Tia was finally feeling more like herself than she had since the accident. If she continued to improve, she thought she might be able to rebound completely and was certainly going to strive for that. She wasn’t the only person in the world to suffer. Like everyone who’d ever coped with a tragedy, she had to pick herself up, dust herself off and keep going, assuming there would be better days ahead even if she couldn’t imagine, right now, how there could be.
Of course, in order to do that, she had to let go of everything she’d wanted so desperately and quit mourning it. Maybe her future wouldn’t involve the fame and fortune she’d imagined when Expect the Worst vaulted her onto the international scene. Anyone would grieve the loss of such a promising career. But her life could still hold great value and meaning, couldn’t it?
She was beginning to believe it could. There was just one problem. She was afraid this new lease on life might be tied to Seth, even though he’d made his situation clear from the beginning. Not only was he a widower who refused to let go, he was still dealing with issues from his childhood and probably always would be, at least to a degree. Letting herself care too much about him, especially while she was in such a fragile state, would be unwise.
Yet...she couldn’t control what she felt. And she was beginning to feel a lot.
She should probably try to put more distance between them by moving back into the guesthouse, at least. Living in the main house made her hyperaware of Seth and everything about him. Even when he was upstairs working, as he was now, she couldn’t quit thinking about him. Last night had been all the more satisfying because there’d been an emotional connection, too. He certainly seemed to feel more than he had before. She guessed those emotions weren’t all positive—he’d nearly stopped for a reason—but he wouldn’t have reacted that way if he hadn’t been feeling more than he wanted to feel, too.
Regardless of what he’d been experiencing, she’d felt so close to him that she hadn’t even tried to get up and leave after it was over, and neither had he. They’d spent the rest of the night together.
Did that deeper connection mean anything? Would he ever allow it to?
She couldn’t imagine he would, which brought her back to trying to protect herself by putting more distance between them. She should move back to the guesthouse, but she knew he’d never let her, not while Kouretas posed a threat. And now that they’d crossed certain boundaries, it was going to be all the more difficult to make sure they didn’t cross them again—and again and again.
“I’m heading for another crash,” she grumbled to Kiki as she fed and played with Maxi’s pet. “Only this one is going to shatter my heart instead of my face.”
Kiki was beginning to recognize her and vocalize more often. Tia found it funny that the bird had said hello when she entered the atrium today. She doubted Kiki understood the meaning of the sounds she made, but the bird had impeccable timing.
After spending two hours trying to teach the parrot some new words—again without success—she let herself out of the atrium. She wished she could go swimming. The pool was heated, and she was itching to do something—another sign that she was healing. But she didn’t dare. For all she knew, Kouretas was perched on the fence with a telephoto lens just waiting for her to step outside.
She wasn’t going to make it that easy.
Instead, she used her ear buds so she could listen to music without disturbing Seth and carried her laptop to one of the recliners in the living room. She couldn’t go out in the real world, but she could venture into the virtual one, as long as she was brave enough to face whatever she might read about her role in the movie, her accident and public speculation as to the cause and aftermath. As much as she tried to convince herself that she didn’t care who was nominated for an Oscar this year, she couldn’t help being interested. What names were being bandied about? And was hers one of them?
She checked her email first. She’d received hundreds of messages. Most were spam, but there was also a decent outpouring of support from people she’d gone to acting school with and various other people she knew in the industry and from other jobs where she’d worked. There were even some messages from people in her hometown—an elementary schoolteacher and the owner of the feed-and-tackle shop where she’d worked after school and on weekends for two years.
She could get past this, she told herself. She had no choice.
Finally, she checked to make sure the date for the Oscars hadn’t changed. It was still scheduled for February 27 at five o’clock, and the nominees were to be revealed mid-January, which was less than a month away.
After twisting around to make sure that she was still alone, she typed the title of her film into the search engine and began to read the reviews. Some she’d seen before; others were new. But she took the time to look at every one, because she was working up the nerve to Google her own name.
Seth had finished his painting of Tia. It’d come together faster than anything he’d done in recent years—at least since Shiloh died—and he really liked it. He thought it was some of his best work.
As he stood back, he wondered if she’d recognize herself. He covered it, just in case, but doubted that was necessary. To other people, even to her, it would simply look like a modern depiction of a nude woman. No one besides him would be able to recognize the things that were unique to her. That was the beauty of expressing himself the way he did: there was still plenty of ambiguity.
He had little doubt this painting would fetch a high price if he was put it up for sale, but he had no plans to do so. He was going to keep it as a reminder of the Christmas he’d been dreading but was actually beginning to enjoy.
He went over to the bar to clean his hands and brushes. He really needed to work on the sculpture for San Francisco—this morning he’d yet again had to put off the lawyer who’d hired him—but he was done for the day. Not only was he getting hungry, he was eager to see what Tia was doing. She’d been so quiet.
She didn’t look up when he walked into the living room. She probably couldn’t hear him. She had ear buds in and seemed to be concentrating on her computer.
Because the entry into the living room was behind her, he could see that she was reading about Oscar predictions for the year and wondered how it was making her feel.
“Do you think you’ll make the list?” he asked.
Startled, she closed her laptop and removed her ear buds. “Oh, hi. I didn’t hear you come in. Are you all done for the day?”
“I think so.”
“Did you finish what you were working on?”
He almost said yes but didn’t want her to ask to see it, so he said, “Not yet.”
“How long does it normally take you to create a painting?”
He shrugged. “Depends. If it comes together easily, it might only take a few days.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“I can fight with it for months.”
“Have you ever created something you didn’t like and gave up on it in the end?”
“Plenty of things,” he said as he went to the refrigerator. “I think most artists are their own worst critics.”
“What do you do with the ones you don’t like?”
He poured himself a glass of milk and downed it. “I toss them.”
“In the trash?” She set her computer aside and got up. “I hope you’re kidding. There’s got to be a lot of people who would love to have what you cast off.”
Did she want one of his paintings? She’d been complimentary of his work, especially last night. She’d had some nice things to say about him, too, but he was trying not to think about that, because then he started thinking about what’d happened right after. “I have to be happy with it, or it doesn’t leave my studio,” he said, unapologetically. To him, his work had to have some integrity. He wasn’t going to lower his standards.
“I can understand why you’d only want your best out there,” she conceded. “Just seems like a waste, given that what’s bad to you is probably still very good to others.”
He gestured at her laptop. “What’d you learn?”
“About?”
He raised his eyebrows. “The Oscars.”
Obviously not pleased that he’d caught her, she scowled at him. “My name is on some lists, but it’s all just speculation. Doesn’t mean anything. I wouldn’t be surprised if the film was nominated, though. It was an excellent script, and our director did a fabulous job.”
He could tell she was trying to talk herself down so that she wouldn’t be disappointed later. She’d faced so much disappointment of late. “Whether anyone else recognizes it or not, Maxi told me you were the one who brought the script to life, that it was your performance that set the tone for your costar, too, even though he’s a big deal in Hollywood right now.”
A blush crept into her cheeks, but he could tell she was flattered, which had been his intent. She deserved to enjoy at least some accolades for what she’d accomplished. How many people ever made it to the level of acting she had? “Maxi’s giving me too much credit,” she said.
“Why don’t we watch your movie together tonight?” he asked.
“No way.”
“Why not? I haven’t seen it.”
“You don’t need to see it. You’re not a big movie buff. You’ve said so before. And that’s fine.”
He was suddenly much more interested in viewing the film. But in case it would only remind her of what she might have done if only—he didn’t push. “What should we do tonight, then?”
“You don’t have to see your family?”
“Nope. My mother said she needed to spend some time with Cal, that she’s been so busy she feels as though she’s been neglecting him—which is just as well, because I wouldn’t leave you here alone with Kouretas around, anyway.”
“You don’t have to babysit me,” she said. “You can go hang out with your brothers at the bar and play some pool or whatever. I’ll stay in and keep the doors locked.”
“It’s a weeknight. Gavin and Eli are both with their families.”
“We could have a glass of wine and sit in the hot tub,” she suggested.
“What about Kouretas?”
“It’s dark. If we keep the lights off, he won’t be able to get anything—not from beyond the fence.”
“And if he comes in the yard?”
“I’ll wear one of your ball caps and my big sunglasses. Even if he gets close, he can’t snap anything worth selling, not without sufficient lighting.”
Made sense. “Okay. That just leaves one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“Who’s making dinner?”
She laughed. “I guess I will, but I miss the good old days when you did it without me asking.”
Unable to resist her smile, he grinned back. “How about we do it together?”
Tia was in trouble. It was a different kind of trouble than she’d ever been in before, but it was trouble all the same. She realized that when she enjoyed cooking with Seth as much as doing anything else with him.
While she chopped vegetables and he made the stock for chicken noodle soup, they talked about his home in San Francisco and how much he liked the Bay Area. They also talked about the projects he needed to finish for work in the next six months, and he told her a little more about Aiyana, his brothers and their families. He asked where she lived in LA and if she planned to stay there—she had to say she didn’t know—but they were both careful not to bring up Shiloh or the accident, except to crack a joke about the possibility of Kouretas being crouched outside the window, frustrated that they’d lowered the blinds.
Blocking out the outside made Maxi’s mansion feel much more intimate. Being around Seth also had the tendency to make Tia feel as though the rest of the world had faded away and the terrible things that were so upsetting didn’t matter anymore—another sign that she was getting in over her head. She worried about what was happening to her, but she wasn’t going to let those worries ruin this night. She had the chance to feel good again, for a while anyway, and she was going to take it.
They cleaned up after they ate and changed. Seth brought her a ball cap and laughed when it was so big he had to keep adjusting the back.
Once she’d donned her sunglasses, too, and he seemed satisfied that even if Kouretas got a picture it wouldn’t be good enough to sell, he stuck his head out into the yard. “Looks clear, but...let me double-check first. I’ll come back for you.”
He didn’t give her the chance to argue. He strode out, and she peered through a crack in the blinds, trying to see as much as she could while he walked the perimeter.
The light in the pool and hot tub suddenly went off. Immediately afterward, the low lighting in the yard went dark, too. It was pitch-black when he came back for her.
“All clear,” he murmured, keeping his voice low, and took the wine bottle, since she was carrying both glasses.
Using the flashlight on his phone, he guided them to the hot tub.
Chills ran through Tia’s body when she first got in. With a deep sigh, she tilted her head back to gaze up at the stars as Seth poured the wine. “It’s gorgeous out here,” she said as she accepted a glass.
“I like Silver Springs.”
“Maybe you’ll move here at some point in the future.”
“Maybe. One day. I’ve always thought I might come back, when the timing is right. How’d it go with Kiki today?”
“Pretty good, although she refuses to let me teach her anything new. I think she’s just being stubborn.”
“You’ve only been here a week or so. Maybe it takes longer.”
“It must,” she allowed.
He gazed around. “I wonder how long Kouretas will stay in town.”
“I can’t imagine getting a picture of me is important enough that he’ll last more than a few days,” she said so Seth would quit worrying about him. But knowing the persistence of the paparazzi, she wouldn’t put it past Kouretas to last a week or longer. It could even be that their encounter at the gate had made him that much more determined to win the power struggle that’d sprung up between them.
“Tell me a little more about your family,” Seth said. “You don’t seem eager to talk about them.”
She wasn’t. “There’s really nothing to say.”
“They live in Iowa?”
“Yeah. In a small farming community.”
“When I had my first showing in New York, Shiloh and I couldn’t afford to fly there. So we drove clear across the country.”
“Didn’t that cost more than flying?”
His grin slanted to one side as though he was slightly embarrassed. “No, because we slept in our car.”
She chuckled. “You climbed up the hard way, too.”
“I started with nothing. Actually, I started in the negative on most counts.”
“And look where you are now.”
“Look at you,” he said.
“I almost got somewhere. And I started in the negative, too,” she said, jokingly.
“In what way?”
Should she tell him? If she did, he’d be the first person she’d told since leaving Iowa—other than Barbie. “You know I grew up on a farm.”
“Yes.”
“Well, it wasn’t just any farm.”
“What does that mean?”
“I grew up a Mennonite.”
He sat forward. “A what? That’s Amish—or something similar—isn’t it?”
“Sort of. They both have Anabaptist roots.”
“How is an Anabaptist any different from a regular Baptist?”
“Mennonites believe in baptizing as an adult, not as an infant.”
“Is that the only difference?”
“For the most part. That and some other very small differences in the way they practice their religion.”
“Like...”
“Mennonites typically meet in a church instead of a house or barn, for one.”
“Your parents don’t drive a horse and buggy, do they?”
“No. My parents have a car. It’s a black jalopy. We’ve never been able to afford much. But it’s a car. Old Order Mennonites reject certain technologies, but most drive cars, use electricity, have a house phone, and so on. And my parents went through periods when they were more progressive than others of their faith.”
“In what way?”
“Well, we had a TV.”
“That’s walking on the wild side?”
She laughed. “Yeah. It’s letting Satan into your home.”
“Doesn’t that depend on what you watch?”
“They don’t really see it that way. We only had it for a few years, anyway—until I started talking about becoming an actress.”
“And then?”
“I came home from Bible study one day to find it gone.”
When Seth didn’t say anything right away, Tia wondered if he thought that was crazy. To a more modern, secular ear, it had to sound totally nuts, if only because it was so foreign. “What about cell phones?” he asked.
“My father has one. So does my sister’s husband.”
“What—women can’t have them?”
“According to the men, they don’t need one, since they’re primarily for business.”
“And only men do business.”
“Right.”
“Do you have to call a landline to talk to your mother, then?”
“Unless it’s at night, after my father’s gone to bed. Then she’ll text me sometimes—and delete it afterward so that he doesn’t see it.”
“Would he get mad?”
“He wouldn’t like it, and it’s a sin to displease your husband.”
“Hm. Maybe I need to look into this religion.”
She scowled at him. “Not funny.”
“And your sister, who’s younger, goes along with this?”
“For the most part, although she uses her husband’s cell phone more often than my mother uses my father’s. I think it’s one of the compromises he’s made to try to keep her happy.”
He wiped away the drops of water condensing on his face. “I wasn’t brought up with religion. I admit that whole world seems strange to me.”
“You’re not alone. That’s part of the reason I don’t talk about it. If you haven’t lived as part of a similar community, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like, but the pressure to stay and conform is enormous.”
“The Mennonites aren’t as strict as the Amish, are they?”
“Not really. But it can be hard to tell the difference between them, especially because they can dress and look so much alike.”
“Are the pictures shown in the media accurate?”
“If they depict the men with a bowl cut and a beard—but no mustache—wearing black pants, any color of shirt and a straw hat. The women wear long dresses with aprons and bonnets and put their hair in a bun each day.”
His eyes widened. “That’s how you dressed?”
“Of course.”
“But dresses can be so impractical.”
“They symbolize the gender roles. By wearing a dress, a woman shows her submission to God, and to men in general—and to her husband in particular.”
“That’s so...opposite to how I’ve been taught to think about women.”
“It doesn’t sit right with me, either. But I never fit in. I couldn’t believe what they believed—not only about a woman’s role but that God cared about whether or not I owned certain technologies or wore colorful clothing or wanted to be an actress instead of a stay-at-home wife and mother.”
He rubbed his chin as though he was considering what she’d told him. “How have your parents responded to you becoming an actress? I can’t imagine they were excited about it.”
She winced. “Definitely not. They think I’m going to Hell. When I told them becoming an actress wasn’t just a childhood dream, that I meant to move to LA and take acting lessons...” She let her voice drift away as she remembered that night. Mennonites didn’t practice shunning quite like the Amish. But her parents had threatened to disown her. And for the first five years, they’d made good on that promise. She assumed they thought it would eventually force her to bend to their wishes and come back. But she was so relieved and happy to be free at last, she knew she’d never do that, and eventually, they called to tell her about the birth of her sister’s fourth child, and she started communicating with them again, on a limited basis. “It was rough,” she continued, knowing even as she said the words what an understatement that was. It’d almost torn her heart out. She’d had to leave everyone she knew and loved and accept that they would not think well of her. “I stayed for eight months after that, trying to ‘get the devil out of me’ once and for all, while they prayed for my soul, but I guess the devil wouldn’t depart, as they say.”
“So you left the group, anyway.”
“I finally figured out that I had no choice. I’d suffocate if I didn’t. In the most basic sense, it came down to them or me, and I couldn’t live my whole life for them. Sometimes I still feel guilty about that,” she added softly.
“You deserve the right to lead your own life,” he murmured. “Everyone does.”
“I believe that now. I just wish... I don’t know. If I was more like them, maybe I could’ve been satisfied with such a simple life, too.”
“It’s not just simple. You structure your whole life around your religious beliefs. If you can’t buy in, it’s no wonder you couldn’t stay.”
“I tried to believe, to conform. But it was impossible for me.”
“What about your brother and sister? They’re true believers? And they’re happy?”
“My brother is. He’s the oldest, and he’s following in my father’s footsteps. One day, he’ll inherit the farm. But my sister... She married at seventeen and started her family about the time I moved to LA. After she’d had her second child, she contacted me, secretly, in tears. She told me that she had to get out, too, that she was miserable. And I felt so sorry for her. Despite what I’d been through, and how much I missed my family, my freedom was the most important thing to me. So I felt like it was my responsibility to help her—and I tried.”
“In what way?”
“Eventually, I managed to save up enough to send her plane fare for her and the kids.”
“What about her husband?” he asked in surprise.
“I figured they’d divorce and he’d find another Mennonite wife, one that might be more satisfied. Then, everyone would be happier.”
“Divorce isn’t a sin?”
“It is, but it’s...more of a gray area.”
“Yet she’s still with him.”
“Yes. And Phil, my brother-in-law, hates me to this day. The rest of my family will never forgive me, either.”
“What happened?” he asked. “Did she ever come?”
“She tried a year ago. But her oldest daughter, Anna, refused to leave with her. She told her father what was going on, and there was a big fight and a family-and-church intervention. Everyone joined forces and told her if she left, she had to leave alone.”
“Without her kids.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She wouldn’t do it. I would’ve made the same choice.”
“I wish my mother had been more like her,” he said bitterly.
She stared at him through the steam rising from the hot, bubbly water. “Do you think she regrets what she’s done?”
“Not at all. That would require too much self-awareness.”
“Do you ever hear from her?”
“Never.”
“The guilt would have to be terrible, at least for someone like me,” Tia explained. “Maybe it’s just...easier for her to leave the past in the past, pretend she never even had another son. What about your brothers? Do you ever hear from them?”
“Occasionally—and of course it’s at my favorite time of the year.”
“Christmas,” she guessed.
When he nodded, she understood he had many reasons for hating the holidays. He probably hadn’t received much for Christmas after his mother abandoned him. When others gathered happily with their families, it was probably just a reminder of the family he didn’t have. No wonder he couldn’t hear a Christmas carol without wincing. “One or both of them?”
“Both of them. One usually tries to call or text and does so at other times of the year, too—occasionally on my birthday. The other just sends me a card with a picture of his beautiful family.”
Maybe coming to Silver Springs was as much an escape for him as it was for her. “Do you ever respond?”
“No,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.” He took a drink of his wine. “Anyway, back to your sister. How’s she doing now?”
Changing the subject was an evasive maneuver, and Tia knew it, but Seth was so sensitive about his past, she didn’t want to force him to discuss it. “I wish I could tell you. She doesn’t confide in me anymore. Her husband and my parents have her convinced I’m trying to tempt her away from all that is good and holy, even though she was the one who came to me for help to begin with.”
“That’s probably the only way she can hang on.”
Tia understood that, but it didn’t make the situation any easier. “I guess.” Since she was getting too hot, she got out of the water and sat on the edge. “Maybe I was wrong to help her. I was just doing what I thought was best at the time, but...what happened couldn’t have helped her relationship with her husband.”
“Sounds like she’s angry because you got away and she didn’t,” he said.
“And now my attempt to help her has made her life that much harder.”
He got out and sat on the edge, too. “When I looked you up online, I didn’t learn any of this. I’m surprised there isn’t more in the media about your background.”
“I’ve been careful to keep my family out of the news,” she explained. “Not because I’m embarrassed of them, although I would hate having every media interview focus on the way I was raised. I’ve tried to keep them out of the spotlight because they’re embarrassed of me.”
“Given the way most people would react, that’s ironic.”
“I even changed my name once I got to LA.”
He gripped the edge of the hot tub. “You what?”
“My birth name is Sarah Isaac.” She couldn’t believe she’d just told him that, blurted it out as if it wasn’t anything. She hadn’t even told Barbie that part.
“I’m blown away right now,” he said.
“I chose Tia because I thought it would be a good name for an actress.”
“That’s how the press doesn’t know.”
“They haven’t caught on yet, thank goodness.”
He scooped warm water into his hands and poured it over his legs. “How often do you talk to your family these days?”
“More since the accident.”
“Because they’re concerned about you.”
“Because they think God had a hand in the accident. That he was trying to block my path forward and bring me home.”
He stopped messing with the water. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No. This is the answer to their prayers. With my career in shambles, where else will I go? At least, that’s what they’re thinking.”
“Wow. I don’t even know what to say. Will it force you back?”
Part of her anger and depression over the accident stemmed from the thought that it might. But she was beginning to realize that she still had control over her life. She’d worked three jobs to survive on her own the first time. If she was determined enough and she scrimped and saved, she could find a way to survive on her own this time, too. “No,” she said. “It won’t.”
He studied her for several seconds before saying, “Good.”