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THE DANCE FLOOR WAS HOT.
Its surface was crowded with happy, rotating pairs, feet moved blithely to the music piping from the new radio, gracefully encased in shiny rosewood framework. Elizabeth tried to slip through the perfumed laughter and press of bodies, peering over shoulders and dodging dance moves as couples swirled merrily about her.
Déjà vu washed over her in a dizzying wave, flooding her from scalp to toe.
This was the same makeshift dance floor.
Different decade. Different occasion.
Same schoolteacher searching for the same missing Mountie.
Not Founder's Day 1916, but Nathan Grant's birthday 1921.
And yet somehow, grace and a drumroll of courage had brought her to the same dance floor as that fateful evening in 1916—that evening that could have gone so differently had she but heeded her intuition and followed the call of her heart, stepped out of the wrong man's arms, and gone after the quietly departing Mountie—the Mountie she'd finally caught sight of over her dance partner's shoulder.
Her pulse thrummed, warm as the air around her. A tremulous hope was building within her. Tonight she would chart a new course, open herself to another infinite possibility, dance with the right man. Tonight she would find him before he slipped away from her again.
Her heart wouldn't withstand the loss of him again, not even one last time. To be without his slow smile, those steady eyes that watched her when he thought she wasn't aware, those hands that that could heal and hold, that bedrock of quiet strength he carried around, that warm, selfless heart. . .
Unthinkable.
Where was the birthday man though? The one for whom they had tied the navy and gold balloons, strung the manly birthday banner she'd made, spangled the ceiling with stars, draped bunting across the linen and food bedecked tables?
How hard could he be to find? It had been several minutes since she had begun searching for him, and she now wished she had a pair of binoculars. Binoculars had once stood her in good stead and taken her eyes right to his location—even as mortification seized her burning cheeks when she had found him looking straight back at her and realized he'd caught her in the embarrassing position of appearing to spy on him.
The back of a familiar dark head snagged her vision. Her heart leaped. Nathan.
She'd found him.
Only to see his shoulders widen the double entrance doors as he quietly stepped out of the party. The doors began to close behind him—
Nathan!
Breathless, something inside her blew towards him with a near physical force, like the radiating rings of shock after a blast. Nathan—WAIT!
Nathan's head spun sharply, his glance piercing back over his shoulder to the dance floor. The moment charged. Air grew close as his arrested gaze locked onto hers with the force of a magnetic field.
Time seemed to slacken, and the couples she moved through seemed to be dancing in slow motion. And then a tiny smile filtered through Nathan's expression, and the world cracked open, and the music suddenly felt too agitated and the dancing too fast.
But just as the doors shut him from her sight, she caught the slow, tail-end of an invitation in his quiet eyes.
Elizabeth unfroze. There was no hesitation this time, no second-guessing. No doubt.
She took a breath between lips gone dry. "No more wasted second chances," she shakily vowed under her breath.
Soft as the breath she exhaled on a release of joy, she stole through the onlookers fringing the dance floor and pushed the double doors open, their polished surface sleek, hinges creaking ever so slightly. Outside, early evening lowered around her, the air soft with the sounds of a small frontier town quieting for the night. A horse ambled by in the road, little puffs of dust kicking up under its hooves, and the stable boy riding it waved to her.
Click, clack. Her chic new heels tapping on the dusty floorboards announced her presence as she walked across the front of the building under the covered boardwalk, a smile filling her face as she stepped around the corner to meet Nathan's gaze as he pivoted his leaning shoulders against the wall to face her.
Her lips couldn't resist his welcoming smile and curled even wider. "I thought this is where I might find you," she teased. "Taking a breather?"
He pushed himself off the wall. "Something like that. The air got a little stuffy inside." His eyes were gentle, warmly smiling with tiny crinkles starting near the edges.
We're both getting older, she realized painfully. A sear of regret licked at her ribs. So many years I wasted. . .
She settled her shoulder blades into the wall behind her, let the slow breeze flutter the ends of her hair. "I noticed." Impish, she let her eyes fall to his freed collar.
Suit coat long since discarded, Nathan's tie looked as if he'd tugged at it with a rough hand, resting loose and off-center at the base of his unbuttoned collar.
He glanced down, then moved his shoulders in a rueful lift. "When I get a chance to take a break from the serge, I tend to prefer something that doesn't bind my neck, something with freedom to move."
"Both looks suit you." Her voice was soft.
His eyes flickered, skimmed across hers as if searching for something. "Thank you," he said slowly.
Realization dawned. I've. . . never complimented his appearance before. Ever.
Shame was a hot, red thing around her lungs, burning its way to her cheeks. How hard would it have been, even just once in the six years they had known each other, to have told him, "You look nice today, Nathan"? It would have been appropriate and simple to say, mayhap on a Christmas or Easter, after church, when he was so straight and tall in his feast day finery.
She ducked her head, not willing to let him see the shame swimming in her eyes. "I hope you're liking the party," she mumbled.
Just as Nathan simultaneously said, "Thank you for the party. No one's ever done anything like this for me before."
They stopped, stared, then laughed softly together, trying to keep the volume down. There was a window cracked open around the corner, a rather boppy new dance song spilling out from the party, still in full swing inside.
A board protested as Nathan faced her, leaning a lazy shoulder back into the wall her back pressed against.
"Well, I'm glad you've enjoyed it," she said, the lilt of laughter still in her throat, "as I recall you saying many moons ago now that you weren't one for large gatherings."
"I remember." His eyes grew clouded, as if looking back. "The mercantile, wasn't it? Christmas time?"
"Yes, and then Lucas came in and—" She stopped. Remembered what Lucas had so snidely said. Remembered the look on Nathan's face. Remembered her own reaction. Flinched. "I didn't react as I. . . as I wish I would have in that moment," she admitted, troubled, low.
His eyes turned grave. "I have my fair share of regrets, too," he said quietly, but did not elaborate.
She hid the nervous tremor of her hands in the folds of her dress; decided to step out into the infinite possibility that he might somehow be able to forgive her. She craved it, craved the chance to make everything up to him because contrition was not enough, but knew tonight was not the time for a full unveiling. But she could go just a little further, take one more step.
"Whatever you regret pales in comparison to how I treated you. I did a lot of things wrong. Made. . . wrong choices." She struggled to lift her eyes to his. "Said a lot of wrong things."
Would he understand, would he see what her heart was baring?
She heard his breath stagger. Watched his eyes blacken with some latent emotion that seemed to freeze him.
"Everything I said to you that evening in your office. . . "
His eyes flickered, flared.
He knew what evening.
She shook her head, ungraceful, jerky; swallowed back the burn of hot tears that nearly closed her whispering throat. "Could there have been a bigger or crueler fool than I?"
His eyes were a blur of shock as her words hit him. The confession. The implicit apology. The ramifications. He absorbed each one quietly, without speaking, and the silence burgeoned like a balloon stretched to its breaking point.
Elizabeth bit her lip until she tasted the metallic tang of blood.
For intending not to take things too far tonight, she had said more than she had meant to. But it had spilled from her lips, no more able to be held back than a pebble could stop the ocean, truth beating its wings like a caged bird struggling to be set free. To fly.
Fear twisted. She had so much to lose, for he was the one that could walk away. She couldn't, that much was painfully clear to her now. Had she said too much? Gone too far? Would he—
"Elizabeth." Her name was a soft, rough murmur on his lips, and he was shaking his head, a tiny, gentle motion, and his eyes, oh, those eyes, melting into liquid blue tenderness that pulled her in until she drowned in their depths, shivered, and went deathly still.
And then his hand was lifting to her face and it was all she could do just to breathe, rooted to the spot, feeling the wild, yearning, crazy urge to tuck her cheek into the curve of his palm. But she was frozen, a veritable statue, neck twisted toward him, staring up at him with eyes she knew were huge pools of frozen waiting, a kind of breathless wonder suspending her features.
She could feel the warmth of his hand as it closed the last few inches, and then his fingers, so gentle, simply grazed the hair above her ear, the slow touch no more than a tender whisper.
"Don't you know?" he whispered, and drew her hand flat against his heart. And all that was said and unsaid suddenly didn't matter.
They were on the brink, something shimmering and real just around the bend in their long and winding journey. The yarn spool was being rewound.
The regard in his eyes was blown open, naked, turning her bones liquid and sweet like hot melted chocolate.
Her heart tripped, somersaulted in her chest. It wasn't too late. It beat like a refrain in her heart.
"As for the rest. . . " His voice never rose about a whisper, but it graveled along her nerve endings as he promised, voice whiskey-rough, "We'll talk."
We'll talk. Never had two words sounded so sweet.
She was ready. There were so many things she longed to tell him, to share with him. Her heart of late felt like someone had pulled open the uppermost chambers and breathed new life down through them till it spread, racing like a secret messenger to ignite her cells and bubble her blood.
"Please." I need that, Nathan. "I-I'd like that. Very much."
He nodded like he understood everything she'd ever wanted to say to him, eyes drifting over her face, brushing down her hair, making her feel the same way his fingers had: like her hair was an infinitely precious, breakable object. His face remained serious. But there was a deepening softness casting his rugged features into stark relief.
Her muscles eased, letting her sink further into the wall behind her as a sweetly content sigh escaped her.
Mirroring the dusky bruised sky, the air around them tinted purple-grey under the sheltering cover of the boardwalk, the stars not quite out. Lit oil lamps staggered along the outside wall, the closest one creating a diluted golden glow a short distance behind Nathan, silhouetting his height, the set of his broad shoulders, relaxed now as he gazed down at her. A lock of hair tumbled loose and fell against his temple.
She could feel the wooden siding of the building press through her thin spring dress, but she didn't care. Not with the golden haze that seemed to settle over them like a benediction.
Her fingers itched to reach up and shift the tumble of hair from his forehead, but she didn't dare breach the line of proper etiquette.
The music changed. From inside, the lilting strands of a tender old waltz began to drift on the wind. Elizabeth lifted her head, looked straight at him. Took her courage in both hands as a silver-haired couple walked down the opposite side of the street, the woman's wrinkled hand tucked into the crook of her stooped husband's arm.
"I—" Her voice cracked. She took a breath, tried again. "I've spent too many years dancing with the wrong men." Bold. Not quite fearless—but almost. A little breathy she falteringly asked, "Will you dance with me, Nathan Grant?"
Nathan studied her face and then took a step toward her with an expression she couldn't quite fathom. Slowly, he reached out and grasped her waist, gently tugged her close enough to dance, but loose enough for propriety. "This answer enough?"
She swallowed a breathless laugh at his masterful move taking charge of the moment. For an instant he stood still with her clasped between his hands. Instinctively, her palms fluttered to rest against his vest, their pressure light as thistledown. In the dimming light, the masculinity of his broad-shouldered presence beckoned her questing heart like a glowing candle in a pitch-black cave.
Until tonight, he'd not reached out to her since she'd left for Capital City four months earlier, when he'd caught her forearm and she'd instantly reciprocated, her hand clinging around his arm in turn as if drawing from him the strength that seemed to exude from his very bones.
He extended his hand, offering it to her, and she slipped her fingers inside, feeling his grasp encase them. His hold was perfect, as somehow she'd known it would be—close enough to guide, but loose enough to be free.
A small, happy feeling curled inside her heart.
His right hand was firm around her waist. The sweet, graceful strains through the window lifted on a soar of violins—and Nathan moved.
Unlike the times she'd seen him dance with Allie or Faith, he moved now with a sort of lithe, contained grace, his physicality making her feel tiny, delicate in his hold.
She couldn't remember the last time a man had made her feel delicate.
She couldn't remember any man who had been capable of making her feel delicate.
Until now.
They swayed and dipped, her skirt a swirl of green about their ankles.
She swallowed. "I wanted to dance with you six years ago," she confessed, only just audible, looking up to meet his gaze. "The Ladies' Choice dance at the Founder's Day celebration. I was looking for you. I couldn't find you."
Something long dormant kindled to life in his eyes. "You found me tonight," he said simply. "And I was looking for you too that night."
Her head dropped. "But, I didn't see you until it was too late."
His hands tightened, his face dipping as he captured her lowered eyes with his. "Does this feel like it's too late?" His question was as firm as it was husky.
Wordless, she shook her head. No, it didn't feel too late. It felt like the beginning of everything wonderful and solid and true in her life.
"Tell me," he whispered, so softly.
He needed the words.
So she gave them to him. "It doesn't feel. . . anything. . . like 'too late,' Nathan."
Nathan's smile was warm starlight on her face and in that moment, she could have believed heaven had cracked open and angels sang only for them. He spun her slowly, as the gaslights and music whirled around them in a perfect, dazzling blur of golden joy.
She breathed in, filling her lungs. He smelled the way the forest looked at night under the moon.
He smelled like earth and home.
The world fell away as Elizabeth felt her lids flutter shut and let herself sink into the moment, blindly trusting his lead. She felt her knees buckle just a little, but with an unintelligible murmur, he eased back, holding her up with one strong arm, a solid band of warm security.
Life would find them soon enough, but here in this one golden moment, safe within his encircling strength, she felt like she could stay there, forever and happy in this dance.