“We never got a chance to dance.”

A frisson of excitement raced across Kat as she registered the rumble of Rye’s words. She let him turn her around, felt his other hand settle on her waist.

Her laughter was as soft as her silken hair. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly in dancing shape.” She waved a hand toward her walking boot.

“I wasn’t thinking of anything too strenuous. Not your pliés or arabesques or that sort of thing.”

“Mmm,” she whispered. “You’ve been doing your homework.”

“All part of renovating the studio. I have to know how the space is going to be used, don’t I?” That was a lie, though.

“Ready to sign up for a class?” she asked, obviously amused.

“I don’t think either of us needs any training.” He pulled her close, relishing her surprised gasp even as she yielded to his pressure.

Dear Reader,

I was an adult when I attended my first professional ballet, Giselle. I fell for the romance, hook, line and sinker. When I came home from the theater, I announced that I was going to be a ballerina.

My friends and family laughed. I hadn’t exactly been a star when I dropped out of my beginning ballet lessons. I wasn’t a vision of grace or coordination. In recognition of my impossible dream, my mother started gifting me with stuffed animals dressed in ballet tutus (a sheep, a cow, a bunny …).

Though I realised I wasn’t meant to dance, the romance of that ballet never faded. When I started to imagine life in a small town in Virginia, I realised that I could finally complete my dream (in a way). I could write about a ballerina.

Kat Morehouse can’t imagine returning home after the excitement of New York City. Rye Harmon has finally escaped the small town, moving up the road to Richmond. Nevertheless, Kat and Rye find themselves back in Eden Falls.

I’ve loved building Kat and Rye’s life, and I’m thrilled to share Eden Falls with you. I love to hear from my readers—please stop by and visit me at www.mindyklasky.com.

All best wishes,

Mindy

About the Author

MINDY KLASKY learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her that she could travel anywhere in the world through stories. She never forgot that advice. These days, Mindy works and plays in a suburb of Washington, DC, where she lives with her family. In her spare time, Mindy knits, quilts and tries to tame the endless to-be-read shelf in her home library. You can visit Mindy at her website—www.mindyklasky.com.

The Daddy Dance

Mindy Klasky

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my writers’ retreat girlfriends, who gave Rye

his name—Nancy Hunter, Jeri Smith-Ready,

Maria V. Snyder, and Kristina Watson

Chapter One

Kat Morehouse pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose as the train chugged away from Eden Falls, leaving her behind on the platform. Heat rose in waves off the tiny station’s cracked parking lot. Plucking at her silk T-shirt, Kat realized for the first time since she’d left New York that solid black might not be the most comfortable wardrobe for her trip home to Virginia. Not this year. Not during this unseasonably hot spring.

But that was ridiculous. She was a dancer from New York—black was what she wore every day of her life. She wasn’t about to buy new clothes just because she was visiting Eden Falls.

Her foot already itched inside her walking boot cast. She resisted the urge to flex her toes, knowing that would only make her injury ache more. Dancer’s Fracture, the doctors had grimly diagnosed, brought on by overuse. The only cure was a walking boot and complete rest from ballet for several weeks.

Looking down at her small roller suitcase, Kat grimaced and reminded herself that she wasn’t going to be in Eden Falls for very long. Just time enough to help her family a bit—give her mother a little assistance as Susan nursed Kat’s father, Mike, who was recovering from a nasty bout of pneumonia. Take care of her niece for a few days while Kat’s irresponsible twin sister roamed somewhere off the beaten track. Look in on her mother’s dance studio, the Morehouse Dance Academy, where Kat had gotten her start so many years ago. She’d be in Eden Falls for five days. Maybe six. A week at most.

Kat glanced at her watch. She might not live in Eden Falls anymore, but she knew the train schedule by heart, had known it ever since she’d first dreamed of making a life for herself in the big city. The southbound Crescent stopped at one-thirty in the afternoon. The northbound Clipper would churn through at two-fifteen.

Now, it was one forty-five, and Susan Morehouse was nowhere in sight. In fact, there was only one other person standing on the edge of the parking lot, a passenger who had disembarked with Kat. That woman was tall, with broad shoulders that looked like they were made for milking cows or kneading bread dough. Her oval face and regular features looked vaguely familiar, and Kat realized she must be one of the Harmons, the oldest family in Eden Falls.

Shrugging, Kat dug her cell phone out of her purse, resigned to calling home. She tapped the screen and waited for the phone to wake from its electronic slumber. A round icon spun for a few seconds. A minute. More. The phone finally emitted a faint chirp, dutifully informing her that she was out of range of a recognized cell tower. Out of range of civilization.

Kat rolled her eyes. It was one thing to leave New York City for a week of playing Florence Nightingale in Eden Falls, Virginia. It was another to be cut off without the backbone of modern communications technology. Even if Kat was looking forward to helping her mother, a week was really going to stretch out if she didn’t have a working smart phone.

Squinting in the bright sunlight, Kat read a message sent by Haley, her roommate back in New York. The text must have come in during the train ride, before Kat had slipped out of range. OMG, said the text. A + S r here. “A,” Adam. The boyfriend of three years whom Kat had sent packing one week before, after discovering his side relationship with Selene Johnson. That would be “S,” the corp’s newest phenom dancer.

Haley had sent another message, five minutes later. 2 gross.

And a third one, five minutes after that. Hands all over.

All over. Right. Kat and Adam were all over. Adam hadn’t had the decency to admit what was going on with Selene. Not even when Kat showed him the silk panties she’d found beneath his pillow—panties that she had definitely not left behind. Panties that Selene must have intended Kat to find.

Even now, Kat swallowed hard, trying to force her feelings past the raw, empty space in the middle of her chest. She had honestly believed she and Adam were meant for each other. She had thought that he alone understood her, believed in all the crazy sacrifices she had to make as a dancer. He was the first guy—the only guy—she had ever gotten involved with, the only one who had seemed worth sacrificing some of her carefully allocated time and energy.

How could Kat have been so wrong? In reality, Adam had just been waiting for the next younger, more fit, more flexible dancer to come along. Kat hated herself for every minute she had invested in their broken relationship, every second she had stolen from her true focus: her dancing career. She closed her eyes, and once again she could see that slinky thong in Adam’s bed.

“2 gross” was right.

Kat dropped her useless cell phone into her purse and wiped her palms against her jet-black jeans, feeling the afternoon sun shimmer off the denim. At least her hair was up, off her neck in this heat. Small mercy. She started to rummage deep in her bag, digging for her wallet. A place like Eden Falls had to have pay phones somewhere. She could call her mother, figure out where their wires had crossed. Reach out to her cousin Amanda, if she needed to. Amanda was always good for a ride, whenever Kat made one of her rare weekend appearances.

Before she could find a couple of quarters, though, a huge silver pickup truck rolled to a stop in the parking lot. The Harmon woman smiled as she held out her thumb, pretending to hitch a ride. The driver—another Harmon, by the broad set of his shoulders, by his shock of chestnut hair—laughed as he walked around the front of his truck. He gave his sister a bear hug, swinging her around in a circle that swept her feet off the dusty asphalt. The woman whooped and punched at his shoulder, demanding to be set down. The guy obliged, opening the truck’s passenger door before he hefted her huge suitcase into the vehicle’s gleaming bed.

He was heading back to the driver’s side when he noticed Kat. “Hey!” he called across the small lot, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Kat, right? Kat Morehouse?”

Startled by the easy note of recognition in the man’s voice, Kat darted a glance to his face, really studying him for the first time. No. It couldn’t be. There was no possible way Rye Harmon was the first guy she was seeing, here in Eden Falls. He started to walk toward her, and Kat started to forget the English language.

But those were definitely Rye Harmon’s eyes, coal black and warm as a panther’s flank. And that was Rye Harmon’s smile, generous and kind amid a few days’ worth of unshaved stubble. And that was Rye Harmon’s hand, strong and sinewy, extended toward her in a common gesture of civil greeting.

Kat’s belly completed a fouetté, flipping so rapidly that she could barely catch her breath.

Rye Harmon had played Curly in the high school production of Oklahoma the year Kat had left for New York. Kat had still been in middle school, too young to audition for the musical. Nevertheless, the high school drama teacher had actually recruited her to dance the part of Laurey in the show’s famous dream sequence. The role had been ideal for a budding young ballerina, and Kat had loved her first true chance to perform. There had been costumes and makeup and lights—and there had been Rye Harmon.

Rye had been the star pitcher on the high school baseball team, with a reasonable baritone voice and an easy manner that translated well to the high school auditorium stage. Sure, he didn’t know the first thing about dancing, but with careful choreography, the audience never discovered the truth. Week after week, Kat had nurtured a silly crush on her partner, even though she knew it could never amount to anything. Not when she was a precocious middle-school brat, and he was a high school hero. Not when she had her entire New York career ahead of herself, and he was Eden Falls incarnate—born, bred and content to stay in town forever.

In the intervening years, Kat had danced on stages around the world. She had kissed and been kissed a thousand times—in ballets and in real life, too. She was a grown, competent, mature woman, come back to town to help her family when they needed her most.

But she was also the child who had lived in Eden Falls, the shy girl who had craved attention from the unattainable senior.

And so she reacted the way a classically trained New York ballerina would act. She raised her chin. She narrowed her eyes. She tilted her head slightly to the right. And she said, “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

Rye stopped short as Kat Morehouse pinned him with her silver-gray eyes. He had no doubt that he was looking at Kat and not her twin, Rachel. Kat had always been the sister with the cool reserve, with the poised pride, even before she’d left Eden Falls. When was that? Ten years ago? Rye had just graduated from high school, but he’d still been impressed with all the gossip about one of Eden Falls’s own heading up to New York City to make her fortune at some fancy ballet school.

Of course, Rye had seen plenty of Kat’s sister, Rachel, around town over the past decade. Done more than see her, six years ago. He’d actually dated her for three of the most tempestuous weeks of his life. She’d been six months out of high school then, and she had flirted with him mercilessly, showing up at job sites, throwing pebbles at his window until he came down to see her in the middle of the night. It had taken him a while to figure out that she was just bent on getting revenge against one of Rye’s fraternity brothers, Josh Barton. Barton had dumped her, saying she was nuts.

It had taken Rye just a few weeks to reach the same conclusion, then a few more to extricate himself from Rachel’s crazy, melodramatic life. Just as well—a couple of months later, Rachel had turned up pregnant. Rye could still remember the frozen wave of disbelief that had washed over him when she told him the news, the shattering sound of all his dreams crashing to earth. And he could still remember stammering out a promise to be there for Rachel, to support his child. Most of all, though, he recalled the searing rush of relief when Rachel laughed, told him the baby was Josh’s, entitled to its own share of the legendary Barton fortune.

Rye had dodged a bullet there.

If he had fathered Rachel’s daughter—what was her name? Jessica? Jennifer?—he never could have left town. Never could have moved up to Richmond, set up his own contracting business. As it was, it had taken him six years after that wake-up call, and he still felt the constant demands of his family, had felt it with half a dozen girlfriends over the years. With a kid in the picture, he never could have fulfilled his vow to be a fully independent contractor by his thirtieth birthday.

He’d been well shed of Rachel, six years ago.

And he had no doubt he was looking at Kat now. Rachel and Kat were about as opposite as any two human beings could be—even if they were sisters. Even if they were twins. Kat’s sharp eyes were the same as they’d been in middle school—but that was the only resemblance she bore to the freakishly good dancer he had once known.

That Kat Morehouse had been a kid.

This Kat Morehouse was a woman.

She was a full head taller than when he’d seen her last. Skinnier, too, all long legs and bare arms and a neck that looked like it was carved out of rare marble. Her jet-black hair was piled on top of her head in some sort of spiky ponytail, but he could see that it would be long and straight and thick, if she ever let it down. She was wearing a trim black T-shirt and matching jeans that looked like they’d been specially sewn in Paris or Italy or one of those fashion places.

And she had a bright blue walking boot on her left leg—the sort of boot that he’d worn through a few injuries over the years. The sort of boot that itched like hell in the heat. The sort of boot that made it a pain to stand on the edge of a ragged blacktop parking lot in front of the Eden Falls train station, waiting for a ride that was obviously late or, more likely, not coming at all.

Rye realized he was still standing there, his hand extended toward Kat like he was some idiot farm boy gawking at the state fair Dairy Princess. He squared his shoulders and wiped his palms across the worn denim thighs of his jeans. From the ice in Kat’s platinum gaze, she clearly had no recollection of who he was. Well, at least he could fix that.

He stepped forward, finally closing the distance between them. “Rye,” he said by way of introduction. “Rye Harmon. We met in high school. I mean, when I was in high school. You were in middle school. I was Curly, in Oklahoma. I mean, the play.”

Yeah, genius, Rye thought to himself. Like she really thought you meant Oklahoma, the state.

Kat hadn’t graduated from the National Ballet School without plenty of acting classes. She put those skills to good use, flashing a bright smile of supposedly sudden recognition. “Rye!” she said. “Of course!”

She sounded fake to herself, but she suspected no one else could tell. Well, maybe her mother. Her father. Rachel, if she bothered to pay attention. But certainly not a practical stranger like Rye Harmon. A practical stranger who said, “Going to your folks’ house? I can drop you there.” He reached for her overnight bag, as if his assistance was a forgone conclusion.

“Oh, no,” she protested. “I couldn’t ask you to do that!” She grabbed for the handle of the roller bag as well, flinching when her fingers settled on top of his. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t usually this jumpy.

She wasn’t usually in Eden Falls, Virginia.

“It’s no problem,” Rye said, and she remembered that easy smile from a decade before. “Your parents live three blocks from mine—from where I’m taking Lisa.”

Kat wanted to say no. She had been solving her own problems for ten long years.

Not that she had such a great track record lately. Her walking boot was testament to that. And the box of things piled in the corner of her bedroom, waiting for cheating Adam to pick up while she was out of town.

But what was she going to do? Watch Rye drive out of the parking lot, and then discover she had no change at the bottom of her purse? Or that the pay phone—if there even was a pay phone—was out of order? Or that no one was at the Morehouse home, that Mike had some doctor’s appointment Susan had forgotten when they made their plans?

“Okay,” Kat said, only then realizing that her hand was still on Rye’s, that they both still held her suitcase. “Um, thanks.”

She let him take the bag, hobbling after him to the gleaming truck. Lisa shifted over on the bench seat, saying, “Hey,” in a friendly voice.

“Hi,” Kat answered, aware of the Northern inflection in her voice, of the clipped vowel sound that made her seem like she was in a hurry. She was in a hurry, though. She’d come all the way from New York City—almost five hundred miles.

It wasn’t just the distance, though. It was the lifetime. It was the return to her awkward, unhappy childhood, where she’d always been the odd one out, the dancer, the kid who was destined to move away.

She’d left Eden Falls for a reason—to build her dream career. Now that she was back in the South, she felt like her life was seizing up in quicksand. She was being forced to move slower, trapped by convention and expectation and the life she had not led.

Determined to regain a bit of control, she turned back to the truck door, ready to tug it closed behind her. She was startled to find Rye standing there. “Oh!” she said, leaping away. The motion tumbled her purse from her lap to her feet. Silently cursing her uncharacteristic lack of grace, she leaned forward to scoop everything back inside her bag. Rye reached out to help, but she angled her shoulder, finishing the embarrassing task before he could join in.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he drawled. He reached inside the truck and passed her the seat belt, pulling it forward from its awkward position over her right shoulder.

“You didn’t!” But, of course, he had. And if she made any more protest, he might take more time to apologize, time she did not want to waste. It was all well and good for him to take all day on a run to the train station. What else could he have to do in slow-paced Eden Falls? But she was there to help her family, and she might as well get started. She pulled the seat belt across her chest, settling it in its slot with the precision of a brain surgeon. “I’m fine. And if you don’t mind, I’m sort of in a hurry.”

She almost winced when she realized how brusque she sounded.

Recognizing dismissal when he heard it, Rye shut the door carefully. He shook his head as he walked around the front of his truck. Ten years had passed, but he still remembered Kat’s precise attention to detail. Kat Morehouse had been a determined girl. And she had clearly grown into a formidable woman.

Formidable. Not exactly the type he was used to dating. Certainly not like Rachel had been, with her constant breaking of rules, pushing of boundaries. And not like the sweet, small-town girls he had dated here in Eden Falls.

His brothers teased him, saying he’d moved to Richmond because he needed a deeper dating pool. Needed to find a real woman—all the girls in Eden Falls knew him too well.

He hadn’t actually had time for a date in the past year—not since he’d been burned by Marissa. Marissa Turner. He swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth as he thought of the woman who had been his girlfriend for two long years. Two long years, when he had torn apart his own life plans, forfeited his fledgling business, all to support her beauty salon.

Every time Rye mentioned making it big in Richmond, Marissa had thrown a fit. He had wanted her to be happy, and so he had circumscribed all of his dreams. It was easier, after all. Easier to stay in Eden Falls. Easier to keep doing the same handyman work he’d been doing all of his adult life. At least Marissa was happy.

Until she got some crazy-ass chance to work on a movie out in Hollywood, doing the hair for some leading-man hunk. Marissa had flown cross-country without a single look back, not even bothering to break up with Rye by phone. And he had been left utterly alone, feeling like a fool.

A fool who was two years behind on his business plan.

But not anymore. With Marissa gone, Rye had finally made the leap, moving up to Richmond, finding the perfect office, hunting down a tolerable apartment. He was finally moving on with his life, and it felt damn good to make choices for himself. Not for his family. Not for his girlfriend. For him.

At least, most of the time.

Lisa was chatting with Kat by the time he settled into the driver’s seat. “It’s no problem, really,” his sister was saying. “Rye already came down from Richmond to get me. Things are crazy at home—Mama’s out West visiting her sister, and Daddy’s busy with the spring planting. Half my brothers and sisters sent up a distress call to get Rye home for the weekend. He’s walking dogs for our sister Jordana—she’s out of town for a wedding, so she can’t take care of her usual clients. At least he could fit taxi service in before coaching T-ball practice this afternoon, filling in for Noah.”

Listening to Lisa’s friendly banter, Rye had to shake his head. It was no wonder he had moved all the way to Richmond to make his business work. Of course, he loved his family, loved the fact that they all looked to him to fix whatever was wrong. But here in Eden Falls, there was always a brother who needed a hand, a sister with one more errand, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends—people who pulled him away from his business.

He’d only been living in Richmond for a month, and he’d already come back to Eden Falls a half-dozen times. He promised himself he’d get more control over his calendar in the weeks to come.

Lisa nudged his ribs with a sharp elbow. “Right? Tell Kat that it’s no big deal, or she’s going to get out at the traffic light and walk home from there!”

Rye couldn’t help but smile. He could grouse all he wanted about being called home, but he loved his family, loved the fact that they needed him. “It’s no big deal,” he said dutifully, and then he nodded to Kat. “And you shouldn’t be walking anywhere on that boot. Broken foot?”

Kat fought against her automatic frown. “Stress fracture.”

“Ow. Our brother Logan had one of those, a couple of years back. He plays baseball for the Eagles. It took about a month for his foot to heal. A month until he could get back to playing, anyway.”

Kat started to ask if Logan pitched, like Rye had done, but then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to have recognized Rye. She settled for shrugging instead and saying, “The doctors say I’ve got about a month to wait, myself. I figured it was a good time to come down here. Help out my parents.”

Rye gave her a sympathetic glance. “I was at their house a few months ago, to install a handheld shower for your father. How’s he doing?”

“Fine.” Kat curved her lips into the smile she had mastered in her long-ago acting classes. Her father was fine. Susan was fine. Jenny was fine. Everyone was fine, and Kat would be on a northbound train in less than a week.

“Colon cancer can be rough.” Rye’s voice was filled with sympathy.

“They say they caught it in time.” Kat was afraid to voice her fears—Mike’s recovery had taken longer than anyone had expected. He’d been in and out of the hospital for six months, and now, with pneumonia …

At least Rye seemed to believe her. He didn’t ask any more questions. Instead, he assured her, “Everyone’s been real worried about them. Just last week, my mother had me bring by some of her chicken almond casserole. It’ll get your father back on his feet in no time.”

Kat couldn’t remember the last time she’d cooked for a sick friend. Oh, well. Things were different down here. People had different ways to show they cared. She tried to recall the lessons in politeness that her mother had drilled into her, years before. “I’m sure it was delicious. It was kind of you to bring it by.”

Rye wondered if he’d somehow made Kat angry—she sounded so stiff. Her hands were folded in her lap, her fingers wrapped around each other in perfect precision, like coils of rope, fresh from the factory. She sat upright like a soldier, keeping her spine from touching the back of her seat. Her eyes flashed as they drove past familiar streets, and each intersection tightened the cords in her throat.

And then it came to him: Kat wasn’t angry. She was frightened.

One thing Rye had learned in almost thirty years of dealing with siblings and cousins was how to ease the mind of someone who was afraid. Just talk to them. It was easy enough to spin out a story or two about Eden Falls. He might have moved away, but he could always dredge up something entertaining about the only real home he’d ever known.

He nodded to the row of little shops they were passing. “Miss Emily just closed up her pet store.”

Kat barely glanced at the brightly painted storefront, and for a second he thought she might not take the bait. Finally, though, she asked, “What happened?”

“She couldn’t stand to see any of the animals in cages. She sold off all the mice and gerbils and fish, and then she took in a couple of litters of kittens. She gave them free rein over the whole shop. Problem was, she fell in love with the kittens too much to sell them. If she took money, she couldn’t be sure the animals were going to a good home. So instead of selling them, she gave them away to the best owners she could find. In the end, she decided it didn’t make much sense to pay rent. Anyone who wants a kitten now just goes up to her house and knocks on the front door.”

There. That was better. He actually caught a hint of a smile on Kat’s lips. Lisa, of course, was rolling her eyes, but at least his sister didn’t call him a liar. As long as he was on a roll, he nodded toward the elementary school they were passing. “Remember classes there? They had to skip the Christmas pageant last December because the boa constrictor in the fourth-grade classroom got out. None of the parents would come see the show until the snake was found. The kids are going to sing ‘Jingle Bells’ for the Easter parade.”

Kat couldn’t help herself. She had to ask. “Did they ever find the snake?”

“He finally came out about a week ago. The janitor found him sunning himself on the parking lot, none the worse for wear. He was hungry, though. They used to feed him mice from Miss Emily’s.”

Kat wrinkled her nose, but she had to laugh. She had to admit—she couldn’t imagine the National Ballet School having similar problems. And they would never have postponed a performance, snake or no snake, especially a holiday showcase like a Christmas pageant.

Rye eased up to the curb in front of her parents’ house, shoving the gearshift into Park. He hopped out of the truck as Kat said goodbye to Lisa. She joined him by the deep bed. “Thank you,” she said. And somehow, she meant to thank him for more than the ride. She meant to tell him that she appreciated the effort he had made, the way that he had tried to distract her from her worry.

“My pleasure,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat. “Harmon Contracting is a full-service provider.” He hefted her suitcase out of the truck, shrugging it into a more comfortable position as he nodded for Kat to precede him up the driveway.

“Oh, I can get that,” she said, reaching for the bag.

“It’s no problem.”

“Please,” she said, carving an edge onto the word. She’d learned long ago how to get her way in the bustling streets of New York. She knew the precise angle to hold her shoulders, the exact line to set her chin. No one would dare argue with her when she’d strapped on her big city armor.

Rye recognized that stance; he’d seen it often enough in his own sisters, in his mother. Kat Morehouse was not going to give in easily.

And there really wasn’t any reason to push the matter. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have a thousand other things to do that afternoon—the dog walking Lisa had mentioned, and the T-ball practice, but also phone calls back to Richmond, trying to keep his fledgling business alive while he was on the road.

And yet, he really didn’t want to leave Kat here, alone. If he turned his head just a little, he could still see the girl she’d been, the stubborn, studious child who had defied convention, who had done what she wanted to do, had carved out the life she wanted, never letting little Eden Falls stop her in her tracks.

But there would be time enough to see Kat again. She wasn’t going to disappear overnight, and he was in town for the whole weekend. He could stop by the next day. Think of some excuse between now and then. He extended the handle on the roller bag, turning it around to make it easier for Kat to grasp. “Have it your way,” he said, adding a smile.

“Thanks,” Kat said, and she hustled up the driveway, relying on the roller bag to disguise the lurch of her booted foot. Only when she reached the door did she wonder if she should go back to Rye’s truck, thank him properly for the ride. After all, he’d done her a real favor, bringing her home. And she wouldn’t mind taking one last look at those slate-black eyes, at the smooth planes of his face, at his rugged jaw….

She shook her head, though, reminding herself to concentrate. She was through with men. Through with distractions that just consumed her time, that took her away from the things that were truly important, from the things that mattered. She might have been an idiot to get involved with Adam, but at least she could translate her disappointing experience into something useful.

Waving a calculatedly jaunty farewell toward Rye and Lisa, Kat threw back her shoulders, took a deep breath and turned the doorknob. Of course the front door was unlocked; it always was. In New York, Kat had to work three different locks on the door of the apartment she shared with Haley, every single time she went in or out. Things were simpler here in Eden Falls. Easier. Safer.

Boring.

Pushing down her automatic derogatory thoughts about the town that had kept her parents happy for their entire lives, Kat stepped over the threshold. And then she caught her breath at the scene inside the old brick rambler.

Chaos. Utter, complete chaos.

A radio blasted from the kitchen, some mournful weatherman announcing that the temperature was going to top ninety, a new record high for the last day in March. A teakettle shrieked on the stovetop, piercing the entire house with its urgent demand. In the living room, a television roared the jingle from a video game, the same four bars of music, over and over and over again. From the master bedroom, a man shouted, “Fine! Let me do it, then!” and a shrill child’s voice repeated, “I’m helping! I’m helping!”

All of a sudden, it seemed pretty clear how Susan had forgotten to meet Kat at the train station.

Resisting the urge to hobble back to the curb and beg Rye to take her to a motel out on the highway—or better yet, back to the train station so she could catch the two-fifteen northbound Clipper—Kat closed the front door behind her. She pushed her little suitcase into the corner of the foyer and dropped her purse beside it. She headed to the kitchen first, grabbing a pot holder from the side of the refrigerator where her mother had kept them forever. The kettle stopped screaming as soon as she lifted it from the heat. The blue flame died immediately when Kat turned the knob on the stove. She palmed off the radio before the local news break could end.

Next stop was the living room, where Kat cast the television into silence, resorting to pushing buttons on the actual set, rather than seeking out the missing remote control. A scramble of half-clothed Barbie dolls lay on the floor, pink dresses tangled with a rose-colored sports car that had plunged into a dry fuchsia swimming pool. A handful of board games was splattered across the entire mess—tiny cones from Sorry mixing with Jenga rods and piles of Monopoly money. Kat shook her head—there would be plenty of time to sort that mess later.

And that left the voices coming from the master bedroom, down the hallway. Kat could make out her father’s gruff tones as he insisted someone hand him something immediately. The whining child—it had to be Jenny—was still saying “I’m helping,” as if she had to prove her worthiness to someone. And Kat surprised herself by finding tears in her eyes when she heard a low murmur—her calm, unflappable mother, trying to soothe both her husband and her granddaughter.

Kat clumped down the hall, resenting the awkward walking boot more than ever. When she reached the doorway, she was surprised by the tableau before her.

A hospital bed loomed between her parents’ ancient double mattress and the far wall. Mike lay prone between the raised bars, but he craned his neck at a sharp angle. He held out a calloused hand, demanding that a tiny raven-haired child hand over the controls to the bed. The girl kept pressing buttons without any effect; she obviously did not understand how to make the bed work. Susan was framed in the doorway to the bathroom, her gray face cut deep with worry lines as she balanced a small tray, complete with a glass of water and a cup of pills.

“Kat!” Susan exclaimed. “What time—?”

“I caught a ride home with Rye Harmon,” Kat said, wrestling to keep her gait as close to normal as possible. The last thing she wanted was for her mother to fuss over a stupid stress fracture. Not when Susan obviously had so much else to worry about.

Kat plucked the bed controls from her niece’s hand and passed the bulky plastic block to her father. She settled firm fingers on the child’s shoulder, turning her toward the doorway and the living room. “Thank you, Jenny,” she said, pushing pretend warmth into the words. “You were a big help. Now there are some toys out there, just waiting for you to straighten up.”

Jenny sighed, but she shuffled down the hallway. Kat leaned down to brush a kiss against her father’s forehead, easing an arm beneath his shoulders as he started to manipulate the mechanical bed, fighting to raise himself into a seated position. When she was certain he was more comfortable, Kat said, “Come sit down, Mama.” She heard the hard New York edge on her words, and she smiled to soften her voice. “Why don’t you rest, and let me take care of that for a while?”

Even as Susan settled on the edge of the double bed, Kat heard the distant whistle of the Clipper, the New York-bound train, leaving town for the day. The wild, lonesome sound immediately made her think about Rye Harmon, about how he had offered to come inside, to help. He’d scooped her up from the train station like a knight in shining armor—a friendly, easygoing knight whom she’d known all her life. Kat blinked and she could see his kind smile, his warm black eyes. She could picture the steady, sturdy way he had settled her into his truck.

She shook her head. She didn’t have time to think about Rye. Instead, she handed her father his medicine, taking care to balance her weight, keeping her spine in alignment despite her cursed walking boot. She had come to Eden Falls to help out her family, to be there for Susan and Mike. And as soon as humanly possible, she was heading back to New York, and the National Ballet Company and the life she had worked so hard to attain. She didn’t have time for Rye Harmon. Rye Harmon, or anything else that might delay her escape from Eden Falls.

Chapter Two

Three hours later, Kat wondered if she had made the greatest mistake of her life. She leaned against the headrest in her cousin Amanda’s ancient sedan, resisting the urge to strangle her five-year-old niece.

“But why isn’t Aunt Kat driving?” Jenny asked for the fourth time.

“I’m happy to drive you both home, Jenny,” Amanda deflected, applying one of the tricks she’d learned as a schoolteacher.

“But why—”

Kat interrupted the whining question, spitting out an answer through gritted teeth. “Because I don’t know how!”

Amanda laughed at Kat’s frustration. The cousins had been quite close when they were children—certainly closer than Kat had been to her own sister. Nevertheless, Amanda always thought it was hysterical that Kat had never gotten her driver’s license. More than once, she had teased Kat about moving away to the magical kingdom of Oz, where she was carried around by flying monkeys.

Jenny, though, wasn’t teasing Kat. The five-year-old child was simply astonished, her mouth stretched into an amazed O before she stammered, “B-but all grown-ups know how to drive!”

“Maybe your Aunt Kat isn’t a grown-up,” Amanda suggested helpfully.

Kat gave her a dirty look before saying, “I am a grown-up, Jenny, but I don’t drive. The two things are totally separate.”

“But how do you go to the grocery store?”

“I walk there,” Kat said, exasperated. How could one little girl make her feel like such a sideshow freak?

“But what do you do with the bags of groceries?”

“I carry them!”

Kat’s voice was rough enough that even the headstrong Jenny declined to ask another follow-up question. It wasn’t so ridiculous, that Kat couldn’t drive. She’d left Eden Falls when she was fourteen, long before she’d even thought of getting behind the wheel of a car. She’d spent the next ten years living in Manhattan, where subways, buses and the occasional taxi met her transportation needs. Anything heavy or bulky could be delivered.

But try explaining that to someone who had never even heard of the Mason-Dixon line, much less traveled above it.

Amanda’s laugh smoothed over the awkward moment as she pulled into the driveway of a run-down brick Colonial. Weeds poked through the crumbling asphalt, and the lawn was long dead from lack of water—

just as well, since it had not been cut for months. One shutter hung at a defeated angle, and the screen on the front door was slashed and rusted. A collapsing carport signaled imminent danger to any vehicle unfortunate enough to be parked beneath it.

“I don’t believe it!” Kat said. The last time she had seen this house, it had been neat and trim, kept in perfect shape. Years ago, it had belonged to her grandmother, to Susan’s mother. The Morehouses had kept it in the family after Granny died; it was easy enough to keep up the little Colonial.

Easy enough, that was, until Rachel got her hands on the place. Susan and Mike had let Rachel move in after she’d graduated from high school, when the constant fights had become too difficult under their own roof. The arrangement had been intended to be temporary, but once Rachel gave birth to Jenny, it had somehow slipped into something permanent.

Now, though, looking at the wreck of Granny’s neat little home, Kat could not help but begrudge that decision. Did Rachel destroy everything she touched?

Amanda’s voice shone with forced brightness. “It always looks bad after winter. Once everything’s freshened up for spring, it’ll be better.”

Sure it would. Because Rachel had such a green thumb, she had surely taken care of basic gardening over the past several years. Rachel always worked so hard to bring good things into her life. Not.

Kat swallowed hard and undid her seat belt. One week, she reminded herself. She only had to stay here one week. Then Jenny could return to Susan and Mike. Or, who knew? Rachel might even be back from wherever she had gone. “Well …” Kat tried to think of something positive to say about the house. Failing miserably, she fell back on something she could be grateful for. “Thanks for the ride.”

Amanda’s soft features settled into a frown. “Do you need any help with your bag? Are you sure—”

“We’ll be fine.”

“We could all go out to dinner—”

That was the last thing Kat wanted—drawing out the day, eating in some Eden Falls greasy spoon, where the food would send any thinking dancer to the workout room for at least ten straight hours, just to break even. Besides, she really didn’t want to impose on her cousin’s good nature—and driver’s license—any more than was strictly necessary. “We’ll be fine, Amanda. I’m sure Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bill are already wondering what took you so long, just running Jenny and me across town. You don’t want them to start worrying.”

At least Kat’s case was bolstered by her niece’s behavior. Jenny had already hopped out of her seat and scuffed her way to the faded front door. Amanda sighed. “I don’t know what sort of food you’ll find in there, Kat.”

“We can always—” What? She was going to say, they could always have D’Agostino deliver groceries. But there wasn’t a D’Agostino in Eden Falls. There wasn’t any grocery store that delivered. She swallowed hard and pushed her way through to the end of the sentence. “We can always order a pizza.”

That was the right thing to say. Amanda relaxed, obviously eased by the sheer normalcy of Kat’s suggestion.

As if Kat would eat a pizza. She’d given up mozzarella the year she’d first gone on pointe. “Thanks so much for the ride,” Kat said. “Give my love to Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bill.”

By the time Kat dragged her roller bag through the front door, Jenny was in the kitchen, kneeling on a chair in front of the open pantry. Her hand was shoved deep in a bag of cookies, and telltale chocolate crumbs ringed her lips. Kat’s reproach was automatic. “Are you eating cookies for dinner?”

“No.” Jenny eyed her defiantly.

“Don’t lie to me, young lady.” Ach, Kat thought. Did I really just say that? I sound like everyone’s stereotype of the strict maiden aunt. Annoyed, Kat looked around the kitchen. Used paper plates cascaded out of an open trash can. A jar of peanut butter lay on its side, its lid teetering at a crazy angle. A dozen plastic cups were strewn across the counter, with varying amounts of sticky residue pooling inside.

On top of the toaster oven curled three bananas. Kat broke one off from the bunch and passed it to her niece. “Here”, she said. “Eat this.”

“I don’t like them when they’re brown.”

“That’s dinner.”

“You said we were ordering a pizza.”

“Pizza isn’t good for you.”

“Mommy likes pizza.”

“Mommy would.” Kat closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This wasn’t the time or the place to get into a discussion about Rachel. Kat dug in the pantry, managing to excavate a sealed packet of lemon-pepper tuna. “Here. You can have tuna and a banana. I’ll go to the grocery store tomorrow.”

“How are you going to do that, when you don’t drive? It’s too far to walk.”

Good question. “I’ll manage.”

Kat took a quick tour of the rest of the house while Jenny ate her dinner. Alas, the kitchen wasn’t some terrible aberration. The living room was ankle-deep in pizza boxes and gossip magazines. The disgusting bathroom hadn’t been cleaned in centuries. Jenny’s bedroom was a sea of musty, tangled sheets and stuffed animals.

Back in the kitchen, Jenny’s sullen silence was nearly enough to make Kat put cookies back on the menu. Almost. But Jenny didn’t need cookies. She needed some rules. Some structure. A pattern or two in her life. Starting now.

“Okay, kiddo. We’re going to get some cleaning done.”

“Cleaning?” Jenny’s whine stretched the word into four or five syllables at least.

Kat turned to the stove—ironically, the cleanest thing in the house, because Rachel had never cooked a meal in her life. Kat twisted the old-fashioned timer to give them fifteen minutes to work. “Let’s go. Fifteen minutes, to make this kitchen look new.”

Jenny stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. Squaring her shoulders, though, and ignoring the blooming ache in her foot, Kat started to tame the pile of paper plates. “Let’s go,” she said. “March! You’re in charge of throwing away those paper cups!”

With the use of three supersize trash bags, they made surprising progress. When those fifteen minutes were done, Kat set the alarm again, targeting the mess in the living room. The bathroom was next, and finally Jenny’s room. The little girl was yawning and rubbing her eyes by the time they finished.

“Mommy never makes me clean up.”

“I’m not Mommy,” Kat said. She was so not Mommy—not in a million different ways. But she knew what was good for Jenny. She knew what had been good for her, even when she was Jenny’s age. Setting goals. Developing strategies. Following rules. When Kat had lived in her parents’ home, Susan had built the foundation for orderly management of life’s problems. Unlike her sister, Kat had absorbed those lessons with a vengeance. Her rules were the only thing that had gotten her through those first homesick months when she moved to New York. As Jenny started to collapse on the living-room couch, Kat said, “It’s time for you to go to bed.”

“I haven’t watched TV yet!”

“No TV. It’s a school night.”

“Mommy lets me watch TV every night.”

“I’m not Mommy,” Kat repeated, wondering if she should record the sentence, so that she could play it back every time she needed it.

Over the next half hour, Kat found out that she was cruel and heartless and evil and mean, just like the worst villains of Jenny’s favorite animated movies. But the child eventually got to bed wearing her pajamas, with her teeth brushed, her hair braided and her prayers said.

Exhausted, and unwilling to admit just how much her foot was aching, Kat collapsed onto the sagging living-room couch. Six more days. She could take six more days of anything. They couldn’t all be this difficult. She glanced at her watch and was shocked to see it was only eight-thirty.

That left her plenty of time to call Haley. Plenty of time to catch up on the exploits of Adam and Selene, to remember why Kat was so much better off without that miserable excuse for a man in her life.

Kat summoned her willpower and stumped over to her purse, where she’d left it on the kitchen table. She rooted for her cell phone. Nothing. She scrambled around, digging past her wallet. Still nothing. She dumped the contents out on the kitchen table, where it immediately became clear that she had no cell phone.

And then she remembered spilling everything in the cab of Rye’s truck in her rush of surprise to see him standing beside her. She had been shocked by the elemental response to his body near hers. She’d acted like a silly schoolgirl, like a brainless child, jumping the way she had, dropping her purse.

But even as she berated herself, she remembered Rye’s easy smile. He’d been truly gallant, rescuing her at the train station. It had been mean of her to pretend not to remember him. Uncomfortably, she thought of the confused flash in his eyes, the tiny flicker of hurt that was almost immediately smothered beneath the blanket of his good nature.

And then, her belly did that funny thing again, that flutter that was part nervous anticipation, part unreasoning dread. The closest thing she could compare it to was the thrill of opening night, the excitement of standing in the wings while a new audience hummed in the theater’s red-velvet seats.

But she wasn’t in the theater. She was in Eden Falls.

And whether she wanted to or not, Kat was going to have to track down Rye Harmon the following day. Track him down, and retrieve her phone, and hope she had a better signal at Rachel’s house than she’d had at the station.

All things considered, though, she couldn’t get too upset about the lack of signal that she’d encountered. If she’d been able to call Susan or Amanda, then Rye would never have given her a ride. And those few minutes of talking with Rye Harmon had been the high point of her very long, very stressful, very exhausting first afternoon and evening in Eden Falls.

By noon the next day, Kat had decided that retrieving her cell phone was the least of her concerns.

Susan had swung by that morning, just after Kat had hustled a reluctant Jenny onto her school bus. Looking around the straightened house, Susan said, “It looks like you and Jenny were busy last night.”

“The place was a pigsty.”

“I’m sorry, dear. I just wasn’t able to get over here before you arrived, to clean things up.”

Kat immediately felt terrible for her judgmental tone. “I wasn’t criticizing you, Mama. I just can’t believe Rachel lives like that.”

Susan shook her head. Kat knew from long experience that her mother would never say anything directly critical about her other daughter. But sometimes Susan’s silences echoed with a thousand shades of meaning.

Pushing aside a lifetime of criticism about her sister, Kat said, “Thank you so much for bringing by that casserole. Jenny and I will really enjoy it tonight.”

Susan apologized again. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of giving you anything last night. The church ladies have been so helpful—they’ve kept our freezer stocked for months.”

“I’m glad you’ve had that type of support,” Kat said. And she was. She still couldn’t imagine any of her friends in New York cooking for a colleague in need. Certainly no one would organize food week after week. “How was Daddy last night? Did either of you get any sleep?”

Susan’s smile was brilliant, warming Kat from across the room. “Oh, yes, sweetheart. I had to wake him up once for his meds, but he fell back to sleep right away. It was the best night he’s had in months.”

Glancing around the living room, Kat swallowed a proud grin. She had been right to come down here. If one night could help Susan so much, what would an entire week accomplish?

Susan went on. “And it was a godsend, not fixing breakfast for Jenny before the sun was up. That elementary school bus comes so early, it’s a crime.”

Kat was accustomed to being awake well before the sun rose. She usually fit in ninety minutes on the treadmill in the company gym before she even thought about attending her first dance rehearsal of the day. Of course, with the walking boot, she hadn’t been able to indulge in the tension tamer of her typical exercise routine. She’d had to make due with a punishing regimen of crunches instead, alternating sets with modified planks and a series of leg lifts meant to keep her hamstrings as close to dancing strength as possible.

As for Jenny’s breakfast? It had been some hideous purple-and-green cereal, eaten dry, because there wasn’t any milk in the house. Kat had been willing to concede the point on cold cereal first thing in the morning, but she had silently vowed that the artificially dyed stuff would be out of the house by the time Jenny got home that afternoon. Whole-grain oats would be better for the little girl—and they wouldn’t stain the milk in Jenny’s bowl.

There’d be time enough to pick up some groceries that afternoon. For now, Kat knew her mother had another task in mind. “So, are you going to drop me off at the studio now?”

Susan looked worried. “It’s really too much for me to ask. I shouldn’t even have mentioned it when I called you, dear. I’m sure I can take care of everything in the next couple of weeks.”

“Don’t be silly,” Kat said. “I know Rachel was running things for you. She’s been gone for a while, though, and someone has to pick up the slack. I came to Eden Falls to help.”

Susan fussed some more, but she was already leading the way out to her car. It may have been ten years since Kat had lived in Eden Falls, but she knew the way to the Morehouse Dance Academy by heart. As a child, she had practically lived in her mother’s dance studio, from the moment she could pull on her first leotard.

The building was smaller than she remembered, though. It seemed lost in the sea of its huge parking lot. A broken window was covered over with a cardboard box, and a handful of yellowed newspapers rested against the door, like kindling.

Kat glanced at her mother’s pinched face, and she consciously coated her next words with a smile. “Don’t worry, Mama. It’ll just take a couple of hours to make sure everything is running smoothly. Go home and take care of Daddy. I’ll call Amanda to bring me back to Rachel’s.”

“Let me just come in with you …

Kat shook her head. Once her mother started in on straightening the studio, she’d stay all morning. Susan wasn’t the sort of woman to walk away from a project half-done. Even if she had a recuperating husband who needed her back at the house.

“I’ll be fine, Mama. I know this place like the back of my hand. And I’m sure Rachel left everything in good shape.”

Good shape. Right.

The roof was leaking in the main classroom, a slow drip that had curled up the ceiling tiles and stained one wall. Kat shuddered to think about the state of the warped hardwood floor. Both toilets were running in the public restroom, and the sinks were stained from dripping faucets. Kat ran the hot water for five minutes before she gave up on getting more than an icy trickle.

The damage wasn’t limited to the building. When Kat turned on the main computer, she heard a grinding sound, and the screen flashed blue before it died altogether. The telephone handset was sticky; a quick sniff confirmed that someone had handled it with maple syrup on their fingers.

In short, the dance studio was an absolute and complete mess.

Kat seethed. How could students be taking classes here? How could her parents’ hard-earned investment be ruined so quickly? What had Rachel done?

Muttering to herself, Kat started to sift through the papers on the desk in the small, paneled office. She found a printout of an electronic spreadsheet—at least the computer had been functional back in January.

The news on the spreadsheet, though, told a depressing story. Class sizes for the winter term had dwindled from their robust fall enrollment. Many of those payments had never been collected. Digging deeper, Kat found worse news—a dozen checks, dating back to September—had never been cashed. Search as she might, she could find no checks at all for the spring term; she couldn’t even find an enrollment list for the classes.

Susan had been absolutely clear, every time Kat talked to her: Rachel had shaped up. Rachel had run the dance studio for the past six months, ever since Mike’s diagnosis had thrown Susan’s life into utter disarray. Rachel had lined up teachers, had taken care of the books, had kept everything functioning like clockwork.

Rachel had lied through her teeth.

Kat’s fingers trembled with rage as she looked around the studio. Her heart pounded, and her breath came in short gasps. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, angry tears that made her chew on her lower lip.

And so Kat did the only thing she knew how to do. She tried to relieve her stress the only way she could. She walked across the floor of the classroom, her feet automatically turning out in a ballerina’s stance, even though she wore her hated blue boot. Resenting that handicap, she planted her good foot, setting one hand on the barre with a lifetime of familiarity.

She closed her eyes and ran through the simplest of exercises. First position, second position, third position, fourth. She swept her free arm in a graceful arc, automatically tilting her head to an angle that maximized the long line of her neck. She repeated the motions again, three times, four. Each pass through, she felt a little of her tension drain, a little of her rage fade.

She was almost able to take a lung-filling breath when heavy footsteps dragged her back to messy, disorganized reality. “There you are!”

Rye stopped in the doorway, frozen into place by the vision of Kat at the barre. All of a sudden, he was catapulted back ten years in time, to the high school auditorium, to the rough stage where he had plodded through the role of Curly.

He had caught Kat stretching out for dancing there, too, backstage one spring afternoon. She’d had her heel firmly anchored on a table, bending her willowy limbs with a grace that had made his own hulking, teenage body awaken to desire. He could see her now, only a few feet away, close enough for him to touch.

But his interest had been instantly quenched when he’d glimpsed Kat’s face, that day so long ago. Tears had tracked down her smooth cheeks, silvering the rosy skin that was completely bare of the blush and concealer and all the other makeup crap that high school girls used. Even as he took one step closer, he had seen her flinch, caught her eyes darting toward the dressing room. He’d heard the brassy laugh of one of the senior girls, one of the cheerleaders, and he’d immediately understood that the popular kids had been teasing the young middle-school dancer. Again.

Rye had done the only thing that made sense at the time, the one thing that he thought would make Kat forget that she was an outsider. He’d leaned forward to brush a quick fraternal kiss against her cheek.

But somehow—even now, he couldn’t say how—he’d ended up touching his lips to hers. They’d been joined for just a heartbeat, a single, chaste connection that had jolted through him with the power of a thousand sunsets.

Rye could still remember the awkward blush that had flamed his face. He really had meant to kiss her on the cheek. He’d swear it—on his letter jacket and his game baseball, and everything else that had mattered to him back in high school. He had no idea if he had moved wrong, or if she had, but after the kiss she had leaped away as if he’d scorched her with a blowtorch.

Thinking back, Rye still wanted to wince. How had he screwed that up? He had three sisters. He had a lifetime of experience kissing cheeks, offering old-fashioned, brotherly support. He’d certainly never kissed one of his sisters on the lips by mistake.

Kat’s embarrassment had only been heightened when a voice spoke up from the curtains that led to the stage. “What would Mom think, Kat? Should I go get her, so she can see what you’re really like?” They’d both looked up to see Rachel watching them. Her eyes had been narrowed, those eyes that were so like Kat’s but so very, very different. Even then, ten years ago, there hadn’t been any confusing the sisters. Only an eighth grader, Rachel hadn’t yet resorted to the dyed hair and tattoos that she sported as an adult. But she’d painted heavy black outlines around her eyes, and she wore clunky earrings and half a dozen rings on either hand. Rachel had laughed at her sister then, obviously relishing Kat’s embarrassment over that awful mistake of a kiss.

Rachel must not have told, though. There hadn’t been any repercussions. And Rye’s fumbling obviously hadn’t made any lasting impression—Kat hadn’t even remembered his name, yesterday at the train station.

Kat stiffened as she heard Rye’s voice. A jumble of emotions flashed through her head—guilt, because she shouldn’t be caught at the barre, not when she was supposed to be resting her injured foot. Shame, because no one should see the studio in its current state of disarray. Anger, because Rachel should never have let things get so out of hand, should never have left so much mess for Kat to clean up. And a sudden swooping sense of something else, something that she couldn’t name precisely. Something that she vaguely thought of as pleasure.

Shoving down that last thought—one that she didn’t have time for, that she didn’t deserve—she lowered her arm and turned to face Rye. “How did you get in here?”

“The front door was open. Maybe the latch didn’t catch when you came in?”

Kat barked a harsh laugh. “That makes one more thing that’s broken.”

Rye glanced around the studio, his eyes immediately taking in the ceiling leak. “That looks bad,” he said. “And the water damage isn’t new.”

Kat grimaced. “It’s probably about six months old.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s been six months since my father got sick. My sister, Rachel, has been running this place and … she’s not the best at keeping things together.”

Rye fought the urge to scowl when he heard Rachel’s name. Sure, the woman had her problems. But it was practically criminal to have let so much water get into a hardwood floor like this one. He barely managed not to shake his head. He’d dodged a bullet with Rachel, seeing through to her irresponsible self before he could be dragged down with her.

But it wasn’t Rachel standing in front of him, looking so discouraged. It was Kat. Kat, who had come home to help out her family, giving up her own fame and success because her people needed her.

Rye couldn’t claim to have found fame or success in Richmond. Not yet. But he certainly understood being called back home because of family. Before he was fully aware of the fact that he was speaking, he heard himself say, “I can help clean things up. Patch the roof, replace the drywall. The floor will take a bit more work, but I can probably get it all done in ten days or so.”

Kat saw the earnestness in Rye’s black eyes, and she found herself melting just a little. Rye Harmon was coming to her rescue. Again. Just as he had at the train station the day before.

That was silly, though. It wasn’t like she was still the starry-eyed eighth grader who had been enchanted by the baseball star in the lead role of the musical. She hardened her voice, so that she could remind herself she had no use for Eden Falls. “That sounds like a huge job! You’ll need help, and I’m obviously in no shape to get up on a ladder.” She waved a frustrated hand toward her booted foot.

Rye scarcely acknowledged her injury. “There’s no need for you to get involved. I have plenty of debts that I can call in.”

“Debts?”

“Brothers. Sisters. Cousins. Half of Eden Falls calls me in from Richmond, day or night, to help them out of a bind. What’s a little leak repair, in repayment?”

“Do any of those relatives know anything about plumbing?”

Rye looked concerned. “What’s wrong with the plumbing?”

For answer, Kat turned on her heel and walked toward the small restroom. The running toilets sounded louder now that she was staring at them with an eye toward repair. She nodded toward the sink. “There isn’t any hot water, either.”

Rye whistled, long and low. “This place looks like it’s been through a war.”

“In a manner of speaking.” Kat shrugged. “As I said, my sister’s been in charge. She’s not really a, um, detail person.”

“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 believe 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.”

His promise shivered down her spine, and she had to remind herself that they were talking about a business proposition. Nothing more. Rye Harmon would never be anything more to her. He couldn’t be. Their past and their future made anything else impossible.

Chapter Three

Three days later, Kat was back in the studio office, sorting through a stack of papers. Rye was working in the bathroom, replacing the insides of the running toilets. The occasional clank of metal against porcelain created an offbeat music for Kat’s work.

She’d been productive all morning long. That was after seeing Jenny off to school, ignoring the child’s demands for sugar on her corn flakes, an extra sparkling ribbon for her hair and a stuffed animal to keep her company throughout the day. Kat had a plan—to bring order to Jenny’s life—and she was going to stick with it. If it took Jenny another day or week or month to get on board, it was just going to take that long.

Not that Kat had any intention of still being in Eden Falls in a month.

That morning, Susan had driven her to the studio. When her mother had put the car in Park and taken off her own seat belt, Kat had practically squawked. “You have to get back to Daddy!”

“I can stay away for an hour,” Susan had said. “Let me help you here.”

“I’m fine! Seriously. There’s hardly anything left for me to do.” Susan had looked doubtful, until Kat added, “I just want to have a quiet morning. Maybe do a few exercises. You know, I need to keep in shape.” Kat was desperate to keep her mother from seeing the devastation inside the studio. “Please, Mama. The whole reason I’m here in Eden Falls is so that you can rest. Take advantage of me while you can. Relax a little. Go back home and make yourself a cup of that peach tea you like so much.”

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