Moon Dance

by Mariah Stewart

  MOON DANCE

  Mariah Stewart

  Georgia Enright has dedicated her life to dance. But at age twenty-six, her dreams of becoming a lead dancer are fleeting. Having missed college and the sweet moments of ordinary life, she ventures to Pumpkin Hill, an old farm owned by her newly found half-sister, Laura Bishop, to contemplate her future. There, discovering an affinity for the simple pleasures of country life and a barn just perfect for giving dance lessons, Georgia enjoys an oasis of peace… until Matthew Bishop shows up.

  An abandoned child taken in by the same loving parents who had adopted Laura, Matt Bishop has plans of his own for that empty old barn at Pumpkin Hill—plans that include a veterinary clinic, not a ballet studio! The only thing the rugged doctor resents more than Laura's interest in her birth family, the Enrights, is having to share the premises with one. Yet despite himself, he can't deny there's something special about the graceful, blonde Enright who has brightened his world—and if he's not careful, she just may find a way to dance into his heart.

  prologue

  The hospital's hallway was quiet and well lighted, the doors all closed more than three quarters of the way to ensure the privacy of the occupants of the rooms on this most private of floors. The young woman stepped off the elevator and looked both ways, trying to determine which way the room numbers might run. Seeing the nurses' station off to the left of the narrow lobby between the bank of elevators, she made her way toward it on quiet feet, as befitted the solemn surroundings.

  "I'm looking for Mallory Edwards's room," she said to the gray-haired woman who stood behind the desk.

  "Are you family?" the woman asked without looking up.

  "Just a friend."

  The nurse raised her head then. Mallory Edwards had been a patient in this small private hospital outside Baltimore, Maryland, for more than a week. No family had come to visit, although someone had made arrangements for the best of rooms and the best of care. The Edwards girl was young; barely twenty-seven. The nurse bit her bottom lip. Would it hurt if she bent the rules just this once?

  "Room three twenty-one, to the right," she told the visitor, "and if anyone asks, you're her sister."

  "Thank you," the young woman nodded, and headed off past the silent rooms in the indicated direction.

  The young woman paused in the doorway of Room 321, listening for a sound from within, but there was none. Cautiously she pushed aside the door and peered inside. The room was dim, the curtains drawn to keep out the light of a particularly bright and sunny February morning. The lone bed stood against the middle of the left wall, and the visitor's first impression was that of having walked into a nightmare. The patient lay on the bed, her head and shoulders slightly elevated, tubes seemingly everywhere. Drawn into the room by a combination of concern and morbid fascination, the young woman took several steps forward.

  "Who's there?" a faint voice from the bed rasped.

  "Georgia Enright," the visitor replied.

  The figure on the bed paused, then repeated softly, "Georgia Enright." A few seconds later, she asked bluntly, "Why?"

  "I… I just wanted to… to…"

  "To see if what they said was true?" The voice dropped to a whisper. "That death's door was closing on Mallory Edwards? Are you here to start picking at the bones already?" The figure made a harsh sound, as if trying to laugh, but it rang hollow. "No pun intended…"

  "No, I… I just…" the young visitor,, obviously disconcerted, shrank back slightly toward the door. Then, as if to justify her presence and give herself courage, she said, "I brought you some flowers."

  "Flowers?" the patient asked, "You brought me flowers? Why would you do that? I don't recall ever having been particularly nice to you."

  "You haven't been."

  "Then why…"

  "Because I felt bad for you." She stepped forward to hand the bouquet to the figure on the bed and tried not to show repulsion at the overly thin arms that reached out to accept the gift.

  "You felt bad for me?" Even in this sorry state, it was obvious that Mallory Edwards was still the diva.

  The principal ballerina in Baltimore's famed Harbor Troupe, Mallory Edwards had been a legend by the time she was nineteen years old. That Georgia Enright—a mere member of the corps—felt sorry for her, would have made Mallory Edwards laugh under any other circumstances. As it was, however, the discovery that someone—even a member of the troupe's corps of dancers—was genuinely concerned for her came as a big surprise. Mallory knew she had never done anything to earn that kind of consideration from anyone she'd ever worked with; witness the fact that she'd had no other visitors, and the only flowers she'd received were from her brother, who was too busy to pay a personal visit. She was touched in spite of herself.

  "Well, then, Georgia Enright, I suppose I should probably thank you." Mallory pushed the button to elevate the head of the bed a little. "As you can see, I haven't been exactly inundated with cards and letters to wish me a speedy recovery."

  Thin, thin fingers traced the lacy leaves of the dark-green fern and the white petals of the daisies in the bouquet. Mallory raised the flowers to her face, seeking the scent of something sweet; something that did not smell like a hospital room or any of the accoutrements of having been confined there for better than a week.

  She glanced at the young blond woman who stood so still at the side of the bed watching her. Of course, Mallory had known who she was when she entered the room. Georgia Enright had been with the Harbor Troupe for as long as had Mallory herself. The difference between them was that Mallory had quickly moved beyond the confines of the corps of dancers that formed the backdrop of every performance—the "chorus" of the dance. Georgia Enright never would. Though she worked hard, and it was evident that she always gave everything she had to every performance, Georgia Enright was not the stuff prima ballerinas were made of. Physically, Georgia fell just short of the mark for a dancer; just a tad rounder in the hips, breasts just a smidge fuller, and legs just a bit shorter than the ideal. And while Georgia's movements were studied, if not inspired, and certainly not without grace, she lacked that singularity that set apart a good dancer from one who could mesmerize an audience and hold it in the palm of her hand.

  Mallory had been a dancer who dazzled. Georgia Enright, at her best, was very, very good.

  Was the Enright girl aware of her deficiencies, or did she still believe, as all young dancers believed, that someday she would be the principal dancer in a prestigious troupe? Mallory wondered if perhaps she couldn't best repay Georgia's kindness by telling her the truth.

  "The flowers are lovely." Mallory softened. "It was very thoughtful of you."

  "You're welcome," Georgia replied.

  "What are they saying about me? About my illness?" Mallory had to ask.

  "That you're being treated for—" Georgia stopped suddenly, thinking perhaps she should have been prepared with a quick off-the-cuff response to the question.

  "Now, I wonder, are they saying 'fatigue'? 'Exhaustion'?" Mallory looked almost amused.

  "They're not really saying anything publicly." Georgia shrugged.

  "No, of course they're not. Ivan is not one to let dirty little secrets out, now, is he. And 'eating disorders' sounds so tawdry, don't you think?" Mallory leaned back slightly into the pillow. "How is the little son of a bitch, anyway? Still as tyrannical as ever?"

  "Yes. Of course. Ivan never changes."

  "Ivan the Terrible. He's earned the name a hundred times over." Mallory smiled at Georgia and motioned for her to sit down. The girl's kindness aside, there was news to ferret out. Mallory knew there would be a long line of would-be successors waiting for her demise or, at the very least, her retirement. She wondered who the strongest challengers would be.

  "
Now, tell me what's going on at the studio. Who is replacing me?"

  "Ivan's been working with Elena Howard this week…"

  Mallory's eyes narrowed and she bit the inside of one hollow cheek. "Well, I hope she enjoys the limelight, for the short bit of time she'll have it. She's not the stuff that prima ballerinas are made of. Besides, I'll be back in six weeks…"

  "Six weeks?" Georgia looked at the frail figure in the bed. Did she really believe she would be fit to dance in six weeks?

  "Oh, yes," Mallory Edwards's chin leveled. "Six weeks from Monday I will walk into the studio and I will be ready to resume my role as principal dancer. Tell Ivan the Terrible that when you go into the studio tomorrow, Georgia. Tell him I will be back, good as new, in six weeks."

  one

  Georgia nimbly leaned over to tie first her left, then her right running shoe before standing and stretching from side to side to limber up. Though in top athletic form after nine years of dancing professionally, she still performed an exacting ritual before setting out on her daily run. Side-to-side stretches, forward lunges, jumping jacks, leg lifts. Twenty of each. Her warm-up completed, she left her sixth-floor condo, locked the door securely behind her, tucked the key into the pocket of her dark green hooded sweatshirt, and set off for the ground floor. On foot.

  Taking the stairs only prolonged her prerun warmup, she rationalized. It was good exercise, good for her heart, good for her lungs. Why ride when you can walk? And besides, elevators made her claustrophobic.

  Georgia skipped through the lobby, but once outside the imposing front door of the building she had called home for the past five years, she broke into a measured trot and took to the pavement. At the corner, she turned onto Pratt Street and set a pace that would carry her to her destination within her allotted twenty minutes. Despite the day's valiant attempt to cultivate a sunny disposition, a late winter chill hung about Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Filling her lungs with air heavy with the faint, tangy scent of the sea, Georgia jogged briskly past lingering piles of dirty snow that huddled in the shaded areas around the Convention Center. Off to her far right beckoned Harborplace—two glass-enclosed shopping malls that provided tourists and residents alike a shopping fix on a grand.scale—and the first of the piers that jutted smartly into the harbor. A little farther ahead would be the World Trade Center, and beyond, on Pier Three, the National Aquarium, field-trip mecca for elementary schools up and down the East Coast.

  At the corner of Gay and Pratt, Georgia stopped for traffic, then crossed the street and proceeded straight up Gay as she began her cool-down pace, slowing slightly until she reached the small restaurant with the faded red-and-green awning. Several small, round tables for two had been set up out front with plaid tablecloths and some healthy optimism that the day would, in fact, warm up.

  It was still early enough that the last of the breakfast crowd remained inside. Georgia pushed open the curtained door and stepped inside to the warmth of clean brick walls and the smell of fresh bread. She winked at the young man who stood chatting with a customer at the cash register as she strolled to the back of the restaurant.

  "Ah, there she is," a male voice called out from behind immaculate stainless-steel counters. "Maria, didn't I tell you that Georgia would be here before nine this morning?"

  "Why, yes, you did," the young waitress nodded. "Maybe you really are psychic, Lee."

  "Well, there have been times we've suspected he might be, but not this time," Georgia laughed, "since I called him at eight to let him know I'd be stopping by."

  "Fake." Maria flashed dark eyes good-naturedly at the tall man with the clipped, graying beard and the mildly amused expression.

  "Spoilsport," he stage-whispered to Georgia, who laughed again. "So, what can I get you?"

  "Water is fine," Georgia told him, "and I can get it."

  "Help yourself." Lee Banyon gestured toward the refrigerator. "I have one last omelet to fix, then we can sit down and chat. Can I make something for you? I have some lovely ham," he added, a tease in his voice, knowing full well that Georgia was what she termed semi-vegetarian—eggs, dairy, on rare occasions perhaps fish, but never meat.

  "I'll think about an omelet." She lifted a glass from the counter and filled it with chilled spring water. "And you know what you can do with your ham."

  Lee laughed and juggled three dark green peppers before lining them up along the counter.

  Leaning back against the cool steel, Georgia watched as Lee effortlessly chopped one of the peppers and several mushrooms and slid them into a pan, all the while moving with the grace of a dancer, which he had been until his self-imposed retirement eighteen months earlier. The death of Lee's longtime companion, David, had brought home the fragility of life, and Lee had quit his position as the principal male with the Inner Harbor Dance Troupe and had taken over running the restaurant David had opened six years earlier.

  Tall, lanky, dark-haired, and handsome, Lee Banyon had been Georgia's best and closest friend from her earliest days with the troupe. Georgia's support and compassion dining David's illness had won her a place in Lee's heart for all time. There was no question that Lee would walk through fire for her, would slay her dragons, if need be. Right now, Lee judged from the look in her eyes, a dragon lurked somewhere nearby, and as soon as he finished this last order, he would make it his business to find out where.

  "Ready for a nibble, Georgey-girl?" he called to her. "You can't jog and dance and who knows what else without the proper fuel."

  "Actually, I've been dreaming about one of your veggie concoctions for days. You know," she grinned, "the one with the broccoli, zucchini, onions, roasted red peppers…"

  "You're on." He poked in the refrigerator for the last of the zucchini he had shredded earlier that morning, and set about making breakfast for his friend.

  "So, Miss Georgia," he said as he garnished the plate with thin slices of orange and wedges of cantaloupe, "what's on your mind this morning?"

  "What makes you think that anything—"

  He held up one hand to stop her.

  "Please, we've known each other far too well for much too long to start playing games now. I can see it in your face, cara." He guided her through the kitchen door into the now-emptied dining room and to a table near the window, pulled a chair out for her with one hand, and placed her plate before her with the other.

  "Ummm…" She bit into a piece of broccoli and sighed. "Heaven. No one makes a veggie omelet like you do, Lee."

  "Right. It's my secret combination of herbs and spices," Lee said dryly as he sniffed at a pot of coffee. Convinced of its freshness, he poured two cups and brought them to the table. "Don't try to change the subject. Tell Uncle Lee what's bothering you."

  "Did you know that Mallory Edwards is in the hospital?" she asked.

  "Yes, I had heard."

  "I went to visit her a few days ago." She was avoiding eye contact and he knew it.

  "I don't recall that you and Mallory were friends." A frown creased his brow. "Now that I think about it, I don't recall that Mallory had any friends at all within the troupe."

  "We're really not, and I don't think she does."

  "Then why the act of mercy?"

  "I felt sorry for her, Lee. I was there when she collapsed. It was a terrible thing to see. One minute she was dancing, the next minute she sank to the floor like a marionette whose strings had all been cut at exactly the same time." Georgia shivered at the memory of it.

  "Surely you've seen people faint before."

  "I have, but this was different. This was…"—she struggled for a word, then shook her head and repeated—"different. Everyone saw her fall, and no one helped her. Ivan stood over her yelling at her to get up "

  "Ah, yes, Ivan would be the very soul of compassion," Lee, who had known the temperamental artistic director for years, murmured sarcastically.

  "Finally one of the girls checked her pulse, and had a real hard time finding one. At first Ivan didn't want to call an ambulance,
he kept insisting that she just wanted attention, that she would get up on her own. Of course, she did not, so we called nine-one-one."

  "Over Ivan's objections, I would suspect."

  Georgia scowled. "He didn't want paramedics coming into the studio, can you believe that? He actually wanted us to carry her into the lobby."

  "I've always said that Ivan was a prince among men."

  "Here's the scary part." Georgia sighed and put her fork down quietly. "Everyone knows that Mallory collapsed from malnutrition. We all know that she suffers from eating disorders. I'm not certain which one, but we all know there's something seriously wrong. She is a very ill young woman. In the hospital, she was hooked up to skatey-illion tubes and IVs, and yet she was talking about coming back in six weeks and taking over her old spot."

  "And she probably will." Lee shrugged. "Surely you know that she's not the only member of your troupe who thinks she's found an easy means of weight control?"

  "Easy?" Georgia's eyes widened, recalling Mallory's hollow cheekbones, pencil-thin fingers, large eyes set in a gaunt face. "If that's the easy way, I'd sure as hell hate to see the hard way."

  "Well, I do not have to tell you, of all people, how unreasonable Ivan can be where his dancers' weights are concerned."

  Georgia met his eyes across the table, but did not answer. She herself had been the victim of Ivan's tyrannical rages when she had weighed in a pound or two above the director's limits. For each of his dancers, Ivan kept a notebook in which he recorded their weights on a daily basis. Those whose weight fluctuated by a pound or two might be ridiculed in front of the other dancers, but those whose weight gain might exceed that would be subjected to humiliation of the cruelest form. Ivan could indeed be terrible.

  "No," she told him. "I know that a lot of the dancers do dreadful things to themselves to keep their weight down. Not just in our company, but in just about every one that I know of."

  "Eating disorders are as old as the dance, Georgia. Consider yourself fortunate that you never were afflicted."