Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
IVY
Afire crackles in the hearth, a warm glow cast across rustic floors and a large burgundy Persian carpet.
Reed mutters, pacing, “Ivy Callahan.”
He stands a good six-two or so. But my first impression is of his hands.
You can tell a lot about a person by their hands. His are lean and long-fingered. The hands of a violinist and pianist—elegant but calloused. No doubt from a life scraped together on this mountain.
He ruffles his dark hair, subtly streaked with silver at the temples, then runs a hand over his well-trimmed beard pensively.
His deep-set brown eyes don’t look like they miss anything. Though he wears flannel and worn denim, he still carries himself like a conductor.
“Yes,” I say, because I don’t know what else will work. His eyes drop then to the bag in one hand and the violin case in the other.
He crosses his arms across his chest, face hard and appraising.
“I didn’t mean my arrival to come as a surprise, but you never answered my letter,” I explain.
His shoulders stiffen. “Your letter?” His jaw tenses, his hand pausing mid-motion.
“Did I say something wrong?” I ask.
He looks away, his face brooding. Instead of an answer, he mutters something unintelligible under his breath.
“The premiere,” I remind.
His eyes flicker. “There is no premiere.”
My cheeks flush.
“At least, not for me.”
I knew he would be resistant. But I didn’t expect him to be this. A stern wall of muscle, unwilling to bend. Infuriating… and gorgeous all at once. Haunted and brooding, like all the best artists are.
“The Mountain Music Festival begins in five days.”
“I’m aware,” he growls.
“They’re holding a place on the program.”
“For whom?”
“For you.”
“You assume a great deal.”
The air thins slightly in my chest. “That’s why I wrote to you. So it wouldn’t be an assumption.”
“So you say.” His expression remains unchanged, his voice tepid. But he can’t hide the spark of recognition.
I ask, “Why didn’t you answer?”
“I receive a great deal of mail.”
“This wasn’t fan mail.”
“No?” His face is fiercer than his voice, and I wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.
I step forward, saying, “I sent you a twelve-page analysis of the concerto’s structural arc.
I referenced the harmonic shift in the second movement and the way the unresolved cadence destabilizes the listener’s expectation of tonal return.
I argued that the cadenza—unfinished though it was—demands the original conductor’s phrasing to achieve its full dramatic architecture. ”
The words are precise. Not flattery. Not romanticism.
Study.
But I can’t quite hide the passion beneath them. His work has become my personal obsession over the past four years. The reason I answered an ad meant for another time and place.
“Is that supposed to impress me?” he asks.
I shake my head.
“And you’re certain you sent that to me?” he asks, forehead furrowing as he strokes his beard.
The question stings. “Yes.”
He turns away, eyeing the window again. Peaceful snowflakes drift to the powder-covered ground.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
He holds my gaze for a long moment. “I burned it.” The lie settles between us heavily.
Burned like his composition.
I try to hide my disappointment. Not because he destroyed my correspondence. Because he lied about not receiving it. But I let it go, understanding that this conversation likely pains him more than me.
“I thought you might.”
He nods once, as if that ends the matter. “You’re wasting your time.”
“No,” I say quietly. “Stephen Maxwell requested you, too.”
The blood drains from his face. Then, he scowls. “He doesn’t get to ask anything of me.”
I knew the name would land heavily. But it’s the truth.
Stephen. Reed’s concertmaster. His protégé. His friend.
The man who stood beside him on stage for a decade. The man who stood beside his wife when Reed wasn’t looking.
“Stephen Maxwell.” It comes out like a ragged sigh. Then he laughs darkly, rage flickering behind his eyes. His fists clench and unclench as he paces. “That music is gone.”
“You know better.”
He faces me, hands on his hips. “What does that mean?”
I step closer. “Without another copy, how could I have sent the letter? Analyzed your concerto with so much precision?” I work to keep my voice steady, though not defiant.
He pauses, stare bent toward the floor until I finish. “And how did said copy survive?”
“My mother was the orchestra librarian. She preserved it during your final rehearsal cycle.”
The memory rises. Closed doors. Limited personnel. Internal copies only. I was a young student then, hopeful to one day work with the great Reed North. Award-winning conductor, prolific composer, acclaimed violinist and pianist.
“She kept the reduction,” I continue. “Violin and piano. Later, it came to Stephen, who reconstructed the orchestration.”
“Your mother told you this?” The words come out rough.
I swallow loudly. “Yes, and so did he. I’m one of Stephen’s graduate students.”
Reed huffs a laugh, whispering, “That’s rich!” His posture remains unchanged, but something shifts beneath the surface. “That reduction was incomplete.”
“As it remains,” I agree. “The cadenza is missing.”
“Of course it is.”
He paces some more, then stops, turning toward me. “The cadenza was never finished on paper. It lived in my head longer than it lived on staff lines. It was the most exposed part of the work. I couldn’t bring myself to finalize it.”
His words are percussive and fast-paced. Tension simmering just beneath them. “You shouldn’t be here,” he says suddenly. “Especially since you came, not to answer my posting, but for Stephen.”
“I came for both,” I say. “But don’t mistake this for something it’s not. I’m not Stephen’s messenger.”
“Five days isn’t enough,” he barks, circling back to the festival.
I suppress the smile that wants to creep over my lips. So, there still is room for a compromise? “For you?”
“For any of it.”
I study him, searching for something deeper than his refusal.
“You are the only one who understands the pacing of that piece,” I argue. “The elasticity of the opening theme. The restraint before expansion.”
His Adam’s apple works, but he says nothing.
I set the violin case down and open it carefully.
“What are you doing?” he grunts.
“Reminding you.”
The hinges click softly. I lift the violin, placing it beneath my chin. My movements are economical. Practiced. Not theatrical.
“You don’t have the right,” he says.
“To play it?”
“To carry it.”
I meet his eyes across the narrow distance between us, saying quietly, “Someone has to.”
Then, I look away, refusing to give in to the grim look on his face. The bow touches the string. The first note is clean.
The cabin absorbs sound differently than a hall ever could. Closer. Warmer.
The second follows. Then the third.
“What’s the instrument?” he murmurs, cocking his head to the side. “Impeccable intonation. Rich, velvety sound.”
“The Lady Sunshine Stradivarius, 1728.”
A sharp exhale escapes him. “The Lady Sunshine?” He steps closer, eyes washing over the coppery varnish, the carved tailpiece. “Indeed.”
I smile politely. “Intrigued?”
“Perhaps,” he sighs. His face tightens, the creases in his forehead deepening. “But you should go if you’re not here for the post.”
“I told you I am.”
His eyes lock with mine. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’ll stay all winter… if you like.”
He faces me now, hands on his hips. “Whether I agree to the festival or not?”
I nod once.
“Whether I’m after an assistant or a bride?”
My cheeks burn, pulse spiking. “Which do you want?” I work to control my voice, not betray the crush I’ve had on this man for as long as I can remember.
“How old are you, Ivy?”
“Twenty-four.”
I don’t need to ask his age. Forty-two.
I know everything about this man. At least, what can be found online. And what I remember from the public career before his disappearance.
His eyes narrow, gaze casting to the side. Then, he lifts a hand, motioning for me to continue.
The opening theme unfolds exactly as it’s lived in my hands for years now. Not rushed. Not dramatized.
I hold the suspended measure with restraint, allowing the unresolved ache to hover.
He goes still. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But he doesn’t stop me, so I press on.
The melody climbs. Stops where the cadenza should begin.
I lower the bow. “That’s all I have.”
His face hides in shadow. His voice resonates rich and dark, “It is enough.”
Reed walks a little distance away, hand gripping the window frame. Under his breath, he whispers. “Stephen saved it. Stephen believed it should survive. Stephen—of all men—chose preservation over destruction.”
I wait, unsure of what to say.
Then he turns, eyeing me with a derisive smile. “You think I can stand in front of an orchestra again?”
“I think the music deserves you,” I reply.
Not the other way around. The distinction matters.
Snow gathers along the porch railing, the wind blowing in angrier gusts.
“What do you want from me?” he asks.
“I want you to finish it,” I say. “Conduct it. Let it exist.”
“In five days.... The festival stage. Stephen in the wings. An orchestra waiting.”
He paces in front of me, hand clenching and unclenching. “Violin Concerto no. 1 — Variations in Winter,” he whispers.
The breath catches in my throat.
His eyes snag on my face. “You didn’t know the title?”
“No one does.”
“Not by accident.” The words fall like a hammer on a nail.
“Stay then, if you refuse to go.”
Silence expands.
Snow taps against the window in a steady rhythm.
He pauses for one long, breathless moment. Then, his voice comes out firm and final. “Play it again.”
The opening theme unfolds with restraint. I don’t exaggerate it. I allow the phrasing to breathe, shaping the line with patience rather than urgency.
When I reach the suspended measure before the missing cadenza, I let the absence stretch, choosing not to rush the silence.
When the final note fades, I lower the bow.
Reed stands frozen. It breaks a memory loose.
He listens the way I remember from the rehearsal balcony. Authority in silence. Utterly still, as if even breathing might alter the music’s architecture.
“You don’t soften it,” he says.
“No.”
“Good.”
He steps closer. Not abruptly. Deliberately.
The air shifts with him.
He’s taller than I registered on the porch. Broader through the shoulders beneath a brown and black flannel that echoes his eyes. There’s strength in the way he moves, the kind earned from building and lifting rather than conducting.
I wonder how he’s done so much with a hurt shoulder. Rotator cuff damage. Surgery couldn’t fully repair it. Everyone in the classical world knows, though he acts like it’s something he can hide in shadows.
Like the affair.
“You’re controlling the transition too tightly,” he says.
“I don’t want it to fracture too soon.”
“It should feel like it might.”
He comes to stand behind me. I feel the space close before I feel his hands. His presence is steady, grounded. Not looming. Anchored.
“Your bow arm,” he murmurs. His hand closes gently over mine, adjusting the angle. My sigh shudders.
The contact is precise. Warm.
His fingers are long and calloused, the grip firm without force. He shifts my wrist slightly, guiding rather than correcting.
“Let it resist you,” he says quietly. “The cadenza shouldn’t ask permission.”
I breathe through my nose, forcing my pulse to slow.
His warmth radiates through the thin fabric at my back. Not pressing. Not claiming. Simply there.
“Again.”
I play the transition once more. This time, I allow the line to strain. The note trembles at its edge before finding center.
“Yes,” he says, low. The sound of approval lands deeper than it should. He doesn’t step away immediately.
For a brief second, I’m acutely aware of how easily he could remain there. How natural it would feel to lean back into the steadiness of him.
The thought unsettles me, heat curling low. I’ve wanted this since the first time I saw him—heard his concerto. When he withdraws, I can breathe again, but my pulse still races.
“The cadenza doesn’t resolve anything,” he grumbles. “It exposes what can’t be repaired.”
I lower the violin slowly. “And you’d rather leave it unexposed?” I challenge.
We’re not speaking about concerti anymore.
His gaze darts to mine. The storm thickens outside. “You should leave before the road disappears.”
“I don’t like driving in snow.”
We both know that’s not true.
He looks at the window again, measuring the whiteout. “Probably already too late,” he says.
There’s resignation in it now. Not reluctance.
“Until the road clears,” he continues, measured, “I’ll work through the transition with you.” He pauses, then repeats, “Just the transition.”
“Thank you,” I say, more breathy than I should.
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he lifts the piano lid. The sound of it opening feels intimate. Private.
Outside, the mountain buries the path I climbed in powdery stillness. Inside, the fracture he refuses to name has already begun to widen.