The Daddy Dance. Mindy Klasky
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