Restless Heart (28 page)

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Authors: Wynonna Judd

BOOK: Restless Heart
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Destiny’s original plan had been to come back here alone with Seth, but it was Christmas Eve, and no one else was in a hurry to get back to their own room.
“Merry Christmas to you, too. And you.” Grace pointed a finger at Seth, who stood behind Destiny. “Make sure you get some sleep, or Santa won’t come.”
“What about me?” asked Jesse, who was standing in the hall.
“You’re a lost cause.” Grace shook her head as she stepped out after him. “Santa only visits good boys, and you’re the opposite.”
“In that case—want to come keep a naughty boy company?”
Grace pulled the door closed before Destiny heard her reply. She looked at Seth.
“Don’t tell me Grace is seeing him.”
Destiny shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on, exactly. She knows I don’t approve, so I’m not allowed to bring it up.”
“What about Max?”
“As Grace put it, Max isn’t here, and even if he were, he probably wouldn’t get his act together enough to ask her out.”
She wasn’t entirely comfortable discussing the prospect of a long-distance relationship—even someone else’s—with Seth. In fact, she wasn’t entirely comfortable with him, period. Not after the scene in her dressing room.
Maybe that was why she hadn’t protested when someone suggested gathering in her suite with eggnog and champagne after the show.
The moment Jack had interrupted them, she’d picked up on a distinctly disturbing vibe between him and Seth. Well, coming from Seth, anyway.
He’d obviously resented the interruption from the start, but she was stunned when she realized he was actually going to haul off and hit Jack over something so . . . silly.
And yet . . .
Maybe there was also a part of her that was secretly thrilled at the blatant display of masculine possessiveness.
Clearly Seth hadn’t moved on. Clearly he was still crazy about her.
Anyway, she supposed she couldn’t blame him for his reaction. Jack had been pretty blunt and obnoxious.
But preshow chaos and intrusions on her personal space went with the territory. She was used to it, and she figured Seth would get used to it eventually, too, after spending a week here with her. If not...
No. She wasn’t going to worry about that now. Her time with Seth was so limited. He was here with her now and they were alone together at long last, and she didn’t want to miss one minute thinking negative thoughts.
“I thought you said you were going to get a Christmas tree.” Seth gestured at the living room of the suite. A couple of gilt-sprayed poinsettias were the only hint of holiday decoration.
“I wanted to get one,” she told him, “but I haven’t had time.”
“I’d have brought one if I had known.”
“That’s okay.” She finally dared to ask the question that had been on her mind. “Where are my beautiful wildflowers?”
“What? Oh . . . I guess they’re back in your dressing room.” He busied himself picking lint off his red sweater.
Watching him, she felt another prickle of discomfort. She started to open her mouth to ask him whether he’d found a vase, but he spoke first, indicating Mike, who was curled up asleep on a chair.
“Looks like someone’s settled down for a long winter’s nap.”
Destiny couldn’t help but yawn, looking at him. “Oops, sorry.”
“Are you ready to call it a night, too?”
“Are you kidding? Not yet. We haven’t even had a chance to talk. How about if I go change my clothes and we go outside and sit under the stars?”
“Under the stars with a star—sounds good to me.”
Destiny rolled her eyes and gave him a poke, but she was glad that he felt comfortable enough to tease her.
“I’ll wait for you out on the fire escape—I mean, balcony,” he amended with a grin, heading for the French doors.
Destiny slipped into the adjoining bedroom, humming “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” while she tugged off her shoes and then found her favorite baggy sweatpants and matching hoodie.
After scooting her feet into some fuzzy slippers, she located a Nessie-rejected stadium blanket sporting the top half only of Elvis’s head.
She found Seth out on the balcony, leaning against the railing and looking up at the night sky.
For a moment he didn’t realize she was there, and she took the opportunity to simply gaze at his handsome profile.
When Seth spotted Destiny, he gave her a slow Southern smile that turned her insides into a molten puddle.
“Wow,” Destiny breathed. “That sexy smile of yours has the power to turn me inside out.”
Seth’s smile slid into something more sensual and he held out his hand, stepping toward a chaise lounge. “Come on, let’s cuddle.”
“Wait, did you just say
cuddle
?”
Seth chuckled softly. “Yeah, guess I did. Destiny, you bring out something soft in me that I never knew existed.”
She walked over and hooked her arm through his. “I like it.”
“Me too, but keep it to yourself.” Seth arched one eyebrow and then kissed the tip of her nose. “I have my tough coach image to uphold.”
“Your softie side secret is safe with me,” she told him, and wondered whether she should bring up what had happened in her dressing room. Talk about a tough coach image . . .
But she didn’t want to get into that now. This was supposed to be a nice, romantic evening.
They settled on the chaise. Destiny snuggled close to Seth and looked up into the star-filled sky.
“You must be exhausted.” Seth leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
“I don’t want to be. Now that you’re finally here, the last thing I want to do is fall asleep.”
“You can’t stay up for five days straight, Destiny.”
She started to laugh, then pulled back to look at him. “Five days? I thought you were staying through New Year’s.”
“I was planning to, but—didn’t you get the e-mail?”
“Which e-mail?”
“The one I sent last night when I found out I have to be back in Wilmot by the thirtieth to meet with Chase and his stepmother and their lawyer.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that, and no, I didn’t know.” She shook her head. “My e-mail address got out to the public through one of Tammy’s fan sites, and the in-box has been jammed ever since. I haven’t had a chance to weed through it. Why didn’t you just call to tell me?”
He shrugged. “Because I knew you’d be onstage right then, and by the time your show was over, I was planning to be asleep. I figured it would be easier to just e-mail.”
“Oh.” She didn’t like the way he wasn’t quite looking her in the eye. Something told her he hadn’t been very anxious to tell her he’d have to cut short the visit. “Well, sorry I didn’t get it.”
“Me, too. Next time I’ll call . . . unless you don’t check your voice mail, either? Because I doubt I’d actually get you on the phone, so . . .”
“Come on, Seth, that’s not—”
“Sorry,” he said. “I was just kidding.”
“It’s okay,” she lied. “Why does the meeting have to be done over the holidays? Can’t it wait?”
Seth shook his head. “I told you, Chase needs me.”
But I need you, too,
she thought unreasonably—hating herself for resenting a kid in trouble. It wasn’t the words that stung as much as the way Seth said them—as though it went without saying that Chase was his priority.
“I know you told me, but—”
“I thought maybe you’d forgotten. His mother wants him out in Alaska to start school there after the break, remember?”
“I remember,” she said sharply—too sharply—bristling at the inference that she wasn’t interested in the things he told her.
“And he doesn’t want to go, and I don’t blame him. It would be crazy. But I’m worried that nothing I do or say is going to help, and the kid is going to be shipped out by New Year’s.”
“I hope that doesn’t happen. I just . . . I mean, we both knew that we weren’t going to have much time together as it is,” she heard herself say, and hated that she couldn’t hold back the plaintive reproach. “Now we’re losing two whole days.”
“I know, but look at it this way—we’re not really losing two whole days. More like a few hours here and there between shows.”
That was probably meant to soothe her, but it only made her angry. She pulled herself from his arms and stood to face him. “You knew what you were getting into when you came here. You knew I couldn’t just . . . just take off to hang around.”
“Of course I know that. I don’t expect you to.” He, too, was on his feet. “I understand that you’ve got a huge responsibility here, and I know you don’t have time for me. I get it.”
“Don’t say it that way! That’s not true!”
“So you
do
have time for me? Then come back to Wilmot with me, and we’ll spend New Year’s together.”
“You know I can’t do that, Seth!”
“Just like I can’t stay here indefinitely.”
“I don’t expect you to stay indefinitely, just until—”
“I know, but I can’t. We both have other responsibilities. I don’t expect you to shirk yours, and I know you don’t want me to do that, either, right?”
“Right.” Destiny’s throat ached with misery. “I just thought . . .”
She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Not even when he prompted, “You just thought what?”
“I thought things were going to be different.”
“You mean for the holidays?”
No. Different forever. Different from the way it turned out for everyone else—her own parents, even, and Tammy Turner and her three husbands.
That was what she’d been thinking.
But she and Seth weren’t married, and he didn’t owe her anything, and anyway, he’d bought a damned house back in Wilmot. That, more than anything else he’d done—or even said—told her how he felt about their prospects for a future together.
“Destiny . . . ?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “I thought it was going to be different for the holidays.”
There was a long moment of silence.
“Well, I guess that’s how it goes,” Seth told her at last. “Sometimes things don’t turn out the way anyone’s planned.”
The words sounded almost casual. Seth, however, looked anything but. She could see the hurt in his eyes, could see the tension in his jaw and the slightest tremble in his hands.
She, too, was trembling. With fear, and with anger, too, as something snapped inside of her. “So that’s it, then? That’s all you have to say? ‘That’s how it goes?’”
“What else do you want me to say, Destiny? What do you want me to do?”
“Don’t put it that way. Don’t put it all on me. What do
you
want to do? It’s not about what I want. It’s about what—”
“It’s not about what
you
want?” he cut in, and she saw that she wasn’t the only one who was angry here. “Really? I thought that was the whole point.”
“What are you talking about?”
“What
you
want, Destiny. This—” He waved a hand around. “Being here in Pigeon Forge, and in Nashville, and on the road . . . this is all about
what you want
. What you’ve always wanted.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel selfish—”
“I’m not. Believe me, I’m not trying to
make you
feel anything that you don’t feel. All I asked you was what you wanted me to do.”
“Nothing, Seth. Okay? I don’t want you to do anything.”
He looked at her, then shrugged and looked away.
She swallowed hard. “I really am exhausted—and I think, since you have a room of your own, that you should sleep there tonight.”
He turned back to meet her gaze again, and the sorrowful expression in his eyes told her everything she didn’t want to hear him say out loud, and couldn’t say herself.
“I’ll head back in the morning,” he told her.
“Back?”
“Home. To Wilmot.”
“But—”
“Look, I think it would be best, don’t you?”
She nodded miserably.
“I’ll take Mike with me.”
“You don’t have to.”
“How are you going to take care of him here?”
She didn’t reply. He was right. It wouldn’t be fair to Mike. He deserved loving attention, and outdoor space.
“He’ll be fine with me, for as long as you want him to stay. Pets are allowed—and in the new house, too,” Seth added with a hollow attempt at humor that fell hard and flat between them.
“As soon as I’m settled back in Nashville,” she said tautly, “I’ll take him back.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“He’s my dog, Seth,” she reminded him.
“I know that. I meant are you sure about the ‘settled’ part? Because I’m betting things are going to be crazier than ever with
Cowgirl Up
coming on the air, and your single coming out.”
He was right. She knew that.
“I’ll call my parents and arrange for them to keep Mike for a while,” she told him, deciding on the spur of the moment.
“Why?”
“Because I know you’re busy with Chase, and your new house, and—”
“Your father will never go for a dog in the house.”
“You don’t know that,” she pointed out, hating that he would say that, rather than assure her that he did have time for Mike—and for her.
“He never let you have one before.”
“So? People change, Seth.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? Do you expect me to change for you? Because I—”
“We were talking about my father,” she reminded him curtly—though that wasn’t entirely true, and they both knew it.
“Okay,” Seth said quietly, “I’ll drop Mike with your parents when I get back to Wilmot.”
“Thank you.”
They walked back into the suite. Hearing them, Mike stirred, looked up, yawned, and gave a happy little bark.
“Come on, fella,” Seth said, “let’s go.”
“Wait . . .” Destiny scooped her dog into her arms and hugged him close. “Mike, I’ll be seeing you soon, okay? Remember . . . I love you.”

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