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“You have a little girl? I mean, I assume she’s little, judging by your age.”
“My advanced age?” With a wink and grin, she swatted him with her towel again.
For a moment he stilled, as if he wanted to say something, but propriety kept him quiet. “That’s not at all what I meant, and you know it.”
“Yes, I do,” she said with a nod, matching his easy smile. “And in answer to your question…”
“I didn’t ask a question.”
“Your eyes did.” She turned her back on him while wrapping herself in a hug. The kindness in Dalton’s eyes told her it was safe to share her pain with him. “My girl is indeed little. She’s six. And in answer to your unspoken question, her father…died.”
“Sorry,” he said quietly. She imagined him cupping his warm, strong hands over her shoulders, infusing her with much needed courage to go on. Instead, he hovered, not taking the liberty of actually touching her, but letting her know he was there. “Is he the reason for those tears?”
She nodded. “The last time I seriously tangoed—you know, beyond teaching vacation-bound senior citizens or Girl Scout troops—was in his arms. So you can see where…”
“Dancing again—with a man—would be rough?” He did touch her shoulder then, and lightly turned her to face him. The warmth of his eyes and tender set of his mouth, his solid yet gentle grip, told her what words never could. That he cared. That she wasn’t alone. Sure, she had friends, but no one with whom she’d ever considered sharing the depth of her pain.
“Want to talk about him?” he invited.
“Yes. Someday. But not now.”
“Sure.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you about him, just that it hurts to dredge up the past.”
“I get it. Only, the way you were crying, I’m thinking your husband’s death isn’t yet in the past—at least not where your heart’s concerned.”
“ANNA, HONEY, be careful or you’ll drop Barbie’s purse behind the display.”
“I’m being careful, Mommy. Look! She’s dancing!”
Dalton froze at the entry to Bell’s. He had been dreading the mission to get fitted for the gaudy red shoes he was required to wear with his equally hideous tux. But from his first sight of Rose and her cute, brown-eyed daughter, trying on black-patent Mary Janes, his outlook on the mission had miraculously brightened.
“Ladies’ day out?” he asked the pair, pausing in front of the battered, red-carpeted platform serving as seating for what Mona Bell had dubbed her kid zone.
“Hi,” Rose said, her wide grin making his pulse race. “My baby’s feet seem to get bigger every day.”
“I know the feeling,” he teased, wagging one of his size thirteens.
Her daughter giggled. “You’ve got the biggest feet I’ve ever seen.”
“Anna!” the girl’s mother scolded.
“It’s okay,” Dalton said with a chuckle. “Especially since it happens to be true.”
“There are bigger feet in this town,” Mona said, a hint of her Cajun heritage flavoring her words. In her arms were three shoe boxes. “Dalton, nice to see you finally showed up. If we don’t get your shoe order in pronto, you’ll be dancing barefoot.”
“Sounds like an improvement over the getup you all want me to wear.”
Snorting, Mona said, “Remind me to tell your momma what a misfit she raised.”
“She hears it all the time.”
Ignoring him, Mona turned to Rose’s daughter. “Stick out your feet, there, toots, and let me slip these on.”
“She’s a cutie,” Dalton said to Rose, seeing how Mona had pretty much taken over the operation.
“Thanks.”
“Anna’s a nice name. I’ve always liked it.”
“We named her after my grandmother, Anna Lucia Margarita Rodriguez. In her day, she was the darling of Buenos Aires.” Whispering behind her hand, she added, “She reportedly juggled up to ten suitors with ease.”
Mona grunted. “Shoot, what gal in her right mind would want that many men?”
“Barbie!” Anna squealed, pirouetting the doll in a dazzling move that sent tiny pink plastic shoes and a matching purse flying. They landed behind the seating platform. “Oops.”
“Oh, honey,” Rose said, hands on her hips. “I told you that was going to happen.”
Tears flooded the child’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
“It’s okay.” Already on his knees, Dalton finagled himself into torturous contortion that with gritted teeth and a grunt netted one shoe. Then he used a nearby display rack’s metal prong to fish out the spiked pink heel’s mate and the purse. “Voila,” he said, winded from the ordeal.
“You got ’em!” Anna squealed happily, leaping from the platform to wrap her arms around him. The simple gesture warmed him to the core. He’d always loved kids, had planned on having a half dozen of his own by now, but time had a way of vanishing.
“Thank you,” Anna said, her brown eyes serious.
“You’re welcome,” he said, giving her a brief return hug.
Mona butted into his shining moment with, “You’ve got fuzz balls on top of your head.”
“They’re cute.” Rose tenderly picked them free, holding them in the palm that only last night she’d pressed against his. “Thanks again. You don’t know trauma till you’ve lost your favorite Barbie purse.”
“In that case, I’m glad tragedy could be averted.”
“How about these?” Mona asked, gesturing to Anna’s latest pair of shoes. “They seem like the best fit.”
“What do you think, sweetie? Can you walk around?”
Instead of walking, the girl ran, skipped and pranced.
“Wish I had half that energy…” Grinning, Mona crossed her arms.
“Amen,” Dalton and Rose said in unison, then laughed.
“Want those?” Mona asked.
“Yes, please.”
“Good choice. Cash, check or plastic?”
While Rose paid and Anna continued to dance around the store in her new shoes, Dalton tried, unsuccessfully, to focus on his own footwear crisis. Rose consumed him. Her laugh. Her smile. The way, when she’d stood close, fingering his hair, she’d smelled of an intriguing blend of crayons and faint, musky perfume.
“Want to join us?” she asked, suddenly by his side. “Anna’s on a temporary school reprieve for the dentist, but I thought since we were right here, I’d also grab her shoes before getting her back.”
“Join you for what?” he asked, mesmerized by the way her hair reflected the midday sun streaming through the windows.
What the hell was wrong with him? Here he was supposed to be heading back to work, yet all he really wanted to do was finger those inky strands. Could they be anywhere near as soft as they looked?
“There you go again,” she teased, “looking as if you’d rather be anywhere but here.”
“No,” he said. “You’ve got me all wrong. I’ve always adored shoe shopping.”
“Liar,” she said with a soft elbow to his ribs. “Join us for a quick sandwich at the deli?”
Yes. “Sounds great, but I’m due back at the office. The only reason I’m here is that according to my fellow pageant-committee members, my shoe fitting had to be done ASAP.”
“I get that, but can’t your office spare you for lunch?”
“Ordinarily they could, but seeing how it’s a lunch meeting I’m supposed to be at, they might frown on me switching to your team.”
“We’ll be more fun,” she said, hugging her daughter close.
“I don’t doubt that. Rain check?”
“Absolutely.”
“Come on, Mommy,” Anna said, tugging Rose’s hand. “Me and Barbie are hungry.”
“Sounds like you’d better get going,” Dalton said with a faint smile.
“She’s not the only one,” Mona said, butting in to his last few moments of fun. “Now, quit flirting and get on over here to try on some shoes.”
Dalton groaned.
Rose grinned.
“IN CLOSING,” Dalton said a week later in the bank’s suffocating, windowless boardroom, “it’s my recommendation that the bank dispose of all TWG assets in favor of taking a temporary shelter in bonds until such time as the market’s volatility subsides. Questions?”
“Excellent report,” Alice Craigmoore, the bank’s VP in charge of finance, said before clearing her throat.
“I concur.” The bank’s chief loan officer, Bud Weathers, eased back in his chair. “Now, seeing how that was the last item on the agenda, who’s up for Chinese?”
“Sounds good,” Dalton said, straightening his files.
His father sighed. “I’ve been ordered to steer clear of the fried stuff, but I suppose they have something on the menu that’s steamed.”
Alice again cleared her throat. “I, um, do have one more question.”
“Shoot,” Dalton said.
“Mona tells me you’re sweet on your tango teacher. Care to substantiate?”
Dalton closed his eyes and counted to ten.
“Son,” his father interjected, “your mother told me you were seeing the Browning girl.”
He cocked one eye open. “Occasionally,” Dalton admitted, “but it’s nowhere near as serious as Mom would like.”
“There’s no law that says a guy can’t be hot for his teacher. Especially if she’s your hot dance teacher,” Bud confided, and winked. Dalton fought the urge to smack the suggestive look right off his face. He couldn’t say why, but he felt protective toward Rose. She’d been through a seriously rough patch. Sure, she was sexy, but she was also fragile. She deserved to be treated with infinite care.
“Thank you all for your comments,” Dalton said, tone brusque, “but could we please get on with lunch?”
“What’s your hurry?” Bud asked with a snort. “Got an after-lunch dance lesson?”
Chapter Four
“No, no, no, Dalton!” Rose cried above the pulsing Latin beat. “I said to arch toward the door, not away from it.”
“What the hell do you think I am? Made of rubber?” The minute Dalton had said the words, he regretted them. He’d never been prone to shoot his mouth off in the heat of anger, but then, this was the first time he’d felt an emotion other than boredom or resignation since his last lesson.
Rose marched to the stereo to turn off the music. Then she returned, heels punching the wood floor in the sudden silence, to stop six inches in front of him, hands on her hips. “First of all, the rock step is the mere tip of the iceberg in terms of technicalities. Second…” Frosty expression thawing, she grinned. “How can I stay mad at you when you give me that look?”
“What look?”
“That one, right there,” she said, pointing to his grinning mouth. “The one where you look like an incorrigible child.”
“Yeah, but a good-looking one, right?” His grin broadened into a full-blown smile.
She rolled her eyes.
“What?”
“What am I going to do with you? You’re a dancing disaster.”
“At our last lesson, you told me I’d improved.”
“Yes, well—” turning her back to him, she aimed for the door “—I take it back. You are quite possibly the worst dancer I have ever encountered.”
“Then where are you going? Obviously, I need more instruction.”
“I’m going upstairs to make a salad to go along with the enchilada casserole already in the oven.”
“What about me? I mean, I paid for an hour lesson.”
“I’ll give you a refund.”
“I’ve got a better idea.”
“Oh?” With Dalton in the hall, she flicked off the studio’s lights.
“How about inviting me for dinner?”
“What?”
“You know—food, drink, conversation. Well, we don’t have to converse, but I am awfully hungry, which might explain my lack of concentration.”
“I don’t know…” She glanced toward the loft stairs.
“Rose. It’s food. What’s not to know? It’s not like I’m asking you on a date.” Although that’s exactly what I’d like to be doing.
“I know, but what’s Anna going to think?”
“Hmm…That you invited a friend for dinner?” He shot her another grin.
“There you go again, giving me that goofy look. How am I supposed to say no?”
“You’re not. At least, that’s the plan.”
“Oh, all right,” she said. “But behave. And Anna and I will expect help with the dishes.”
“You shall have it,” he teased her with a formal bow.
She returned the favor with a not-so-formal swat.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Dalton found himself seated in a kid-size chair at a kid-size table. In front of him was a blob of Play-Doh that he was guessing used to be three different shades—red, green and blue—but was now a purplish-gray.
“Mr. Dalton?” Rose’s wide-eyed daughter asked, hogging all the still-pure-yellow clay.
“Yes?”
“What’re you making? ’Cause there’s kids at my school who do way better than you—even Tommy Butler, and he eats his boogers.”
“Hey, Rose,” Dalton called across the loft to the kitchen where she hummed while making salad. Although he’d offered to help, she’d refused on the grounds that not only did she not want him messing up her kitchen, but it might be helpful to his dancing if he connected with his inner child. Right. The kid in him said he needed better Play-Doh colors. “Are you hearing this abuse?”
“What I’m hearing is a lot of whining. Come on, Dalton, play nice, or I’ll have to sit you in time-out.”
Anna whispered, “She means it, Mr. Dalton. You’d better be good, or you’ll miss Mommy’s cheesy supper. It’s the best.”
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll play nice, but you’ll have to show me what to make.”
“A horse,” she said. “I like My Little Pony. Tommy Butler says they’re too girlie, but I think he’s gross. And anyway, he eats his—”
“I know—” Dalton said, molding his lump of clay “—boogers.”
“How’d you know?”
With his right index finger, he tapped his temple. “Superhuman mind-reading skills.”
“Really?”
“No, not really,” Rose said, perching on her own pint-size seat to ruffle her daughter’s hair. “You already told him, sweetie.”
“Hey,” Dalton complained. “That’s cheating. Telling all my secrets like that.”
“What secret?” Rose teased. “If you’re going to claim to have superhuman skills, we need proof of something pretty amazing. Not just lame old mind reading.”
“Yeah,” Anna said. “Can you fly? Or laser beam stuff with your eyeballs? Toby Mitchell does that during math class to get out of doing addition.”
“Which?” Dalton asked. “Flying or the laser thing?”
“Sometimes both,” Anna said, eyes wide, expression solemn. “Ms. Marshal tells him to stop, but he won’t.”
“Uh-huh,” Rose said with a cluck of her tongue. “Sounds like it’s time for you to wash up for dinner, and quit telling fibs.”
“I’m not fibbing. Honest. And anyway, Mr. Dalton never showed us his trick.”
“I’m working on it,” he said, messing with his clay. “How about you do what your mom asked, then I’ll show you when you get back.”
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