Magical Weddings (140 page)

She didn’t notice Dave’s approach until he thrust a hand in her direction, saying, “Here.”

Meredith ignored it. “Look.” She lifted her chin toward the dance floor, her gaze not moving from their parents.

“I saw.” He didn’t sound as happy as he should have.

“What’s wrong?” Meredith looked at him, surprised. “Your dad’s dancing. My mom’s dancing,” she said, pointing out the obvious as if he could somehow have missed it.

“I know. I just…” He shook his head. “Yeah, it’s great.”

He still didn’t sound right, but Meredith didn’t know whether she should push to find out what was wrong with him. Her glance fell to his hand. He was holding a cocktail napkin with three of the bite-size, airy pastries that she loved neatly clustered on it.

“You brought me gougères.” She lifted her eyes to his, her smile tugging at her cheeks.

“The very last ones, fresh from the oven.” His eyes were still too serious, but he smiled at her when she took the nearest one. Her first bite was as good as she remembered—flaky, buttery, with the tang of Swiss cheese.

She let her eyes close in brief appreciation. “So good,” she said when she’d finished chewing. “Thank you.”

“All yours.”

“You sure?” She paused, but her hand lifted and hovered over the napkin.

“Yeah. Least I could do, since I couldn’t break Mark’s nose for you.” He turned to stand beside her, not looking at her.

“It wouldn’t have helped,” Meredith responded. She opened and closed the fingers on her left hand, remembering the pain of the break, and then took the cheese puff. Over was over. Her pain was healed, as unlikely as it seemed.

“I know. It’s why I didn’t do it. But I wish I could have.”

Meredith didn’t have a good answer to that. Or any answer. She ate her second cheese puff and then the final one while they stood in a silence that felt companionable, watching their parents dance.

When she’d finished, Dave cleared his throat. “Would you like to dance?” His voice was husky.

Meredith gave a soft laugh. God, he was nice. He’d always been nice, but he’d grown up to be somebody special. “You’re sweet, but I’m okay. Really.”

Dave didn’t respond. The silence stretched between them until it started to feel heavy. Meredith shot him a quick glance. He wasn’t looking at her, but his jaw was set. She replayed her words in her head. Had she sounded dismissive? Rude? Unappreciative?

Maybe, so she tried again. “You don’t have to keep taking care of me. I’m so grateful for everything you did tonight—the gougères, helping with my mom, hauling me out of the water, bringing me dry clothes—but you should go have fun.”

“Is it so strange that I might want to dance with you?”

“Well, yeah,” Meredith said uncertainly. In the dim light, she couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Was he angry at her? Why? He didn’t answer, so she kept going. “I mean… I used to be your babysitter. You should go dance with someone, I don’t know, someone your own age.”

“Like who?” He asked the question politely, even gently.

“Like...” Meredith looked around the party at the women she knew, ruling them out. Too bitchy, married, annoying laugh, married, airhead, married, married, married. She settled on a couple of names she’d be able to tolerate seeing with Dave. “Grace, maybe. Olivia.”

“Grace signs my paychecks. And Olivia is seven years younger than me. You’re three years older. How does that make sense?”

“Well, I—it’s different. You’ve known me forever.”

“Yes,” Dave agreed. “Known you forever and had a crush on you for almost as long.”

Meredith blinked at him. What? What had he just said? Maybe she’d gotten water in her ears, because it felt like there was a weird rushing in her head.

“You can’t tell me you never knew that.” Dave sounded exasperated.

“I… when you were fourteen, maybe.” Heat was rising in Meredith’s cheeks.

“Right. When I was fourteen and you were not my babysitter, but the incredibly hot cheerleader living next door. You think that wears off?”

“You got over it. You—you brought home that girl. What was her name again?”

Dave laughed. “Martina.”

“Right. Now
she
was hot.” He’d been in his second year at the academy. Meredith was living at home, searching for a job that would let her stay in Tassamara, her useless communications degree burning a hole in her pocket. The girl he’d brought home for the holidays had been drop-dead gorgeous. Lush dark hair, deep brown eyes, curves that belonged on a Victoria’s Secret model, and a husky laugh that irritated Meredith like sandpaper on sunburn. “And nothing like me.”

“And not, in the end, my type.” He’d turned to fully face her. He wasn’t touching her, but it almost felt like he was, her awareness of him—of the man that he’d become—was so strong.

“What is your type?” She felt stupidly breathless. Ridiculously breathless. This was Dave. Next door neighbor Dave. The little boy who spent an entire summer telling her knock-knock jokes. The grown man who was always there, always helpful, solid to the core.

And damn attractive in his own quiet way.

“You are. Always have been, always will be.”

Meredith stared at him.

“Dance with me.” He held out his hand to her.

Meredith couldn’t speak. The words wouldn’t come. But her heart was racing, and the blood rushing through her body felt alive with sparks of light. She nodded and placed her hand in his.

At the edge of the dance floor, she paused. “Wait.” Reality was intruding on a moment that felt dream-like. The music had changed but it was another classic, something she knew she ought to be able to identify, and the couples on the floor were spinning together in a fast-paced waltz. “I don’t know how to dance like this.”

“I do. All you have to do is follow my lead.”

His eyes on her were warm, his lips curved into the faintest smile, as if he couldn’t quite believe himself what was happening, so she laughed and said, “All right.”

And in the cool Florida evening, under the sparkling fairy lights and the hanging Spanish moss, next to the still water shimmering with reflected light from the lanterns wrapped in flowers, Meredith danced with the boy next door.

And it was magic.

Sarah Wynde graduated from Wesleyan University with a degree in English, which she actually managed to put to use by becoming an editor. She's worked on magazines, websites, and books, including ten years spent as a senior acquisitions editor with Pearson. Eventually, her love of writing pushed her into independent publishing. She likes to think of the stories she writes as unexpected fiction—bending, blending, and occasionally breaking genres. She can be found online at
http://sarahwynde.com
.