Unfinished Business Read Free Page A

you…after you and your father went to Europe.”
    “It was a long time ago.” Vanessa rose, dismissing the subject.
    “I’ll get the dishes.” Loretta began stacking them quickly. “It’s your first day back. I thought maybe you’d like to try out the piano. I’d like to hear you play in this house again.”
    “All right.” She turned toward the door.
    “Van?”
    “Yes?”
    Would she ever call her “Mom” again? “I want you to know how proud I am of all you’ve accomplished.”
    “Are you?”
    “Yes.” Loretta studied her daughter, wishing she had the courage to open her arms for an embrace. “I just wish you looked happier.”
    “I’m happy enough.”
    “Would you tell me if you weren’t?”
    “I don’t know. We don’t really know each other anymore.”
    At least that was honest, Loretta thought. Painful, but honest. “I hope you’ll stay until we do.”
    “I’m here because I need answers. But I’m not ready to ask the questions yet.”
    “Give it time, Van. Give yourself time. And believe me when I say all I ever wanted was what was best for you.”
    “My father always said the same thing,” she said quietly. “Funny, isn’t it, that now that I’m a grown woman I have no idea what that is.”
    She walked down the hall to the music room. There was a gnawing, aching pain just under her breastbone. Out of habit, she popped a pill out of the roll in her skirt pocket before she sat at the piano.
    She started with Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata, playing from memory and from the heart, letting the music soothe her. She could remember playing this piece, and countless others, in this same room. Hour after hour, day after day. For the love of it, yes, but often—too often—because it was expected, even demanded.
    Her feelings for music had always been mixed. There was her strong, passionate love for it, the driving need to create it with the skill she’d been given. But there had always also been the equally desperate need to please her father, to reach that point of perfection he had expected. That unattainable point, she thought now.
    He had never understood that music was a love for her, not a vocation. It had been a comfort, a means of expression, but never an ambition. On the few occasions she had tried to explain it, he had become so enraged or impatient that she had silenced herself. She, who was known for her passion and temper, had been a cringing child around one man. In all her life, she had never been able to defy him.
    She switched to Bach, closed her eyes and let herself drift. For more than an hour she played, lost in the beauty, the gentleness and the genius, of the compositions. This was what her father had never understood. That she could play for her own pleasure and be content, and that she had hated, always hated, sitting on a stage ringed by a spotlight and playing for thousands.
    As her emotions began to flow again, she switched to Mozart, something that required more passion and speed. Vivid, almost furious, the music sang through her. When the last chord echoed, she felt a satisfaction she had nearly forgotten.
    The quiet applause behind her had her spinning around. Seated on one of the elegant little chairs was a man. Though the sun was in her eyes and twelve years had passed, she recognized him.
    “Incredible.” Brady Tucker rose and crossed to her. His long, wiry frame blocked out the sun for an instant, and the light glowed like a nimbus around him. “Absolutely incredible.” As she stared at him, he held out a hand and smiled. “Welcome home, Van.”
    She rose to face him. “Brady,” she murmured, then rammed her fist solidly into his stomach. “You creep.”
    He sat down hard as the air exploded out of his lungs. The sound of it was every bit as sweet to her as the music had been. Wincing, he looked up at her. “Nice to see you, too.”
    “What the hell are you doing here?”
    “Your mother let me in.” After a couple of testing breaths, he