Unfinished Business

love with you. Twice.” She took a deep, cleansing breath. This was not going as she had hoped. So she would try again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to explain myself adequately before I left.”
    “You explained well enough. You don’t want to be a wife.”

    She gritted her teeth. “I believe I said I didn’t know how to be one—and that I didn’t know if I wanted to be one. My closest example of one was my mother, and she was miserably unhappy as a wife. And I felt inadequate and insecure.”
    “Because of the tuna casserole.”
    “No, damn it, not because of the tuna casserole, because I didn’t know if I could handle being a wife and a woman, a mother and a musician. I hadn’t worked out my own definition of any of those terms.” She frowned down at him. “I hadn’t really had the chance to be any of them.”
    “You were a woman and a musician.”
    “I was my father’s daughter. Before I came back here, I’d never been anything else.” Impassioned, she dropped down beside him. “I performed on demand, Brady. I played the music he chose, went where he directed. And I felt what he wanted me to feel.”
    She let out a long breath and looked away, to those distant Blue Mountains. “I can’t blame him for that. I certainly don’t want to—not now. You were right when you said I’d never argued with him. That was my fault. If I had, things might have changed. I’ll never know.”
    “Van—”
    “No, let me finish. Please. I’ve spent so much time working all this out.” She could still feel his anger, but she took heart from the fact that he didn’t pull his hand away when she touched it. “My coming back here was the first thing I’d done completely on my own in twelve years. And even that wasn’t really a choice. I had to come back. Unfinished business.” She looked back at him then, and smiled. “You weren’t supposed to be a part of that. And when you were, I was even more confused.”
    She paused to pluck at the grass, to feel its softness between her fingers. “Oh, I wanted you. Even when I was angry, even when I still hurt, I wanted you. Maybe that was part of the problem. I couldn’t think clearly around you. I guess I never have been able to. Things got out of control so quickly. I realized, when you talked about marriage, that it wasn’t enough just to want. Just to take.”
    “You weren’t just taking.”
    “I hope not. I didn’t want to hurt you. I never did. Maybe, in some ways, I tried too hard not to. I knew you would be upset that I was going to Cordina to perform.”
    He was calm again. After the roller-coaster ride she’d taken his emotions on, his anger had burned itself out. “I wouldn’t ask you to give up your music, Van. Or your career.”
    “No, you wouldn’t.” She rose to walk out of the shade into the sun and he followed her. “But I was afraid I would give up everything, anything, to please you. And if I did, I wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t be, Brady.”
    “I love what you are, Van.” His hands closed lightly over her shoulder. “The rest is just details.”
    “No.” She turned back. Her eyes were passionate, and her grip was tight. “It wasn’t until I was away again that I began to see what I was pulling away from, what I was moving toward. All my life I did what I was told. Decisions were made for me. The choice was always out of my hands. This time I decided. I chose to go to Cordina. I chose to perform. And when I stood in the wings, I waited for the fear to come. I waited for my stomach to clutch and the sweat to break out, and the dizziness. But it didn’t come.” There were tears in her eyes again, glinting in the sunlight. “It felt wonderful. I felt wonderful. I wanted to step out on the stage, into those lights. I wanted to play and have thousands of people listen. I wanted. And it changed everything.”
    “I’m glad for you.” He ran his hands up and down her arms before he stepped back. “I am. I was worried.”

    “It was glorious.” Hugging her arms, she spun away. “And in my heart I know I never played better. There was such…freedom. I know I could go back to all the stages, all the halls, and play like that again.” She turned back, magnificent in the streaming sunlight. “I know it.”
    “I am glad for you,” he repeated. “I hated thinking about you performing under stress. I’d never be able to allow you to make yourself ill again, Van, but I meant it when I said I wouldn’t ask you to give up