine, too, and he loves to brag about you. Of course, in the photo he showed me of you earlier this week, you were maybe fifteen.” She assessed my appearance with a genuine smile, and I hated that I couldn’t find an ounce of malice in the stare. For some reason, I wanted to hate her — but she wasn’t giving me a single reason to. “You have certainly grown into a beautiful young lady.”
The smile on my lips felt foreign and weak. “Thank you. Let me guess, the picture… was it the one of me in the pink dress?”
Charlie dropped my hand and smiled. “I take it he’s not the only one who loves that photo, huh?”
“My whole family has that one framed,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. “Probably because it’s the only time they’ve managed to wrangle me into anything pink since I was seven.”
Charlie chuckled at that, and I didn’t miss the amused smirk on Reese’s face in my peripheral. I shifted on my toes, folding my hands behind my back as both mine and Charlie’s eyes drifted to him.
He shifted his weight uneasily, like he’d missed a cue. “Uh, Charlie was just stopping by to discuss the end-of-the-year concert we have next week,” he explained.
“Because someone has been dodging my calls,” she teased him, nudging him with an elbow. In her eyes, you would have thought they truly were close friends, like she could tease him like that without a single thing being weird or feeling off.
His eyes told a different story.
“We’ve worked together on it the last few years,” Reese explained. “And when Charlie heard you playing from the foyer… well, she had a great idea.”
I lifted one brow, first at him and then at Charlie, who was practically bursting as she waited for him to continue. When he didn’t speak fast enough, she spoke for him.
“We’d like you to open the concert this year.”
I blanched. “Me? Isn’t it for current students?”
“It is,” Charlie affirmed. “But, you’re the headmaster’s niece, and part of the family. It’d be such a treat, the parents would love it, your uncle would be so excited to show you off, and I know the kids would love to see someone so talented play.” She bounced a little, hands wrapped around the purse still hanging from her arm. “What do you think?”
I glanced at Reese, and he offered a tight smile. “It would be a good chance to practice in a performance atmosphere.”
His words were solid enough, but I didn’t miss the pained crease between his brows at the near proximity of Charlie. It was like he was holding his breath or breathing in straight smoke, and he wasn’t going to have another clean breath until she was out of his house.
Suddenly, that became my only mission.
“I think it sounds like a great idea,” I said, more to Reese than to Charlie.
“Wonderful!” she said, smile doubling at me before she turned back to Reese. “Well, again, sorry I interrupted your lesson. I just want
ed to go over those last details since I won’t be back in the office until Monday.”
“It’s no problem at all. Here, let me walk you out.” Reese extended one arm toward the door, the opposite hand hovering close to Charlie’s lower back. He didn’t touch her, though, and I wondered if he was afraid it’d burn if he did.
I stood rooted to the spot as Charlie said her goodbyes at the door, and when Reese rounded back into the room, he stopped at the door frame, leaning against it with his hands sliding into the pockets of his slacks. His eyes searched mine, but he didn’t say a word.
“That was her, wasn’t it?”
The only indication that he’d heard me was the slight bob of his Adam’s apple, and the barely visible crease between his brows.
My heart broke staring at him in that moment, seeing the pain that still crippled him when she was near.
“You work with her?” I asked after a long pause. “You see her every day, and you talk to each other… and… are you friends?”
Reese blew out a long breath, pushing off from the wall and crossing to where I stood. At first, I thought he was going to run right into me, blow me over like a stick in the wind, but he swept past, sitting at the piano behind where I stood.
“It’s complicated,” he said, hands already floating over the keys. It was like he needed to touch the piano in that moment, to let his hands do something familiar and comfortable now that he’d been shaken by Charlie’s unannounced visit.
“I’d say.”
I took a seat next to him, listening as he played, watching his face and wondering what the hell was going on in that dark, guarded mind of his.
“We were friends as kids, but there was always something more… we both knew it,” he said, eyes on his hands. “When I left for New York, for Juilliard, she asked me to kiss her. And I didn’t.” He swallowed, like that was the biggest mistake of his life. “And when I came back, she was married.”
He shook his head, hands picking up speed where they played.
“She wasn’t happy, not when I first came back. I hated it, hated seeing her so miserable, seeing her husband so unaffected by her visible pain. But, of course, once I showed up? Her husband woke up. He fought for her,” Reese said, hands pausing over the keys. They kicked back to life with his next words. “And he won.”
Best Kept Secrets: The Complete Series Page 59
