Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
IVY
Another day, and snow still presses thick against the windows, blurring the world into white. The mountain continues to disappear in slow motion, edges softened, distance swallowed.
We are alone here now. Not stranded. Contained.
Reed moves through the cabin with deliberate economy. Coffee first. Fire second. Silence always. His shoulder shifts once when he reaches for another log, a subtle stiffness in the cold. He thinks I don’t notice.
I notice everything, perched at the kitchen table, wrapped in the flannel he brought me this morning. Yesterday’s shirt was black and blue. Today’s is burgundy, like flame. It smells of pine and sandalwood when I bring a sleeve to my nose.
His eyes darken at the gesture. His throat works once.
“You play?” I ask quietly, nodding toward the piano.
“Occasionally.”
He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t need to. The instrument carries fingerprints of recent use. The metronome sits wound but untouched. Discipline without permission.
I open my violin case. He doesn’t stop me.
“Play the transition,” he orders. No preamble.
I begin.
The opening phrase settles into the wood-paneled room differently than it does in a hall. Closer. Warmer. The sound lingers in the beams above us.
When I reach the fracture before the cadenza, I let it hover.
He stops me. “No, that’s not right.”
“And it’s not wrong.”
“You’re treating it as if it’s too fragile.” His tone isn’t cruel. It’s precise.
I lower the bow. “To me, it feels fragile.”
Silence stretches.
The fire shifts behind him. “It wasn’t unfinished,” he says at last. “It was interrupted.”
I wait.
“By betrayal.” The words land heavy but steadily. He doesn’t look away when he says it. “The concerto was for my wife. Every measure.”
Something inside me stills. I know this story, whispered in concert halls and practice rooms. But hearing it from him—his voice low and raw—it pulses through me like it’s somehow my own.
“And when you found out?” I ask gently.
“That she wasn’t listening anymore,” he finishes, cutting off the conversation.
The restraint in his voice makes the admission sharper. He isn’t angry. He isn’t dramatic. He is wounded in a place he refuses to touch.
“The cadenza,” I say. “You couldn’t finish it.”
He shakes his head once. “It stopped meaning what it was supposed to.” The room holds the weight of that.
“And then the shoulder injury?” I ask.
He shakes his head, eyes storming. “Fate had other plans.”
Silence settles between us, deafening.
I lift the violin again. “If it was written for love,” I say quietly, “then it doesn’t have to end in grief.”
His gaze sharpens. “That isn’t how it was conceived.”
“Maybe it changed.”
I begin again at the fracture.
This time, I don’t let it collapse inward. I let it climb. Slowly. Deliberately. As if the break in the line is not an ending but a lift.
The music shifts under my fingers. The cadenza isn’t mournful. It rises.
The final note resolves somewhere higher than expected, brighter than his original intent.
When the sound fades, the silence between us feels altered. “That’s not what I wrote,” he says.
“No. It’s what it became.”
He watches me with something unreadable in his eyes. “You think performers own the music,” he says.
“I think we give it breath.”
“And if the composer intended something else?”
“Then maybe he’s allowed to change.”
The air shifts. He steps closer. Not abruptly. Carefully.
“You’re bold,” he says.
“I’m listening.”
He studies me as though measuring the truth of that.
“You weren’t wrong,” he says quietly. “About it rising.” The admission lands softly.
“You wrote it to love someone,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Then let it survive her.”
His hand lifts before I expect it to. He brushes a strand of hair from my cheek, fingers warm against my skin.
The gesture is restrained, almost cautious.
I don’t move away.
He is close enough now that I can feel his heat through the thin fabric between us. The scent of pine smoke and coffee and warm skin. The steadiness of his breath.
There is nothing frantic in the way he looks at me. Only intensity held in check.
The distance between us narrows without either of us deciding it should.
His mouth finds mine. Slowly. Deliberately.
The kiss isn’t urgent. It isn’t reckless. It feels like a decision.
His hand settles at my waist, firm but not demanding. I rest my palm against his chest, feeling the solid rise and fall of his breath beneath my fingers.
He tastes like coffee and restraint.
The heat builds quietly between us, not in flashes but in steady waves. The storm presses against the cabin walls as if to remind us how alone we are here.
I lean into him. No surrender. Choice.
His mouth deepens against mine gradually, measured and controlled, but beneath it something stronger moves—fear and desire braided together.
For a moment, I forget why I climbed this mountain.
I forget Stephen. I forget the festival. There is only warmth and the rhythm of his breath aligning with mine.
Then he pulls back. Abruptly enough to break the spell, gently enough not to wound.
He steps away first. Always control. The space between us returns, but it isn’t the same as before.
He turns slightly, hand braced against the piano as if grounding himself.
“We should stop,” he says.
His voice is steady. Mine isn’t entirely.
“Yes.”
The word feels both like agreement and promise.
He looks at me differently now. Not as a student. Not as a musician. As something that unsettles him.
The fire shifts behind us, sparks snapping softly inside the stove.
Outside, the storm continues its slow burial of the mountain. Inside, something else has begun to thaw.
And I know—before he says it, before he admits it—that whatever he thought he was protecting when he burned that score, it’s already at risk again.
This time not because of betrayal.
Because of me.
“Set down the Lady Sunshine,” he says.
My cheeks heat, doing as he says. My heart beats against my ribs, and I wonder if he can hear it.
“This stay is not just about my piece. And your playing. It’s about what I requested…”
My throat tightens. “And what’s that?”
“An assistant. A companion.”
“And I’m not currently living up to your expectations?” My breath comes quicker now.
His eyes rove over me, his hand finding the small of my back again. “If you want to know what’s missing from the cadenza—”
“Yes, I do,” I say too quickly.
“Good, then,” he grunts, pulling me into his arms. “But this does not mean I’ll attend the music festival. It does not mean I’ll approve of your performance, or even be there.”
“What does it mean?” My voice is a breathy whisper.
“That I can’t stop thinking about you. Since the moment you first arrived. That when you go, I want to keep something of you with me. A memory I can return to again and again.”
“I don’t have to go,” I say.
“No?” His forehead creases, eyes simmering, steady on me, never drifting to the window. “Don’t then.”
I nod, chest tightening.
His forehead drops to mine. “Are you sure?”
“More sure than you could possibly know.”
Emotion swirls behind his gaze. All that exists between us is breath and pulse. My legs shake, knees ready to buckle. He sweeps me off my feet, carrying me the length of the hallway, past the guest bedroom to his.