The Daddy Dance (5 page)

“How have they been holding classes here?” Rye asked. “Haven’t the students complained?”

And that’s when the penny dropped. Students would have complained the first time they tried to wash their hands. Their parents would have been furious about the warped floor, the chance of injury.

Kat limped to the office and picked up the maple-coated telephone handset. She punched in the studio’s number, relying on memories that had been set early in her childhood. The answering machine picked up immediately.

“We’re sorry to inform you that, due to a family emergency, Morehouse Dance Academy will not be offering classes for the spring term. If you need help with any other matter, please leave a message, and one of our staff will contact you promptly.”

Rachel’s voice. The vowels cut short, as if she were trying to sound mature. Official. Kat’s attention zeroed in on the nearby answering machine. “57” flashed in angry red numerals. So much for “our staff” returning messages—promptly or at all.

Kat’s rage was like a physical thing, a towering wave that broke over her head and drenched her with an emotion so powerful that she was left shaking. If students hadn’t been able to sign up for classes, then no money could possibly come into the studio. Rachel couldn’t have made a deposit for months. But the water was still on, and the electricity. Susan must have set up the utilities for automatic payment. Even now, the studio’s bank account might be overdrawn.

Susan was probably too stressed, too distracted, to have noticed any correspondence from the bank. Fiscal disaster might be only a pen stroke away. All because of Rachel.

Kat’s voice shook with fury as she slammed her hand down on the desk. “I cannot be
lieve
her! How could Rachel do this? How could she ruin everything that Mama worked so hard to achieve?”

Of course Rye didn’t answer. He didn’t even know Rachel. He couldn’t have any idea how irresponsible she was.

Somehow, though, Rye’s silence gave Kat permission to think out loud. “I have to get this all fixed up. I can’t let my mother see the studio like this. It would break her heart. I have to get the floor fixed, and the plumbing. Get people enrolled in classes.”

“I can do the plumbing myself,” Rye said, as calmly as if he had planned on walking into this particular viper’s nest when he strolled through the studio door. “I’ll round up the troops to take care of the leak. You can get started on the paperwork here in the office, see if you find any more problems.”

“You make it sound so simple!”

He laughed, the easy sound filling the little office. “I should. It’s my job.”

She gave him a confused look. “Job?”

“Believe it or not, I can’t make a living picking up stranded passengers at the train station every day. I’m a building contractor—renovations, installations, all of that.”

That’s right. He’d said something as he handed her the roller bag yesterday, something about Harmon Contracting. Rye was a guy who made the world neater, one job at a time. A guy who made his living with projects like hers. “But didn’t Lisa say you were living up in Richmond now?”

A quick frown darted across his face, gone before she was certain she had seen it. “I moved there a month ago. But I’ve been back in town every weekend. A few more days around here won’t hurt me.”

What was he saying? Why was he volunteering to spend
more
time in Eden Falls?

Kat wasn’t even family. He didn’t owe her a thing. What the hell was he thinking, taking on a job like this? More hours going back and forth on I-95. More time behind the wheel of his truck. More time away from the business that he really needed to nurture, from the promise he’d made to himself.

This was Marissa, all over again—a woman, tying him down, making him trade in his own dreams for hers. This was the same rotten truth he’d lived, over and over and over, the same reflexive way that he had set his dreams aside, just because he had the skills to help someone else. Just because he could.

But one look at the relief on Kat’s face, and Rye knew he’d said the right thing.

And Harmon Contracting wasn’t exactly taking Richmond by storm. He didn’t need to be up the road, full-time, every day. And it sure looked like Kat needed him here, now.

She shook her head, and he wasn’t sure if the disbelief in her next words was because of the generosity of his offer, or the scale of the disaster she was still taking in, in the studio. “I don’t even know how I’ll pay you. I can’t let my mother find out about this.”

“We’ll work out something,” Rye said. “Maybe some of my cousins can take a ballet class or two.”

Kat just stared. Rye sounded like he rescued maidens in distress every day. Well, he had yesterday, hadn’t he? “Just like that? Don’t we need to write up a contract or something?”

Rye raised a mahogany eyebrow. “If you don’t trust me to finish the job, we can definitely put something in writing.”

“No!” She surprised herself by the vehemence she forced into the word. “I thought that
you
wouldn’t trust
me.
”

“That wouldn’t be very neighborly of me, would it?” She fumbled for a reply, but he laughed. “Relax. You’re back in Eden Falls. We pretty much do things on a handshake around here. If either one of us backs out of the deal, the entire town will know by sunset.” He lowered his voice to a growl, putting on a hefty country twang. “If that happens, you’ll never do business in this town again.”

Kat surprised herself by laughing. “That’s the voice you used when you played Curly!”

“Ha!” Rye barked. “You
did
recognize me!”

Rye watched embarrassment paint Kat’s cheeks. She was beautiful when she blushed. The color took away all the hard lines of her face, relaxed the tension around her eyes.

“I —” she started to say, fumbling for words. He cocked an eyebrow, determined not to make things easier for her. “You —” she started again. She stared at her hands, at her fingers twisting around each other, as if she were weaving invisible cloth.

“You thought it would be cruel to remind me how clumsy I was on stage, in
Oklahoma
. That was mighty considerate of you.”

“No!”

There. Her gaze shot up, as if she had something to prove. Another blush washed over her face. This time, the color spread across her collarbones, the tender pink heating the edges of that crisp black top she wore. He had a sudden image of the way her skin would feel against his lips, the heat that would shimmer off her as he tasted….

“No,” she repeated, as if she could read his mind. Now it was his turn to feel the spark of embarrassment. He most definitely did not want Kat Morehouse reading his mind just then. “You weren’t clumsy. That dance scene would have been a challenge for anyone.”

“Except for you.” He said the words softly, purposely pitching his voice so that she had to take a step closer to hear.

Her lips twisted into a frown. “Except for me,” she agreed reluctantly. “But I wasn’t a normal kid. I mean, I already knew I was going to be a dancer. I’d known since I was five. I was a freak.”

Before he could think of how she would react, he raised a hand to her face, brushing back an escaped lock of her coal-black hair. “You weren’t a freak. You were never a freak.”

Her belly tightened as she felt the wiry hairs on the back of his fingers, rough against her cheek. She caught her breath, freezing like a doe startled on the edge of a clearing.
Stop it
, she told herself.
He doesn’t mean anything by it. You’re a mess after one morning spent in this disaster zone, and he’s just trying to help you out. Like a neighbor should.

Those were the words she forced herself to think, but that’s not what she wanted to believe. Rye Harmon had been the first boy to kiss her. Sure, she had pretended not to know him the day before. And over the years, she’d told herself that it had never actually happened. Even if it had, it had been a total accident, a complete surprise to both of them. But his lips had touched hers when she was only fourteen—his lips, so soft and sweet and kind—and sometimes it had seemed that she’d been spoiled for any other boy after that.

She forced herself to laugh, and to take a step away. “We all think we’re freaks when we’re teenagers,” she said.

For just an instant, she thought that he was going to follow her. She thought that he was going to take the single step to close the distance between them, to gather up her hair again, to put those hands to even better use.

But then he matched her shaky laugh, tone for tone, and the moment was past. “Thank God no one judges us on the mistakes we make when we’re young,” he said.

Rye berated himself as Kat sought refuge behind the desk. What the hell was he doing, reacting like that, to a woman he hadn’t seen since she was a kid? For a single, horrible second, he thought it was because of Rachel. Because of those few tumultuous weeks, almost six years before.

But that couldn’t be. Despite the DNA that Kat and Rachel shared, they were nothing alike. Physically, emotionally—they might as well live on two different planets. He was certain of that—his body was every bit as sure as his mind.

It was Kat who drew him now. Kat who attracted him. Kat whom he did not want to scare away.

He squared his shoulders and shoved his left hand deep into the pocket of his jeans. “Here,” he said, producing a small leather case. “You left your cell phone in my car. I found it this morning, and I called your parents’ house, but your mother said you were over here.”

Kat snatched the phone from his open palm, like a squirrel grabbing a peanut from a friendly hand. She retreated behind the desk, using the cell as an excuse to avoid Rye’s eyes, to escape that warm black gaze. Staring at the phone’s screen, she bit her lip when she realized she still had no reception. “Stupid carrier,” she said.

“Pretty much all of them have lousy reception around here. It’s better up on the bluffs.”

The bluffs. Kat may have left town when she was fourteen, but she had already heard rumors about the bluffs. About the kids who drove up there, telling their parents they were going to the movies. About the kids who climbed into backseats, who got caught by flashlight-wielding policemen.

But that was stupid. She wasn’t a kid. And it only made sense that she’d get better cell phone reception at the highest point in town. “I’ll head up there, then, if I need to make a call.”

Damn. She hadn’t quite managed to keep her voice even. Well, in for an inch, in for a mile. She might as well apologize now, for having pretended not to know him.

She took a deep breath before she forced herself to meet his eyes. He seemed to be laughing at her, gently chiding her for her discomfort. She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about yesterday. About acting like I didn’t know who you were. I guess I just felt strange, coming back here. Coming back to a place that’s like home, but isn’t.”

He could have made a joke. He could have tossed away her apology. He could have scolded her for being foolish. But instead, he said, “‘Like home, but isn’t.’ I’m learning what you mean.” At her questioning look, he went on. “Moving up to Richmond. It’s what I’ve always wanted. When I’m here, I can’t wait to get back there, can’t wait to get back to work. But when I’m there…I worry about everyone here. I think about everything I’m missing.”

It didn’t help that everyone in Eden Falls thought he was nuts for moving away. Every single member of his family believed that the little town was the perfect place to raise kids, the perfect place to grow up, surrounded by generations. Marissa had said that to him, over and over again, and he’d believed her, because Eden Falls was the only place he’d ever known.

But now, having gotten away to Richmond, he knew that there was a whole wide world out there. He owed it to himself to explore further, to test himself, to see exactly how much he could achieve.

Like Kat had, daring to leave so long ago. If anyone was going to understand him, Kat would.

He met her gaze as if she’d challenged him out loud. “I have to do it. It’s like I…I have to prove something. To my family and to myself—I can make this work, and not just because I’m a Harmon. Not just because I know everyone in town, and my daddy knows everyone, and his daddy before him. If I can make Harmon Contracting succeed, it’ll be because of who
I
am. What
I
do.”

Kat heard the earnestness in Rye’s voice, the absolute certainty that he was going to make it. For just a second, she felt a flash of pain somewhere beneath her breastbone, as if her soul was crying out because she had lost something precious.

But that was absurd. Rye had moved to Richmond, the same way that she had moved to New York. They both had found their true paths, found their way out of Eden Falls. And she’d be back in her true home shortly, back with the National Ballet, back on stage, just as soon as she could get out of her stupid walking boot.

And as soon as she got the Morehouse Dance Academy back on its feet. She pasted on her very best smile and extended her hand, offering the handshake that would seal their deal. “I almost feel guilty,” she said. “Keeping you away from Richmond. But you’re the one who offered.”

His fingers folded around hers, and she suddenly had to fight against the sensation that she was falling, tumbling down a slope so steep that she could not begin to see the bottom. “I did,” he said. “And I always keep my word.”