Lois had shot into the entry hall before Tia could step back, out of sight. If Shiloh’s mother had merely looked up, she would’ve been spotted. But Lois had been too eager to get out of the house.

Seth, however, who’d followed Lois into the entryway, turned and saw her standing at the top of the stairs almost immediately, as if that was where he’d expected her to be all along.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Are you okay?”

He rubbed his forehead as though he had a headache.

“Seth?”

“I’m fine,” he insisted as he came up the stairs, but those words were so mechanical she knew better.

Tia was tempted to put her arms around him. She wanted to hold him and tell him that Lois must be blind. Both he and his work were magnificent. Maybe she would’ve done it, but he didn’t give her the chance.

Nodding politely as he passed, he went into the office, and she knew she wasn’t welcome to follow him when he closed the door.

Tia went back to the aviary to finish up with Kiki and stayed longer than usual, trying to give Seth the uninterrupted time he needed. After she was done playing with the bird, she got a book from the house library and tried to entertain and distract herself by reading. She couldn’t wait for Seth to emerge from the office, however, and kept tapping her foot and watching the clock as the hours passed.

By eleven, she was growing so agitated that she was beginning to pace. She’d made dinner, but when she’d gone up to knock on the office door, he’d told her he wasn’t hungry. She imagined him working feverishly, but it was equally possible that what’d happened had made it difficult for him to paint. She could tell by the pallor of his face when he’d come up the stairs how much Shiloh’s mother’s visit had hurt him.

Finally, she couldn’t take the wondering and the worrying any longer and went back to knock on the door. “Seth?” she said softly.

No answer.

“Seth?” she repeated, a little louder.

Still nothing. So she tried the handle.

It was locked. Why would he need to lock the door? Growing even more concerned, she hurried to her room, got a bobby pin out of her makeup bag and was able to bend it such that she could insert it into the lock and open the door.