Mindy Klasky - The Daddy Dance

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 .