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“So far, but I haven’t been here long. How about you?”
“Oh, you know. This isn’t really my sort of thing. Mostly I’m here because I’m expected to be.”
“You’d probably rather be at your desk.”
He seemed about to agree, then he smiled a little and shook his head. “To be perfectly honest, I’d rather be fishing.”
She placed a hand on her heart. “Why, Dan Meadows. You mean there’s actually something you like as well as your job?”
“I’m not quite the hopeless workaholic everyone thinks I am.”
The music started again—another slow song. Across the room, chattering townspeople gathered around the heavily laden refreshment tables. There would be live entertainment and drawings for door prizes later in the evening, but the first hour was set aside for visiting, dancing and munching. The event primarily provided an excuse for the locals to dress up and mingle, raising money for good causes in the process.
This crowd differed from the one she’d seen at Gaylord’s last night, of course. This was a somewhat more sedate gathering, with no alcohol served, so she didn’t expect to see Bo or Jimmy there. It wasn’t at all their style.
“Do you want something to eat?” Dan motioned toward the tables.
“No, not yet. Dance with me.”
He looked startled by her impulsive invitation. “Uh…dance?”
“Sure, why not? C’mon, the song’s just starting.”
“I’m not much of a dancer. Not like Riley.”
She caught his hand and tugged. “Dance with me, Dan.”
Though he still looked doubtful, he allowed her to lead him back on the floor.
Dan wasn’t a bad dancer, she quickly discovered. Just a stiff one. Holding her several inches away from him, he rested his right hand sedately at her waist and held her right hand loosely in his left. He would have danced just this way with the minister’s wife, Lindsey thought in exasperation, and deliberately moved a little closer to him.
After a few moments of silence, she tilted her head back to look up at him. “Do you remember the last time we danced together?”
Dan seemed to be counting musical beats in his head. “It’s been a while.”
“It was five years ago—on my twenty-first birthday. My family threw a surprise birthday party for me at the country club. They hired a band.”
Dan had attended the party with a date. Melanie. She of the perfect hair, teeth and breasts. Melanie had made little secret of the fact that she would rather have been just about anywhere other than at a college girl’s surprise party, and she hadn’t liked it at all when Dan had given Lindsey a brotherly birthday kiss after their dance. At least, Lindsey supposed he’d intended it as a brotherly kiss. It was a lot more than that to her. She’d replayed that kiss during a hundred daydreams afterward.
Three days later Dan and Melanie had eloped. And Lindsey’s young heart had been broken.
Was she really willing to go through that again?
Did she really have any other choice?
“I remember,” Dan said.
She doubted his recollections very closely mirrored hers. She wondered if thoughts of that night brought back painful memories of Melanie for him. Since he never, ever talked about his ex-wife, Lindsey had no idea how he felt about her now.
Letting the dance steps move her a bit closer to him, she slid her hand from his shoulder to the back of his neck. It felt so good to be in his arms.
Dan lifted an eyebrow, his smile faintly teasing. “Careful, princess. A guy could start getting the wrong ideas.”
“Or he could finally start getting the right ideas,” she murmured, tightening her arm just enough that their bodies brushed together.
The song ended, and Dan set her away from him so quickly she nearly stumbled. “Uh…thanks for the dance,” he said.
Before she could respond, they were surrounded by acquaintances and eventually separated by the crowd. Lindsey was left to wonder if he’d gotten the message or if he’d convinced himself it was only a joke. Knowing Dan, it was probably the latter. He would find that a much more comfortable conclusion.
She knew that eventually she was going to have to openly confront him if she wanted to find out once and for all if there was even a slight possibility that they could ever be more than old friends. She not only wanted to know—she very much needed to know. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life wondering about what might have been if only she’d had the courage to take a chance.
Chapter Four
Dan had to leave the party early when a call came in about a domestic dispute that had turned violent on the other side of town. He wouldn’t have responded to just any call that came in for his officers, but he knew the couple involved and feared the situation was a powder keg. Edstown was a small town with limited resources—one of the other officers was the mayor’s nephew, another Dan’s own cousin—so Dan helped out whenever he felt needed. That was one of the reasons he’d earned the reputation of being a workaholic.
Fortunately, Dan and two officers were able to handle the domestic problem rather quickly and without an excessive amount of trouble. That time, anyway. Because he found several more things to do when he returned to his office, it was late before he got home. Maybe he’d just been looking for an excuse to avoid returning to the mixer, he mused, as he stuck his key into the front door of the trailer he’d lived in since his divorce.
Flipping on the overhead light in his living room, he closed the door behind him. He’d already removed his tie and jacket. He tossed them over the back of a chair as he crossed the narrow room and turned on the television. He usually kept it on just for the noise.
He fell onto the couch, pushing aside the newspaper he’d left lying there earlier. Other than that, the place was pretty neat. He wasn’t home long enough to make a mess between the twice-monthly visits from the woman who cleaned for him.
Kicking off his shoes, he propped his stockinged feet on the coffee table, crossing them at the ankles. The late news was on. He tried to pay attention, but his thoughts kept wandering back to the party. Specifically to Lindsey.
She’d been joking when she’d made that crack about him finally getting the right idea. She must have been. He remembered watching her dance with Riley—standing close to him, chatting so comfortably, finishing with a kiss on the cheek. Her flirting with Dan must have been along the same lines—just harmless feminine teasing.
A man could finally get the right idea? That was what she’d said—as if she’d been trying to get a message to him for a while and he’d been missing it. He ran through a quick mental review of her behavior during the last few times they’d been together. She’d acted the same as always, right? Feisty. Argumentative. Exasperating. There was no reason for him to think she saw him any differently than she ever had—as a longtime friend.
She must have been teasing. But if she hadn’t been…
Lindsey Gray romantically interested in him? It was a possibility he’d never even considered. After all, she was young, pretty, vibrant, smart. She had an amazing future ahead of her, wherever she chose to settle. As for him—well, he was ten years older, still smarting from a bitter, ugly divorce, contentedly settled into a predictable routine here in generally unexciting little Edstown. She wasn’t the type for a curiosity-satisfying fling, so—
She must have been teasing.
Still, it was an intriguing thought, he discovered. Lindsey and him…if the possibility had ever flitted through his mind, he’d immediately suppressed it. First she’d been too young. And then he’d gotten involved with Melanie, making the incredibly stupid mistake of marrying her. When Lindsey had returned to Edstown—available and fully adult—he’d been newly divorced and admittedly bitter about it.
It had taken him this long to finally put that debacle behind him. He still wasn’t sure he was ready to risk his heart on another relationship. With anyone. Especially Lindsey—who, of course, had only been teasing.
A week passed with no more fires and no particularly newsworthy events. Lindsey’s reporting assignments consisted of a painfully dull city council meeting Monday evening, an equally painful junior high school talent show on Tuesday, a garden club meeting Wednesday afternoon and an assortment of other local-interest-only events.
Whether by coincidence or his design, she saw Dan only twice. Both times he greeted her amicably, exchanged quick, meaningless small talk and then made an excuse to leave. He was obviously avoiding her. And she would never know exactly why until she asked.
When she did run into him, it had nothing to do with either of their jobs. They met in the plumbing aisle of the hardware store early Saturday afternoon.
Dan was examining a display of supplies when Lindsey turned the corner into the same aisle. She stopped a bit too abruptly, then continued toward him. “Well, hi, there. This is a surprise.”
He seemed to freeze for a moment, then he turned with a smile that looked as forced as hers felt. “Following a hot hardware tip?”
“Actually, I’m here on personal business. Dripping faucet. Drives me batty at night.”
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