Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears and instead of saying anything more, she kissed him one more time. It was a kiss full of deep emotion and boundless passion.
Her tears fell down her cheeks as she moved from his arms. Tyce made himself stay right where he was as she headed for the door, then closed it softly behind her without looking back. But he could see the way her shoulders shook. And he could taste his own tears now.
Beside him, Milo whined. “This is Whitney’s dream. She’s spent so long putting everyone else first. I’m not ruining this for her.”
He picked up his bright, shiny Rose Chalet guitar, trying to find solace there. But before he knew what he was doing, he threw it down hard enough that the neck broke away from the body of the instrument.
“Damn it!”
Milo cowered in the corner, and Tyce realized it was the first time he'd ever frightened his dog. His chest clenched as he held out a hand and Milo came over cautiously, obviously worried about what his owner might do.
“It’s all right, little guy,” Tyce said, petting him. “I’m sorry about scaring you like that. I won’t do it again, I promise.”
Milo leaned into him, clearly using his warm, furry weight to try to be a comfort.
“If I did go after her, what then?” he said to the dog who had been there practically every second that he’d spent with Whitney. “We both keep working at things that aren’t our dreams? We stay together for a while, then a year from now, or twenty years from now, we blame each other for getting in the way of those dreams? I don’t ever want Whitney to feel that way about me.” He paused. “And I don’t want to feel that way about her.”
He knew he’d done the right thing, but shouldn’t the right thing feel better than this? Better than feeling like his heart had been torn out of his chest, leaving a gaping hole that nothing could fill.
He picked up his old, beaten up guitar. Sebastian was right when he’d said it matched Tyce more than his nice one ever had. He felt beaten and bruised, just like the guitar, but he’d once made beautiful music anyway.
Milo stared up at him, a pleading look in his brown eyes.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to break this one.”
Tyce sat down on his old armchair, cradling the instrument as gently as he’d held Whitney in his arms. Memories of being with her were fresh, and bright...and painful.
He’d told Sebastian genuine emotion was the most important thing when it came to music. Lord knew, he had more than enough feelings crashing around inside of him.
Determined in a way he couldn’t ever remember being determined before, Tyce put his fingers in place behind the frets and reached into himself. Deep. Farther than he’d reached before.
This time he wouldn’t run from the pain that came with trying to do the right thing. Instead he would make himself feel every moment of the joy of being with Whitney...and then the loss.
Five years of waiting for her rolled over him, into him, through him, like the waves of an unstoppable tsunami.
Finally, when he wasn’t sure that he could take any more of it, he started to play again.
And he kept playing this time.
Chapter Twelve
Four months later...
Whitney looked out over the ranch as a herd of horses ran around one of the paddocks. She could easily pick out the ones with small injuries after working with them for four months.
Had it really been that long already?
It seemed like only yesterday that she’d told her parents she was leaving the corporation—and San Francisco—to attend veterinary school. And when she’d told Tyce she wasn’t staying in San Francisco, that she needed to take the biggest chance of her life...leaving Tyce had been the hardest thing she’d ever done.
Looking back over the past few months, she could critically say that everything had gone well so far. Her grades were great and she was currently top of her class. Her classmates were wonderful, too. They shared her passion for animals, rather than being endlessly ambitious and business-focused the way so many of the people back in her old life had been.
Only, Tyce had been a part of that old life.
And she missed him terribly.
Every minute of every day, he was in her head. In her heart.
How she wished she could put her arms around him. Kiss him. See his smile somewhere other than in her dreams.
“Hey, Whitney.” Rachel was a few years younger, with the tanned skin of a girl who had worked on a farm all her life. Joe, another student, was with her. “A few of us are going into town for a break. You want to come along?”
Whitney smiled at the invitation, but shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ve got a lot of work to take care of.”
“I can’t believe how hard you study,” Rachel commented.
“It’s obvious why your grades are so much better than ours,” Joe said in his good natured way.
“All those books can’t possibly be good for you,” Rachel joked. “Are you sure you won’t come?”
“Like the two of you need me in the way.” Whitney watched as Rachel put an arm around Joe’s waist. “You’ve been dating what? Two weeks? I don’t think I’ve seen you apart in all that time.”
Her new friends smiled into each other’s eyes. “When it’s right, you know.”
“Have a great time in town,” Whitney said, before heading back toward the cottage she was renting on the outskirts of a town so small that it barely seemed like it was there at all some days.
When she arrived, she spotted a package sitting on her doormat and picked it up as she headed through to the kitchen. As soon as she walked inside, Clementine pushed up against her, demanding attention. Her cat seemed to like Colorado, and they were close enough to the ranch that Whitney often found Clementine sitting on a fence post, staring at the horses.
She put the package down on the kitchen table while she made Clementine’s dinner and tossed pasta into a pot to heat up. The cat sniffed at the food in her dish before leaping up onto the kitchen table to circle the package.
“I doubt there’s anything for you in there. Sebastian only sent a catnip mouse once.”
The packages were a lifeline back to San Francisco. Her brother had a knack for finding things that were tiny reminders of home, whether it was a catnip toy in the shape of a Cable Car for Clementine or the latest wellness product to roll off Banning Industries’ production line.
They came with old fashioned, handwritten notes too. Sebastian texted and emailed her, of course, but the notes always felt especially personal and thoughtful. He seemed to be determined to make sure that Whitney didn’t miss out on any of the family gossip, and she was glad for it. She missed them almost as bad as she missed Tyce.
“I wonder what Annette is up to this time?” she said to Clementine as she sat down at the table to open the package.
As soon as she’d resigned, Kenneth had happily moved up to take over many of her responsibilities, but because he was still in China wrapping up the new deal, he couldn’t take care of everything. Her entire family had been shocked when her cousin had offered to do more to help out.
Yet, amazingly, it had worked out.
Annette was surprisingly good at working out what people wanted. All those years of wheedling things out of Aunt Marge had made Annette excellent at negotiations, even if there was still the odd story of how she had insisted on doing all the modeling for their current catalogue, then berated the photographer for taking “bad pictures.” In the end, they had to redo the photo shoot with professional models.
But, on the whole, things were going really well for Banning Incorporated. It was as if her cousin had been waiting for the opportunity to show what she could really do. It hadn’t been easy for Whitney to be the responsible one all those years, but now she could see that it probably hadn’t been much easier for Annette, with no one expecting anything of her except trouble.
“You know,” Whitney said to Clementine, “I think my cousin might have hidden depths.”
The cat stared back at her as it if was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Yes, I know
you
always liked her. And yes, I know I’m putting off opening the package from home. It’s called savoring the moment.”
Whitney finally ripped open the paper on the small package. Inside, there was a short note and a CD in a folding cardboard sleeve. When Whitney saw the name on the front, her hands started shaking.
TYCE.
His name was typeset in large letters, with a picture of him in front, and a band in the background.
Her cat brushed up against the picture of him on the CD. “I know you wanted to meet him, but I needed the space. I needed to figure out my own life first, before bringing someone else into it. I
couldn’t
keep in contact, and he understands that. I know he does.”
The cat settled against Whitney’s chest as both of them stared at the CD sleeve. Finally, she noticed a very familiar face in the cover photo.
“Sebastian?”
Clementine purred at the name, while Whitney opened up the CD sleeve and stared at the list of musicians in shock. It
was
Sebastian, and according to the notes, he’d played all the lead and rhythm guitars Tyce hadn’t handled himself.
All those notes, all those emails and texts, and her brother hadn’t said a single thing about it.
Had he been worried how she would react?
Whitney grabbed the note, looking for an explanation.
Hi Sis,
I wanted this to be a surprise. Tyce let me play on practically all of it, and he’s set up the tour so that I’m not going to miss school, so don’t worry about that. We’re launching on the eighteenth, and his boss is letting us use her place for the show. Wish you could be there, but I know you’ve still got a lot to do, so maybe you can play this at your house and it will be like you’re there with us. Gotta practice our rock star moves now.
Sebastian
Sitting on the table, Clementine pawed at the CD and Whitney turned to tell her cat,
“
I’m here in Colorado because I want to be, remember? Things are perfect.”
Perfect.
The perfect life, in the perfect little town, the perfect vet school. She was doing exactly what she’d always wanted to do.
What more could she ask for?
The water boiled over in the pot on the stove and Whitney just barely managed to put down the CD to take it off the heat. But she wasn’t hungry any more. She sat back down at the kitchen table knowing the hole inside of her had nothing to do with needing something to eat.
Perfect
didn’t feel like this. So alone, like half of her heart was missing.
Clementine mewed again. “What else could I have done?” she asked the cat. “A veterinary degree takes years. I couldn’t expect him to wait.”
The worst part was that he would have. Whitney knew that instinctively. If she’d asked him outright, Tyce would have agreed to wait for her however long it took. That, or he’d have given up everything he had in San Francisco, including his friends and his job, just to chase after her.
So she hadn’t asked.
Oh, how she wished she had, though…
Whitney got up and grabbed her laptop, bringing it over to the table. She wasn’t looking at flights because she actually intended to go to San Francisco, of course. Really, she was just curious to see if she could make the trip to see Sebastian play at the Rose Chalet without missing too many classes at the ranch.
A little research revealed that she could go to her morning class, take a mid-afternoon flight that would get to the chalet in plenty of time for the show, and still make it back to Colorado the next day without missing too much.
Clementine pushed her furry head over the top of the laptop.
“You are incredibly nosy, even for a cat. You know that, right?” Whitney tapped in a few details, then looked up to see Clementine staring at her. “No, of course I’m not actually
booking
it. I’m just, you know, seeing if I could. Hypothetically speaking. To see if I could get back to see Ty…Sebastian.” Her cat blinked at her, a knowing look in her feline eyes. “What?” challenged Whitney. “I said
Sebastian
.”
The online system had her log in so that she could see the finer details of booking the tickets, including whether there would be room for Clementine, since Whitney couldn’t exactly just abandon her for a couple of days. Of course, she was going to get to the payment screen and cancel the whole thing. How could she justify a trip like this, right before finals at the end of the first quarter? She had studying to do. Lots and lots of studying, just like the past few months.
At last, the payment screen popped up and she stared at it for several moments, not moving. She ought to close the page. The last thing she should ever do was hit the button to accept the—
Her cat stepped straight onto the computer, either deciding that she’d had enough of Whitney’s dithering...or simply being annoyed that Whitney had been staring at the computer when she could be staring at her.
“
Clementine!
”
Whitney hurried to pick Clementine off the computer. “What have you done?” she demanded, though the answer to that was obvious.
Her payment information had already been in the system...which meant the transaction had been accepted.
She was booked for a flight to San Francisco.
Whitney stared at her cat in what she hoped was a suitably stern way. “All right,” she said at last as relief flooded over her at the knowledge that she’d be seeing Tyce again. “It looks like we’re going to San Francisco. But you’re a very naughty cat.”
Whitney headed off into the bedroom, trying to remember where she’d left Clementine’s carrying cage while the cat yawned and started licking her paws in a spectacularly smug way.
Chapter Thirteen
Tyce sat in his living room at the center of a tangle of wires, the laptop in the middle of it all looking like the control console of a space ship. He cradled his guitar, settling into the comfortable spot on the edge of his chair where he could play it without the arm rests getting in the way. He hit the spacebar to record and started to lay down a rhythm guitar part over a simple beat.