Page 78 of Echoes of a Silent Song
He sought her gaze.“Do you want to talk about it?”
Blair glanced at her watch and shrugged.“Well, we’ve still got a few minutes before the concert starts, so ...sure.I guess.”
“Only if you want to.”
Blair bit her lip.“I don’t.Not really.But if we’re going to be”—she gestured between them—“then I need to get it out there.”
“Okay.”He reached for her hand.Maybe the slight touch would ground her.Keep her in the present.Keep her focused on him.
“He’s a tenor.”
Of course he was a tenor.
“We met on an elevator in the Music Building my first day on campus.We started talking and had this instant connection.We ended up skipping our next classes and going out for coffee instead.”Bittersweetnostalgia carved a slight crease in her cheek.Crinkled the pale skin next to her eyes.“He needed a pianist for his junior recital, and I already knew some of his rep, so we decided to work together.I was his pianist for everything for two years.And right after his senior recital—onstage, no less—he proposed.”
“Onstage?Wow.”Blair didn’t seem the public-proposal type.
“Yeah, he made it quite the production.But that’s Derek for you.”
“Must have been fairly confident in your answer.”
“I gave him no reason not to be,” she said.“I fawned over that guy.Rearranged my entire life for him.Gave him my absolute best, both personally and professionally, because he promised we’d have a future together.We planned to get married after we’d both finished school.He went to Wisconsin for grad school, so we knew there’d be some long distance involved.But ...while I was finishing my undergrad degree and planning our wedding, he was meeting Marguerite.”
A soprano.Had to have been.
“One night, about a month before the wedding, I decided to surprise him.”She gave a shuddery sigh.“I drove up to Madison after I finished a concert.Didn’t tell him I was coming.But the surprise was on me.Because Marguerite was with him.And it was exceptionally clear what they’d been doing just before he answered the door.”
Callum’s heart ached, and he put his arm around her.“I’m sorry, Blair.”
She rested her head on his shoulder for a second.“Thank you.”
Suddenly her prickliness made sense.People were always leaving her, both professionally and personally.Sounded like Derek’s abandonment had been the most painful.Blair wasn’t icy.She was hurt.And she protected herself the only way she knew how.
Well, maybe she didn’t have to do all the work herself anymore.He wanted nothing more than to protect her.To care for her.To never do to her what that dirtbag Derek had done.To never promise something he couldn’t follow through with.
And there was the sticking point.Because he couldn’t promise he’d stay.His plan was to move back to Boston.That had always been the plan, because that would get him his real life back.
But now that ambition rang hollow.How would following through with his plan not be doing what Derek had done?How would she not view that as him just using her?He knew his motives, but that didn’t matter, because his actions would speak loud and clear.Not just to her, but to the kids.And as much as she loved them, that might be the deepest cut of all, because he’d just be using them too.No matter what he accomplished with them, no matter what kind of success they had together, none of it would matter to the kids if he left them after this year and forced them to adjust to yet another new director next year.
And what did he have waiting for him back in Boston, exactly?A choir that had gone under financially and no longer existed.Memories of Rayne around every corner.The environment that had stripped him of inspiration and rendered him unable to compose.
He had a choir here.Granted, they were teenagers and not professionals, but in an odd way that made it more meaningful.The adults in his Boston choir, though amazing singers, came fully formed.Any wisdom he imparted just frosted the cake.Teaching his Peterson choirs let him bake the cake, which, to his surprise, satisfied him all the more.
He was composing again too.
Wait.Was going back to Boston still what he wanted?
For the first time, his answer to that question leaned toward a no.Maybe his mother had been right.
Maybe God did indeed have a plan.
Peterson was part of it.He’d accepted that a while ago.
But maybe it wasn’t the stepping stone he’d thought it to be.Maybe it was his intended destination all along.
Blair and Callum joined the throngs streaming from the Great Hall into the lobby after what had been, overall, a wonderful concert.She’d enjoyed it.
She would have enjoyed it more had she not spent the last two hours watching Derek.
