“I think sometimes fear can make us shut off parts of ourselves, and we think that means they’re no longer there, but they are,” Addie told her gently. “You’ve probably been worried that your voice might not be the same, or that you might hurt it again, so your subconscious mind did what it had to do to protect you from wanting to use it.” She fluttered her fingers. “And poof, no music.” Now she reached over and covered Pippa’s hand. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s a lot of trauma, both physical and emotional.”
Pippa squeezed Addie’s hand. “Thank you,” she said sincerely. Then she smiled and her eyes were filled with so much warmth and affection, it made Seth’s heart squeeze in his chest when she turned that gaze to him.
“Actually, someone really special said almost the exact same thing to me.”
Seth winked at her, silently sending her all the strength he had. Addie Pearl reached under the table and gave his knee a strong squeeze and a pat as well. He exchanged a quick glance with her and knew she was rooting for Pippa every bit as much as he was.
Pippa looked back to Addie Pearl. “As time went on, it was harder to just relax and try to let it come to me naturally. The whole world was watching, waiting. I had a lot of people who were also being absolutely amazing to me, so much love, so much support. But it still felt like I was under a microscope. The more time passed, the more speculation and rumors circulated. The gossip-rag insanity began to take off with the most outlandish rubbish you’ve ever heard. And though I’ve grown used to that, as much as any person can, when it was attached to this particular issue, well, I admit it did play some mind games with me.”
Seth watched Pippa as he listened to her, and felt like he was having a little of that out-of-body experience he and Pippa had talked about when she’d first arrived, which seemed a lifetime ago now. He was watching the Pippa he knew, the warm, generous, funny, confident, ball of energy who’d turned his whole world upside down. But he was listening to a completely different Pippa. Not the vulnerable one—that woman he’d begun to know as well, who tugged so hard at his heart. No, this was Pippa the musician, Pippa the concert performer, Pippa the world-renowned singer. He hadn’t as yet met that woman.
He also felt like a fool. Not only for not grasping—not truly—the totality of what she was really grappling with, professionally—but also for not realizing what hung in the balance for her when making a decision to get involved with him, an American with a life half a world from hers. And she thought she lacked courage?
“Then Katie—my sister—came to me, asking if an old friend of hers from uni could use the home I’d bought in our village, where I’d grown up,” Pippa was saying, “while offering me the chance to come here on a sort of house swap deal that would be completely under the radar and off the grid ... and I jumped at it. It was the perfect escape.” She looked at Seth and smiled. “I couldn’t have known how perfect.”
Seth hadn’t known it was possible to fall in love and feel his heart break all at the same time. She was it for him. He was done questioning that. But how on earth did he think he’d be able to hold on to her? He belonged to a small plot of land in the mountains of Virginia. She belonged to the world.
She held his gaze for a moment longer, her smile faltering just a bit at whatever she was reading in his eyes. He immediately grinned and winked at her. She didn’t need his worries and fears right now; she had enough of her own. Just as instantly, she winked back.
Her shoulders relaxed a little as she looked to Addie. “And it’s working,” Pippa told her, banked excitement creeping into her voice now. She leaned closer and rested her arms on the table, her big eyes sparkling. “I’ve finally heard the music, Addie Pearl. Standing beside Big Stone Creek, watching the waterwheel, hearing the sound of the falls blend with the rhythm of that big, beautiful waterwheel.”
Addie took Pippa’s hands and gripped them between her own, her eyes sparkling as well. “I knew you would,” she told her.
Pippa beamed and the transformation was brilliant. “It was like a gospel sounded inside my head, and the skies parted, angels singing.” She laughed. “Ridiculously over-the-top descriptions do not do the moment justice, trust me. It was, in the truest sense of the word, awesome.” She laughed again. “And such a huge relief, I don’t mind telling you.”
Addie laughed and beamed herself. “It was in you all along, honey. You just needed the right key to unlock it.”
Pippa looked at Seth, her eyes shining. “I did, indeed.” Addie Pearl still held her left hand and Pippa reached across the table for Seth’s hand and held on tight to them both for a long moment, before finally letting go. She let out a long, happy breath and fanned her glistening eyes with a little laugh, then took another sip of wine.
Seth might have had a little something in his eye as well, and noted Addie Pearl was experiencing a similar difficulty.
“And so, it’s all begun,” Pippa said. “I didn’t know where that first moment would take me, but it’s happening, and I’m just along for the ride.” She turned to Addie Pearl. “The other night, sitting on the steps of my cabin, the night Bailey was there for our movie night, I sang the line of a song when I was talking to Seth,” she said. “And I wasn’t even aware of it.” Her eyes wide, she laughed again as she lifted her hands. “How crazy is that? A whole year of all but wrapping my throat in cotton batting, and then I just go blithely singing along without even knowing it?”
“And how was it?” Addie asked, though the twinkle in her eyes said she already knew the answer.
“Absolutely fine,” Pippa said. “I mean, I think I sound a little different now. My speaking voice is huskier these days.” She shrugged. “That might work for me, who knows?”
“And what about now?” Addie asked. “Still singing?”
Pippa’s smile faded a bit at that, back to the more self-deprecating one from before. “Not yet.”
Addie looked dismayed. “Child, you need to—”
“I know I do, Addie. I truly do. But it was like, the moment I realized I’d sung, everything clamped up inside me again. And singing a line, or even a song to myself is one thing. I do sound different, and there’s . . . a lot to process.”
“You can’t process what you aren’t doing,” Addie said, not unkindly.
“Right,” Pippa said with a sigh. “I know.” She took a breath and squared her shoulders, looking at Addie, then Seth. “And that is precisely where my big plan with Will and Jake comes in.”
Chapter Fifteen
“What on earth were you thinking?” she murmured under her breath, as she parked Bluebell in the driveway in front of Wilson McCall’s sprawling ranch-style home.
Wilson came out on the front porch as she turned off the engine. He didn’t lift a hand in a welcome wave, but neither did he look anything like the furious man who’d stormed into that music classroom.
She took a shaky breath, then another one, then forced herself to let go of the steering wheel and slide out of the truck. It was a beautiful spring day, though the breeze was a bit nippy. It was past the halfway mark in April now and the days had been mostly warm and sunny, with the occasional fierce thunderstorm tossed in to keep things interesting. She loved those days the most. The trees were budding out and starting to bloom lower down in the valley, but up here things took a little longer to get started.
As she walked up the stone pathway, itself a work of art, she noted the rows of pretty purple and white crocuses sprouting cheerfully all along the front of the holly shrubs planted in front of the house. She smiled at the perky little blooms and tried to will their jaunty cheer into her body.
She finally looked toward Will as she drew close enough to see his expression. He’d been short with her on the phone when she’d called and asked to see him, but he’d agreed. So it was no surprise that he didn’t seem overjoyed to see her, but at least he didn’t appear to be angry. Well, there’s a start.
“Beautiful place you have,” she told him, smiling as she clo
sed the last of the distance between them. The home was a sprawling single level, just outside of Blue Hollow Falls proper, so not as high up as Seth’s place, or Addie’s, or her cabin, but still well above the valley. She could hear a rushing sound and realized it was water. “Is that Big Stone Creek?”
He nodded. “Just down the hill out back.” His expression remained impassive.
She extended her hand. “Let’s start over, okay? Pippa MacMillan. Please call me Pippa.”
Will took her hand and gave it a simple but decent shake. His palm was work-roughened and there were more than a few scars marking the back of his hand and his forearm, but she supposed that came with the territory for a stonemason. “Wilson McCall,” he said a bit gruffly. “Will is fine.”
“I’m guessing you did the stonework. It’s gorgeous.” The house was stained wood, stone, and glass, with a shaker roof and stacked stone chimney. The variety of materials blended together organically, and set deep in the trees as it was, the combination looked strong, earthy, and welcoming. It was an older-looking structure, but the remodel was breathtaking. Pippa paused before walking up the steps to the door to admire the inlaid stone landing in front of the bottom step. It was a sunburst, made entirely out of cut stone. She glanced to Will. “Your design?”
He nodded. “A present to my mother some years back.”
“It’s beautiful. I bet she loved it. Mabry Jenkins told me this place belonged to your grandfather?”
Will looked a bit caught off guard, and just nodded. “How’s Mabry doing?” Will asked, as he gestured for her to go on up the steps.
“Pretty well, everything considered,” Pippa told him. “He’s going to be moved to a rehab facility next week to start physical therapy.” She smiled as Will opened the front door for her and ushered her inside. “He’s a little grumpy about that, but the attitude will serve him well, I think, as long as he’s not too impatient.”
Will motioned her through the small foyer and living room toward the back of the house. “I thought we could sit on the back porch. I made some coffee.”
She smiled, surprised and encouraged by the effort. “That sounds perfect. You didn’t have to go to the trouble.”
He didn’t say anything to that, but led the way through the kitchen, where he picked up the pot of coffee sitting on the warmer, and nodded to the mugs, the small pitcher of cream, and the sugar bowl sitting on a little tray next to them. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
She scooped them up and then followed him out the sliding back doors into a deep, screened-in porch that extended out a good several yards off the back of the house. She quickly realized that the place had two stories as there was a basement below. The property fell away from the back of the house in a steep pitch down to the creek. So the porch was really more of a screened-in deck that ran about two-thirds the length of the house and provided a spectacular view of forest and hills behind the house. The sound of rushing water from the creek mixed with the bird calls and other forest creatures. She set the mugs down on the wicker coffee table that fronted a thickly padded wicker couch and walked to the fully screened-in wall in front of her. Small planters filled with various herbs lined the wood beam that separated the top half of the screen from the bottom.
“This is spectacular. So peaceful and serene.” She turned to him and smiled. “Jake described it pretty well, but I don’t know that any amount of words could do it justice.”
Will nodded, and motioned for her to take a seat.
Procrastination time was over.
She sat on the wicker couch facing the scenery and he sat in one of the two Adirondack chairs that faced the wicker couch on the other side of the coffee table. She offered him a mug but he waved it off. “I’d like to say something before you get into whatever it is you’ve come to discuss.”
Pippa set her mug down untouched and folded her hands in her lap. “Sure,” she said, trying to quell the sudden uproar of butterflies in her stomach and being entirely unsuccessful.
If she’d been expecting a more direct apology regarding his behavior at the mill—and she hadn’t necessarily been—then she was destined to be disappointed.
“Jake and I have talked about what happened at the mill,” he began.
“Mr. McCall, you don’t have to—”
“Will,” he said. “And I’d like to.” She nodded and he went on. “Jake has apologized for not talking to me about his plans, and I’ve apologized to him about coming in the way I did. He’s still grounded, and my decision stands on that.”
Pippa nodded again. “Understood,” she said. “I’m not here to talk you into letting Jake off the hook. I’m as disappointed in him in that regard as you are.”
That seemed to surprise Will a bit. Good, she thought.
“Given what you said at the mill, I know you’re familiar with my music and it’s come to mean something to you,” she went on, apparently surprising him again with her directness. With that, she gained a little more confidence. “I know that might be more about who my voice reminds you of than me personally, but I’m touched nonetheless.” She paused, and though she saw him tense, he didn’t immediately escort her out, so she went on. “From one fiddle player to another, that’s high praise.”
His expression began to shut down at that, as she’d anticipated it would, so she hurried on.
“If it’s okay with you,” she pushed on, “I’d like to tell you a bit about what’s been going on with me this past year.”
His expression was unreadable now, but he motioned for her to go on, and picked up his coffee mug, which she took as a good sign.
Pippa told him pretty much the same things she’d told Addie the night before. She didn’t give him much, if any room, to comment, nor did he seem inclined to do so, but he appeared to be listening, and that was all she could hope for.
“I guess you can hear from me talking to you that my voice isn’t the same as it was before, so that adds to the anxiety,” she said, as she concluded her story. “I think it will be interesting to find out how it affects the songs I want to sing, the stories I want to tell, but there’s also the chance that it won’t be a sound that will resonate with the fans of my past music. So that adds to the worry.”
“At the risk of sounding rude,” he said, finally interrupting, “what does any of that have to do with me? Or Jake?”
Pippa could feel the tremors in her fingers, and her knees, and carefully set the mug back on the table. Moment of truth time. “I know everyone was a little taken aback when you came into the music room that day. It was obvious you were angry, and that there was pain behind that anger.” She leaned forward then, and her voice softened. “But what I latched on to wasn’t the anger, or even the pain. It was the other thing I saw that I recognized right up close and personal. Fear.”
Will put his mug down and started to rise.
“Please,” Pippa said quietly. “Please just let me say this—then you can toss me out and I won’t bother you again.” She looked at him until he met her gaze, and she let him see everything she felt, all of it, including the utter terror she’d experienced in the past year. “It’s been a lot longer for you, since you closed yourself off. And I fear—feared—that’s exactly where I was headed.”
Will sat back in the chair, but there was nothing relaxed about him now. His gaze was fierce and agitation fairly radiated off of him.
“I’m not passing judgment on your choice. I know it sounds like I am, but that is something I would never do. The difference between us is, I don’t want to be closed off. I want to confront the fear.” She clenched her hands into fists as her tone became more intent. “I want to conquer it! I want to stomp it down until it can’t ever scare me like that again. Music, song, was my best and closest friend, it was my companion and my protector. So I simply won’t let it go,” she said, heat rising now in her own voice. “And yet, here I sit, a full year later, and what have I done to thwart the fear? Not a single thing.”
She rubbed her
now damp palms against the legs of her trousers. “Until I came here.” She looked at him, her walls and defenses completely down. “It felt like my last chance. To figure everything out, or just give up. But how do you make your music come back? Sure, I could just up and force myself to start singing again, but I couldn’t force the music back into my head, or into my soul.”
He was listening now, and despite the tight set of his jaw and his shoulders, the ferocity in his gaze was tempered now, with compassion. And yes, maybe with a little empathy, too. It was more than she’d hoped for and she felt instantly humbled by it.
“Deep down,” she continued, “I honestly didn’t think coming here would make a difference. I did it because my sister Katie really wanted me to, and I wanted her to think I was really trying. I didn’t—don’t—want to let her down, or any of my family, though they’d support me if I never sang again. At first, I was just so . . . relieved to be here, to not be back home in the midst of everyone tiptoeing around me, waiting to see if I’d sing again, that I was happy. And then I immediately got caught up in the life here.” She paused then, and took a sip of her coffee. She’d been speaking so earnestly, her throat was tight to the point of feeling raw.
Will said nothing, just waited for her to continue, and for the first time, she thought maybe putting herself through this might actually help someone other than just herself.
“Blue Hollow Falls reminds me of my home in County Donegal. Not the mountains, but the farms, the slower way of life, and most definitely the people. Everyone pitching in, doing for others, gossiping their fair share, too,” she added, trying for a smile, but too caught up to wait for it. “People willing to give whatever is necessary to help a neighbor. Meeting Mabry, Seth, Noah, Bailey, and your son, I felt instantly welcomed and immediately part of things.” She set her mug down again. “Then Mabry had his accident, and I got caught up taking care of goats and making friends with a llama. I got to see the mill, meet all the artists, and I got so swept up in everything that I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself, or worry about what would happen if I never sang again. And then ... to my utter shock, my music came back. Or it’s started to. I want to build on that before I can chicken out, so it won’t disappear on me again.”
Bluestone & Vine Page 24
