The Daddy Dance. Mindy Klasky
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