14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Wendy
“You can say sex on my podcast,” Wendy said.
Across the desk, Lily lifted one dark eyebrow.
“Thank you. As a sex therapist, I’ve been waiting years for this permission.”
Wendy laughed into her microphone, and the sound came back through her headphones warm and a little too loud.
The guesthouse studio had never held two people before.
Lily’s overnight bag leaned against the bookshelf.
Two mugs crowded the desk next to Wendy’s notes, and the empty plate between them still held crumbs from the cookies her mother had sent over.
One of the sound blankets had slipped low enough to show the cream wall behind it.
The mild disorder made Wendy happy, and also the fact that Lily had agreed to come over for a girls’ weekend and record a podcast together, like they used to do years ago.
“Let’s try that again,” she said. “Without insulting my generous standards.”
“Your standards are why I wore my respectable earrings.” Lily touched one small, gold hoop. “They say emotional safety.”
“They say you have toddlers who grab anything longer.”
“That too.”
Wendy glanced at the notes on her screen, though she no longer needed them.
“We were talking about what happens after prolonged stress. A couple gets through the crisis, but their bodies don’t always understand that the danger has passed.”
Lily settled into the thoughtful tone Wendy remembered from their old episodes.
“Right. People often expect relief to restore closeness by itself. Then they panic when affection, conversation, or sex still feels difficult.”
“And panic creates another demand.”
“Exactly. Now intimacy has to prove the relationship survived.”
They followed the idea together, passing it back and forth without stepping on each other’s words.
Wendy spoke about emotional closeness returning through small experiences of safety.
Lily explained that desire could disappear when touch had become one more task or test. They agreed that a partner’s patience couldn’t be a performance with an expiration date.
“You can’t say, ‘Take all the time you need,’ while checking your watch,” Wendy said.
“Or sighing like a dying man every time your partner asks to stop.”
Wendy smiled. “I assume that’s the clinical term.”
“Peer reviewed.” Lily chuckled.
The old rhythm came so easily that Wendy forgot to monitor herself. Lily didn’t need her to be the calmest person in the room. She could challenge Wendy, make a face when an answer was too neat, and turn serious again without apology. The work felt shared instead of performed.
Since the ultrasound, Wendy had accepted two remote clients under the safeguards she’d written for herself.
Both had come through therapists who knew her work before the scandal.
Neither had ties to the music industry or any interest in reaching Hunter through her.
Her caseload stayed small enough that she still had a life after each session.
It wasn’t the practice she’d once had, but it belonged to her.
When they reached the closing, Wendy asked listeners to notice whether they were rebuilding closeness or rushing toward proof that everything was normal. Lily added that a slow “yes” was still a “yes”, and a “no” didn’t become rejection merely because a relationship had survived something hard.
Wendy stopped the recording. The red light went dark.
“We’re good,” she said.
“Obviously.” Lily removed her headphones and shook out her dark hair. “I wore the earrings.”
“Your whole professional reputation rests on them.”
“And your show is safe for the word sex now. Big morning.”
Wendy laughed again, but nerves had already begun to tighten underneath her ribs. She saved the recording, closed the editing window, and opened the top drawer of the desk. The ultrasound image lay inside a cream envelope.
Lily’s smile faded when Wendy lifted it out.
“What is it?” she asked.
Wendy had practiced the words while Lily had driven from Los Angeles to Aria Springs. Every version had sounded either too frightened or too bright. She held the black-and-white image by its edges and offered it across the desk.
“I’m pregnant.”
Lily went still. Then her eyes filled with tears.
“Wendy.”
“I’m about nine weeks now.”
Lily looked down at the image, then back at her. “Is everything okay?”
“At the appointment, yes. It measured about seven weeks. It was where it should be, and we heard the heartbeat.”
“You heard it?”
Wendy nodded. The memory returned at once: her mother’s hand around hers, the dim room, and that rapid sound making the baby real.
“The doctor said everything looked right.”
Joy broke across Lily’s face, softened by worry. “Can I hug you?”
“Please.”
Lily came around the desk and wrapped her arms around Wendy carefully, as if pregnancy had made her both precious and breakable. Wendy held her tighter to correct the idea. She let herself receive the joy in the embrace without preparing for what came after it.
Lily drew back and kept her hands on Wendy’s arms. “How are you feeling?”
“Happy. Terrified. Sick if chicken gets within ten feet of me.”
“A complicated medical picture.”
“My mother has prescribed crackers.”
Lily smiled, but her next question was quieter. “Does Hunter know?”
“No.”
Lily returned to her chair and set the image down with care. “Are you asking what I think you should do?”
“No. I’m telling you I haven’t told him.”
“Okay.”
Wendy searched her face for the argument she’d prepared to resist. There wasn’t one.
“That’s all?” she asked.
“Do you want more?”
“I expected questions.”
“I have about forty. None of them gives me the right to move your boundary for you.” Lily touched one corner of the image. “I’m happy for you. I’m worried for you. And I’m here.”
Wendy swallowed. “I know he’d want this baby. If I tell him, he’ll come. I won’t know if he’s choosing me or answering an obligation.”
Lily didn’t rush to fill the quiet. “Then you don’t have to decide right now.”
“Please keep it private. My parents are the only other people who know.”
“Jake won’t hear it. No one will.”
The promise loosened something in Wendy’s chest. She slid the ultrasound image back into its envelope, and Lily helped her pack away the microphones. For a few minutes, they let the baby be good news.
Lily wanted to know whether Wendy had started talking to her stomach, and Wendy admitted she sometimes did when the house got dark. They laughed about her mother’s growing collection of bland snacks.
***
Juniper Diner was loud enough at lunch that Wendy almost missed the first mention of Vesper Hill.
The waitress had already refilled Lily’s coffee and praised Wendy’s return episode before she came back with their plates and said:
“I suppose all those trucks mean the old place is safe now.”
Wendy’s hand stopped over her napkin. “What old place?”
“Vesper Hill.” The waitress set down Lily’s sandwich. Her silver-streaked braid shifted over one shoulder as she leaned closer. “They’ve got crews out there now. Roof people, preservation people, trucks with lumber. Hunter’s there most days, and that guitar player of his is helping too.”
The diner noise seemed to pull away from Wendy.
“Eli?” she asked.
“That’s him. The serious-looking one.” The waitress glanced between Wendy and Lily. “I thought you’d know.”
Wendy looked at Lily. Lily’s dark eyes had sharpened.
“Do people know who owns it?” Wendy asked.
“Everyone says Hunter bought it before that developer could tear it down. Dana Aldric’s been going in and out, so something got signed. They’re fixing the inn, the cottages, all of it.” The waitress smiled as though she’d delivered good news. “Romantic, if you ask me.”
Wendy’s stomach turned, and it had nothing to do with the food or the tea she’d ordered instead of coffee.
Hunter had found Vesper Hill. He’d bought the dream she and Lily once built together, and now crews were fixing it according to choices he’d made without her.
Of course he had. He’d finally noticed what she wanted and answered with money, speed, and a decision large enough to trap gratitude inside it.
“We didn’t ask,” Lily said.
The waitress blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“For a review of the gesture.” Lily smiled politely. “Could we have the check?”
When the waitress left, Wendy pushed her untouched plate away.
“He bought it,” she said.
“We don’t know that.”
“There are crews redesigning my retreat.”
“We don’t know that either.”
Wendy reached for her bag. “Then I’m going to find out.”
Lily took one last drink of coffee and stood. “Good. I’m coming.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know. That’s what makes it friendship instead of a hostage situation.”
The drive beyond town gave Wendy too much space to imagine what Hunter might’ve done.
A Trace sign across the old arch? Maybe a glossy recording studio placed where his team thought it would photograph best. Luxury cottages shaped for donors instead of patients.
Her professional plan softened into a celebrity wellness project with her name used as proof of meaning.
Anger felt clean until Vesper Hill came into view.
The roofs were tarped, not replaced. Timber braces supported the weak porch corner. Fresh gravel protected a cleared drainage path, while orange markers kept vehicles away from the oldest vines. Stacks near the inn were labeled KEEP, ASSESS, and UNSAFE.
Wendy parked next to two work trucks. Eli stood near the stone barn in dusty jeans and gloves, loading broken boards into a wheelbarrow. He looked up, saw her, and stopped.
“Wendy.”
“Where’s Hunter?” The question escaped before she could decide whether she wanted the answer or not.
“Getting supplies.” Eli pulled off his gloves.
Wendy got out of the car. Lily came around the other side and stayed close.
“Did he buy Vesper Hill?” Wendy asked.
“No.”
The single word checked her anger without easing it.
“Then why is he paying crews?”
“A developer was close to buying it. Hunter secured a limited option before the deadline.”
“An option for what?”