Tia went upstairs while Seth spoke to the woman who’d come through the gate. She’d been surprised when he told her his visitor was Shiloh’s mother, probably because he hadn’t acted very excited to see her. He didn’t say anything negative specifically—she’d had only his body language to judge by—but that had been telling enough.
She tried not to listen to the voices that were rising up from the living room below, but the vaulted entry acted as a megaphone, and when the conversation started to get heated, she couldn’t help being drawn to the banister.
“You said you came over here to make amends,” Seth said.
“I did” came Shiloh’s mother’s response.
“Until you learned that I’m not alone. Then you acted as though I’m somehow cheating on Shiloh.”
“Of course I didn’t mean it that way. I know you no longer owe her your fidelity. I—I was just shocked that you have a woman here with you. That’s all. In Silver Springs, as if...as if this wasn’t where you met Shiloh. I mean, it’s where we live, for crying out loud.”
“You have no idea how much Shiloh meant to me—how much she still means to me. But Tia isn’t the reason I won’t give you the money, so why would you accuse me of that?”
“Because you’ve never had a problem helping us out before!”
“I didn’t realize what was going on before! I don’t want to be viewed as an ATM.”
“We don’t view you as an ATM. It’s just... We thought you’d want to help us out—seeing that we’re family.”
Seth’s voice dropped, but Tia was so reeled in by the conversation, she found herself straining to hear the rest. “That’s the cruelest form of manipulation, and you know it,” he gritted out. “Before I had money, you didn’t want anything to do with me, did everything you could to tear my marriage apart. So forgive me if I don’t have a lot of trust where you’re concerned.”
“Maybe we weren’t excited about you at first, but...how were we to know you’d become a famous artist?”
“Did I have to become a famous artist to earn your approval?”
“You had to become something! You weren’t anything to start with. We only wanted what was best for our daughter.”
“You think rejecting me and making her feel as though she had to choose between us was a good thing? You cut her off for six months once you learned we’d eloped. It wasn’t until my mother told you I’d landed my first gallery showing that you finally called.”
“I don’t remember it that way,” she said, but even Tia could tell Lois was trying to cover for her past behavior.
“Well, I do,” Seth responded. “And that you’re so oblivious—or uncaring—of the damage you caused makes me resent it.”
“Any mother would be worried about her daughter getting involved with someone who...who has a criminal record,” Lois spat. “You tried to rob a bank, for goodness’ sake. You may think that’s nothing, but it’s not.”
“I never said it was nothing. But I was only thirteen when I got in trouble, and there were a lot of extenuating circumstances.”
“There’s no excuse for illegal behavior!” Lois insisted.
“I’m not excusing myself. I’m saying you didn’t even try to get to know me. Shiloh told you I wasn’t a bad person, but you thought I’d never amount to anything—”
“And if not for a little luck, we would’ve been right!” Lois yelled. “Just because people are stupid enough to pay you huge amounts of money for your so-called art doesn’t mean I don’t see it for what it is—garbage. That you’re now rich and famous doesn’t change who you really are.”
Tia’s hand flew to her mouth to cover her gasp. Those words were the sharpest of arrows, and she could only imagine how painful they were for Seth.
Once the echo of Lois’s outburst died away, silence ensued, and when Seth finally spoke, Tia could barely hear him. “You have some nerve denigrating my work and then asking me for the money it provides.”
“I—I didn’t mean anything against your work,” Lois said, trying to retrench. “I’m just saying...it’s not like you’re a brain surgeon or something. You’re no better than we are. We were just trying to take care of Shiloh as any good parents should!”
“I was taking care of her,” Seth bit out. “I would’ve died for her. That’s what you didn’t understand. We never asked you for anything, even when we didn’t know where our next meal would be coming from.”
“She would never have been at risk if not for you. You weren’t capable of taking care of her, and you proved it. If she had stayed in school, as we tried to convince her to do, she’d still be here,” she shouted and marched to the door, slamming it behind her.
Lois had shot into the entry hall before Tia could step back, out of sight. If Shiloh’s mother had merely looked up, she would’ve been spotted. But Lois had been too eager to get out of the house.
Seth, however, who’d followed Lois into the entryway, turned and saw her standing at the top of the stairs almost immediately, as if that was where he’d expected her to be all along.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Are you okay?”
He rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache.
“Seth?”
“I’m fine,” he insisted as he came up the stairs, but those words were so mechanical she knew better.
Tia was tempted to put her arms around him. She wanted to hold him and tell him that Lois must be blind. Both he and his work were magnificent. Maybe she would’ve done it, but he didn’t give her the chance.
Nodding politely as he passed, he went into the office, and she knew she wasn’t welcome to follow him when he closed the door.
Tia went back to the aviary to finish up with Kiki and stayed longer than usual, trying to give Seth the uninterrupted time he needed. After she was done playing with the bird, she got a book from the house library and tried to entertain and distract herself by reading. She couldn’t wait for Seth to emerge from the office, however, and kept tapping her foot and watching the clock as the hours passed.
By eleven, she was growing so agitated that she was beginning to pace. She’d made dinner, but when she’d gone up to knock on the office door, he’d told her he wasn’t hungry. She imagined him working feverishly, but it was equally possible that what’d happened had made it difficult for him to paint. She could tell by the pallor of his face when he’d come up the stairs how much Shiloh’s mother’s visit had hurt him.
Finally, she couldn’t take the wondering and the worrying any longer and went back to knock on the door. “Seth?” she said softly.
No answer.
“Seth?” she repeated, a little louder.
Still nothing. So she tried the handle.
It was locked. Why would he need to lock the door? Growing even more concerned, she hurried to her room, got a bobby pin out of her makeup bag and was able to bend it such that she could insert it into the lock and open the door.
Inside, the only light hung above the desk. It cast a pale gleam over the middle of the room but didn’t reach all the way to the edges. Obviously, Seth wasn’t working. She could see large covered objects and uncovered canvases and tables with paints and brushes and chisels and sanders scattered about, but she couldn’t see any of it in any detail, and she didn’t spot Seth until she’d wandered to the back of the room. Then she could make out a large, lanky body draped over a couch.
Her heart jumped into her throat—until she touched him and found him warm and breathing.
When he stirred, she said, “Thank goodness,” and sagged in relief.
His eyes opened, and he stared up at her with the same hollow expression she’d seen him wear as he’d slowly climbed the stairs after Lois stormed off.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “You scared me.”
He didn’t answer.
“Lois, or whatever her name is, was completely wrong about you,” she whispered. “You can’t believe her.”
“I wish things could’ve been different—from the beginning,” he finally said. “But more for Shiloh’s sake.”
What about him? After a childhood like his, he was probably used to being shunned, probably thought he must deserve it in some way. “From what I heard, they’re just blind.”
“No, Lois was right. I did try to rob a bank.”
She’d guessed it was true; he hadn’t tried to deny it. “At thirteen? What made you do it?”
“I was stupid.”
“Did you use a gun?”
“No. I didn’t even go in. I was driving the getaway car for a friend’s older brother and his buddy. I honestly didn’t care about the money. I was just...so self-destructive at that age, I guess.”
He said it as though he didn’t understand why he would be. But Tia guessed he’d been crying out for help, trying to make someone care. From what she’d learned so far, no one had given a damn about him until Aiyana came along. “We all do stupid stuff when we’re hurting,” she said and, probably because kissing him was all she could think about, lowered her mouth to his.
She meant only to give him a soft kiss to convince him of her sincerity. She didn’t think he’d accept anything more than that, so she was more than a little surprised when his hands came up right away, his fingers slid into her hair and he not only returned the kiss, he deepened it so quickly and so hungrily she got the impression he’d been starving for exactly this.
The shadows in the room were so heavy that Seth couldn’t see much of Tia’s face or body. It was the curves and lines he’d created while painting her that swam through his head as he propped himself above her on the thick Turkish rug covering the hardwood floor and tried to measure everything through touch and sensation alone. He wanted to drink in every detail, to commit her entire body to memory, so that he could make sure he’d accurately captured the essence of her in his work.
At least, that was what he told himself. He wanted to believe this was no different than last night, nothing more than a casual encounter for the sake of comfort and release, with the added benefit of inspiring new work that demonstrated more passion than he’d been able to summon in recent years.
But deep down, he knew tonight was different. It meant more than it should, and that made him feel as though Lois was right—he was betraying Shiloh.
At one point, he almost pulled away from her. He would have, if Tia hadn’t let go of him the second he panicked. He couldn’t see her scars in the dim light as she stared up at him with her arms resting above her head and her hair fanned out on the carpet. But even if he could, he didn’t think it would change his mind. To him, she looked perfect. Her chest was rising and falling fast—they were both breathless—and her lips were still wet since he’d just broken off a kiss. She had every right to ask him why he’d suddenly pulled away, but she didn’t. She didn’t put any pressure on him at all. He could tell she sensed that he was on the verge of bolting, but instead of trying to convince him to stay, she just waited to see what he decided.
Her immediate acceptance that he might have to abandon this encounter unexpectedly made getting up and walking away even harder. He could’ve made himself forego the pleasure. He’d been celibate since Shiloh died. But Tia had something else he craved, something beyond the physical, and he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was. Maybe it was that he understood and could identify, almost too well, with how difficult it was for her to allow someone else to get close to her right now, and that kinship drew him to her.
Whatever it was, instead of withdrawing, he dipped his head to kiss her again. She parted her lips and accepted the kiss, but she didn’t put her arms back around his neck. In his mind, that signaled that he’d spooked her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she whispered back. “But... I don’t want to continue if you’re not sure you want this.”
He closed his eyes as guilt wrestled with need. He’d always craved more love than he could get, had always been left wanting. Except when he was with Shiloh. Those years with her had been the only time in his life he’d been able to assuage that old ache.
“I want it too badly. That’s the problem,” he said and sank into her in relief when he felt her arms finally clasp tightly around him again.
Tia woke on the floor, tangled up in Seth, beneath a fur throw that had been on the couch.
She realized where she was quickly enough. The light glaring through the windows on either side of the huge room made that obvious. But it wasn’t until she heard, for the second or third time, what’d awakened her that she understood they were no longer alone in the house.
“Seth?” a male voice called as whoever it was came charging up the stairs.
“Someone’s here!” she whispered in alarm.
Seth covered a yawn. “What’s wrong?” he mumbled, still half-asleep.
Pulling away, she jumped up and scrambled to collect her clothes. “You have to get dressed.”
“Hey, where are you?” came the voice again. “You home?”
Once he heard the person, too, Seth said, “It’s Gavin” and sprang into action. But he’d barely managed to shove his legs into his jeans—was still buttoning his fly—when his brother walked through the door Tia had left standing open when she’d come in herself last night.
“Whoops!” Obviously embarrassed to find them only half-dressed and Tia with her back to him, struggling to get her yoga pants on, he whipped around to face the other direction. “I, uh, I’m sorry. I’ll be downstairs,” he said and left as fast as he could.
“Do all of your family just...walk in?” Tia asked once Gavin was gone. Eli had done the same thing, she remembered, when she was over for dinner.
“It’s my fault,” Seth explained. “I shouldn’t have given them the code to the gate. I just...didn’t have any reason not to at that point.”
And she was supposed to be staying in the guesthouse, so they’d have no reason to think they might walk in on something they shouldn’t.
“They aren’t used to worrying about interrupting anything like this with me,” Seth added as he found his shirt. “I haven’t been with anyone since Shiloh.”
Tia had wondered from the beginning if that was the case, and the way he’d acted last night had pretty much confirmed it. He’d seemed able to give himself a pass the first night, but he felt more guilt making love a second time. “I guess this is an office,” she said as she grabbed her bra off the floor. “It’s not like he barged into your bedroom.”
Gavin hadn’t seen as much as he would have had he not been yelling at the top of his lungs while looking for his brother. But he had seen enough to let him know what’d been going on.
Seth yanked his shirt over his head and combed his fingers through his hair in an attempt to get it to lie down. “I didn’t lock the front door after Lois left. I didn’t even think of it. That’s on me.”
“It was still daytime when she left. I didn’t think of it, either.” That surprised her a little now, given Kouretas’s visit to the front gate and his second attempt to get onto the property when Lois arrived, but Tia didn’t really expect him to walk into the house. That would be going too far even for someone like him, especially when Seth was around. But it was more than that. She’d been too consumed with how terrible Seth was feeling to be concerned for herself.
“Are you okay?” he asked, before starting toward the door.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Go talk to him. But I think I’ll go take a long shower. I’m not eager to face him.”
“Sorry for the unwelcome surprise,” he said with a rueful expression. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to come down.”
She let him go first, then peered over the banister to make sure the coast was clear before darting into her bathroom and locking herself in.
“Dude!” Gavin said as soon as Seth walked into the kitchen. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“You could’ve rung the bell.” Seth kept his voice low so that there was no chance Tia could hear them.
Gavin lowered his voice, too. “I did. You didn’t answer, but your car was in the drive, so I assumed you were sleeping—until I checked your bedroom. When you weren’t in there, I thought for sure you’d be working.”
“With Maxi’s bird talking at all hours of the day and night, I think I’ve quit paying attention to the sounds in this house. I didn’t hear a thing.” Hungry, Seth opened the refrigerator to get out the milk.
“You were probably worn out,” Gavin said, joking.
Seth shot him a dirty look when he couldn’t keep a straight face, which only made Gavin laugh harder.
“What’s going on between you two?” his brother asked.
“Nothing.” Seth replied firmly to let Gavin know he didn’t want to talk about what had happened with Tia.
Gavin lifted his hands as though at gunpoint. “Fine. I’ll say no more. But...seriously, I’m proud of you, bro.”
Seth didn’t ask why. He could guess. His family had been bugging him for a while, telling him that it was time to get back to the business of living. Now Gavin assumed he had. But Seth wasn’t sure he was capable of moving on, despite how it might appear.
Purposely changing the subject, he said, “So why are you here? Don’t you work today?”
“Mom’s having a meeting with the teachers over lunch to get ready for the school play and the big Christmas party, so I came into town to pick up some sandwiches for them. On the way back, I stopped to grab a coffee at the Daily Grind and saw Lois Ivey there.”
Seth refrained from grimacing at his mother-in-law’s name as he selected a box of cereal from the cupboard. “And?” He didn’t plan to tell Gavin what’d happened with Shiloh’s mother if he didn’t have to.
“She was meeting that guy we saw at The Blue Suede Shoe who was asking about Tia on Saturday night.”
Seth froze. “What?”
“She was there with that guy—Kouretas or whatever his name is. I saw them at a table in the far corner and thought it was kind of weird. How would she know him?”
Seth could answer that. She’d run into him at the gate yesterday. He’d probably convinced her to take his card, and she must’ve contacted him afterward. “Did she see you?”
“I don’t think so. That place is always packed. And they were deep in discussion.”
Seth poured the cereal. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“What could they have to discuss?” Gavin asked. “Lois doesn’t know Tia is staying here, does she? Even if she does, it’s none of her business. Maxi can invite whomever he wants to stay at his place. Her daughter has been gone for three years. She can’t expect you to spend the rest of your life alone.”
The matter-of-fact way Gavin addressed something that still cut Seth deeply was part of the reason he typically steered clear of the subject with his family. They didn’t understand why he couldn’t just pick up and move on, and he was tired of having them prod him.
Ignoring the last part of what Gavin had said, he took a bite of cereal and spoke around it. “Maybe word’s getting around town.” He spoke as though he was only speculating. But he knew Lois was aware of Tia. He also knew she wasn’t happy they were staying on the property together. She claimed she’d stopped by to apologize but had wound up insinuating that he wouldn’t help them out financially because it no longer served him now that he had his eye on another woman. Which was preposterous. Giving the Iveys money had never served him. While he’d been trying to be a good son-in-law and help whenever he could, they’d only ever been using him.
Gavin checked his watch. “I’ve got to go or I’m going to be late with the sandwiches. I just thought you should know. I mean, she’s the worst person Kouretas could team up with, right?”
Seth was more than a little confused by that statement. “You mean because she’s my mother-in-law?”
“Because she and Graham are desperate for money, and Kouretas has made it clear—to several people around town—that he’s willing to pay for a little help. You know Graham’s got a gambling habit, don’t you?”
Seth nearly choked on his cereal. “Since when?”
“For a while.”
“That had to have started after Shiloh died.” Surely, if it was before, he’d know.
Or would he?
Gavin rubbed his chin. “Might’ve started before that. It’s been going on long enough that word’s beginning to spread. Savanna works with Lois’s sister, who’s mentioned on more than one occasion that they’re always fighting about money.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Seth asked.
Gavin shrugged. “There didn’t seem to be any reason. I figured it was his escape, how he was dealing with the loss of his daughter. I mean...it’s their business—until it’s not—and now, with Kouretas in town, I think it’s not.”
Of course. Gavin wasn’t much for gossip. And he had no idea that Seth had been giving the Iveys money. Seth had never mentioned that to anyone. Why would he? “Where is he gambling? At the local casinos?”
“I don’t think so. Savanna told me he goes to Vegas almost every weekend. It’s just an hour-long flight.”
Shocked, Seth rubbed his chin. That explained a lot. He should’ve guessed. But after losing Shiloh, he hadn’t kept up with what was going on with his in-laws or anyone else. “That’s good information to have.”
“I’m surprised it’s news to you.”
“I don’t talk to them much these days.” He doubted they would’ve told him, anyway. That wouldn’t be conducive to getting more financial help.
“I’d better go,” Gavin said.
“Right.” Seth thanked him and walked him out.
“Oh, and don’t worry,” Gavin said as he climbed into his truck.
“About what?” said Seth.
His brother closed the door and rolled down the window before starting the engine. “I won’t tell anyone you’re messing around with a freaking movie star, except Mom and Eli and Savanna and—”
Seth scowled as he smacked the door. “Keep it to yourself.”
Gavin laughed at his response. “Come on, bro. Your secret’s safe with me.”
“It’d better be,” he grumbled and tilted his head with an I mean business look, but that only made Gavin laugh harder, and Seth couldn’t help chuckling as his brother swung around to roll down the drive.
Seth felt his smile fade as he watched the gate close behind Gavin, though. Now he understood why his in-laws were always so desperate for money—and what he’d been feeding when he’d written them checks in the past.
“You’d better not be helping Kouretas after all I’ve done for you,” he muttered, thinking of Lois.
But after what he’d learned this morning, he had a strong feeling she wouldn’t hesitate.