by Lori Wilde
He cleared his throat again and muttered something unintelligible. Then Lanie knew. In the short time she’d known him, she’d never seen him at a loss for words. He was trying to find a way not to ask the woman out.
Lanie stood and straightened her spine, then boldly walked up to Reece and slipped her arm familiarly through his. “Reece, honey, I’ve been looking all over for you,” she gushed. She smiled at the two women. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”
After his initial shock, Reece’s features registered relief. He smiled his thanks and began the introductions.
Lanie had already met Mrs. Parker at church, and they reacquainted themselves. Prepared for the jealousy that she expected to take root at meeting Reece’s high school chum, Lanie was surprised when that emotion gave way to regret.
Regret that Jennifer claimed a part of Reece’s life that she would never know. And regret that she couldn’t summon up any animosity toward this gorgeous blonde with the genteel manner and genuine friendliness.
In a matter of minutes, Lanie was agreeing to take Winnie for show-and-tell day in Jennifer’s first-grade classroom.
Lanie’s knuckles were warmed where Reece absently rubbed the back of her hands with his thumb. The reactions the simple gesture aroused were too intimate to experience in public—in front of Reece’s potential, or possibly ex, girlfriend. Licking her dry lips, Lanie tried to cover her discomfiture by reverting to babbling.
“I hope we’ll see you at the dance tonight,” she told the women. “You are coming, aren’t you? Reece and I have been looking forward to it all week. Haven’t we, dear?”
Reece just grinned down at her with glazed eyes. Lanie knew that, once again, she’d overstepped her bounds. Someday her impulsiveness would get her into a heap of trouble. When Reece unhooked her hand from his arm and clasped his fingers through hers, she was thankful today was not that fateful day.
Mrs. Parker and Jennifer murmured their goodbyes. But before they could beat a hasty retreat, a stray beagle jumped up against Jennifer, leaving dark smudges on her pastel jumpsuit.
Jennifer cried out and stepped back to avoid further damage. Waving away the dog with one hand, she brushed at the dirt with her free hand.
“Oh my,” said Lanie as she picked up the friendly pooch. “I hope that mark will come out.”
Mrs. Parker immediately took control of the situation. “Come along, Jennifer. Let’s get some cold water on that before it becomes a permanent stain.”
Holding the dog in her arms like an infant baby, Lanie watched them go. “Jennifer’s very nice. You must be crazy not to want to date her.” Reluctantly, she added, “She seems to be just your type.”
“Yeah,” said Reece, and Lanie’s heart dipped at the wistful tone in his voice. “I once thought she was my kind of girl. But not anymore. Besides,” he said, slinging an arm around her shoulder, “I already have a date for tonight. And I’ve been looking forward to it all week.”
Trying to ignore the comfort she found in the circle of his arms, Lanie rubbed the dog’s exposed belly and smiled as its hind foot twitched in pleasure. “Reece, about that dance date thing—I was just trying to help you out. After all, isn’t that what office managers are for?” She smiled up at him as they strolled toward the sheep-shearing pen. “I never planned to hold you to it.”
“But I plan to hold you to it.”
For all of about three seconds, Lanie let herself enjoy the sensation of victory over the impeccable blue-eyed blonde. But then she reminded herself that Reece was only offering to take her to the dance out of a sense of honor, and maybe a little bit of gratitude for getting him off the hook with Jennifer.
“Oh, sure, you just want me to be your bodyguard,” she quipped.
“You wouldn’t lead me on and then let me down, would you?”
Lead him on? Let him down? Did he really want to spend the evening with her? And what, she silently asked herself, about their pact to keep things platonic between them?
“Reece, as one friend to another, I think I should remind you about our agreement.”
As enticing as his offer was, she knew that only harm could come from a romantic evening with this man. Reece needed a settled, dependable woman who could give him an uneventful family life. For the life of her, she didn’t know why he had turned down the opportunity to renew his relationship with Jennifer. He could do much worse.
Like getting entangled with someone like herself. She certainly wasn’t settled or dependable. And life with her would always be far from uneventful.
The dog in her arms made little grunting noises, and Lanie continued rubbing its bulging belly to quiet it. Reece slid his hand to the back of Lanie’s neck and steered them to an empty bench behind the library. Children and their parents passed by on their way to the carnival rides at the rescue squad grounds while Winnie cropped the grass that sprouted beside the metal bench’s claw feet. Reece sat quietly for a moment before saying anything.
Finally, he said, “Why don’t we just forget about that agreement?”
Going to the dance with Reece went against Lanie’s better judgment. But that was true of many of her actions, especially where Reece was concerned. The old pink truck was acting up again, so Lanie drove them to the Memorial Building in her compact foreign car whose name she couldn’t pronounce.
When pressed for an explanation, Reece said little more than his initial suggestion to “forget about that agreement.”
Stealing a glance at him in the darkened room, Lanie noticed that he seemed more at ease than he had been earlier in the day. In fact, he seemed more content than he had since she’d first met him. Reece called out greetings to friends at other tables and introduced Lanie to those who stopped to chat. She was surprised that he didn’t mention she was his employee. Maybe he didn’t want people to think he fraternized, she decided.
The band, a local group that played mostly rock-and-roll oldies and a little country and western, was still warming up.
“What’s the harp for?” Lanie asked Reece.
His arm lay across the back of her chair. Lanie found herself acutely aware of his nearness. If she leaned back, she felt the caress of his touch against her shoulder, yet leaning forward would put her too intimately close to the man who turned her insides to mush.
Her dilemma worsened when he angled his chair toward hers and held her captive with his chocolate-brown gaze. A hint of amusement played around his mouth, and Lanie wished—not for the first time—that she didn’t have to work so hard to keep from kissing him.
“You don’t know?” he asked.
“If I knew, would I be asking you?” she responded sweetly.
His lips curled upward in a sly grin. Lanie almost wished she hadn’t asked. Reece searched through the mingling crowd and leaned so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.
“See that lady in the black dress?”
Lanie followed the line of his pointed finger to the middle-aged woman in a black, floor-length gown. She was easy to spot since everyone else in the room was more casually dressed.
“Yes.”
“That’s Barbara Gardner. If you see her walking toward the harp, come find me, and I’ll show you what it’s for.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
Reece grinned again, broader this time. It was an expression that made Lanie feel like a canary being watched by a cat. “Not really,” he said. “You need to see a demonstration to know what it’s all about.”
Lanie wondered if that were true, but it was clear she wouldn’t get any more out of him.
“Here they are, Dot. Come sit down before you have a conniption.” Walter pulled out a chair for Dot, then took a seat beside her. “Well, come on. What are you waiting for?”
Dot blushed. “I don’t know how to tell them.”
“Then show them.”
Slowly, shyly, Dot lifted her left hand from her lap and spread her fingers on the table. A pear-shaped diamond winked from
the simple gold ring on her finger.
Lanie gasped. The announcement was a surprise, but she instinctively knew Dot and Walter would live out their lives together, happy in each other’s company.
In the short time she’d known them, Lanie had grown very fond of the older couple. She considered Dot a special friend and could think of no better man for her to marry than Walter Pace.
Dot was strangely low-key about her announcement, and Lanie realized she was waiting for Reece’s reaction. “Walter wants the Reverend Carlton to marry us next month,” Dot said softly. “I hope you approve, Maurice.”
Reece’s playful mood had vanished the moment he saw the engagement ring on Dot’s finger. His face expressionless, almost serious, he sat across from his mother, taking in the news. Then he pushed his chair back, got up, and walked to the other side of the table.
Please, Lanie thought, please don’t spoil Dot’s happiness.
She remembered how Reece had spent hours working on the pickup truck, trying to get it running again. He clung to the memory of the man who’d given him the old relic. Someday, she knew, he would have to let go of the past. Just as his mother had done.
Reece knelt beside Dot. For a long moment, he said nothing as he searched her face. The moisture in his eyes glittered like Dot’s diamond. And then he threw his arms around her neck and kissed her cheek. Lanie removed the cocktail napkin from under her drink and dabbed her eyes with it.
After a moment, he sat back on his heel. “Of course I approve. You’re a terrific lady, and Walter’s lucky to have you.” Reece kissed her again and moved to stand beside Walter. Grabbing the older man’s hand in both of his, he said, “Welcome to the family.”
Later, Lanie danced a few fast numbers with Reece, but she declined on the slow songs, offering excuses of thirst, hunger, or tiredness. Reece looked disappointed, but he didn’t persist.
The fast dances were fun, and Lanie could divert her attention from Reece by watching the other dancers around them.
But she knew that the moment she stepped into his arms, she’d be a lost woman. Lost to the warmth of his touch and the feel of his hard body against hers. No, she couldn’t risk setting herself up for what was sure to be a devastating fall.
She wondered what made Reece change his mind about keeping their friendship simply that. Friendship. Had he forgotten what he’d said about it being ridiculous for them to consider any other kind of relationship?
He seemed to be suffering a temporary lapse in judgment. Perhaps he was deluding himself that, despite their differences, they could make a go of it.
But it could never work. Lanie would have to be strong enough for both of them to resist the magnetic pull that seemed stronger tonight than it had ever been.
The band struck up another fast tune, and several people hollered out in chorus, “Paul Jones!”
Reece wrapped one arm around her waist and hauled her back to the dance floor. Keeping time to the upbeat tempo, he rocked her and spun her until she was almost dizzy.
“Who’s Paul Jones?” She had to shout to be heard.
“Not who,” he shouted back. “What. We’re dancing the Paul Jones. When you hear the whistle, get in line with the women, and you’ll go in a clockwise circle. The men will circle around the women in the opposite direction.”
“Then what?”
“Then when the whistle blows again, you dance with whoever’s nearest you.”
“Oh.” It didn’t make sense, but the frantic pace of it was giddying. Although breathless, Lanie was thoroughly enjoying herself. She was beginning to get the hang of it when a whistle shrilled. Reece released her and nudged her toward where the women formed a haphazard line.
Lanie broke in and held the hands of the ladies in front of and behind her. Trying to imitate their quick, shuffling steps, she performed her own version of clogging. Her stockinged feet were not as quick or graceful as some of the others, but Lanie was glad to see that there were some who appeared even more fumble-footed than she.
The whistle blew again, and this time Lanie cavorted with a red-faced teenager who sported the beginnings of a scraggly beard. Scanning the room over her partner’s shoulder, she saw Reece smoothly gliding Lou Wertzle across the dance floor.
The whistle sounded twice more, and her next partner was the farmer who had goaded Reece at the banquet.
Ed Lowell was probably no more than five years older than Lanie, but his leathery skin looked like it belonged on a man of at least fifty. He grinned and pressed Lanie to his hard, rounded stomach before whirling her so fast her feet barely touched the floor. Mercifully the song ended before she reached the point of hyperventilating.
Her heart beating against her ribs, Lanie thanked her partner for the dance and tried to disengage herself from his viselike hold. The band struck up another number, and the lead singer began a good imitation of Elvis singing “Love Me Tender.” Lanie tried again to squirm free, but Ed held her tighter.
He grinned down at her, displaying nicotine-stained teeth. “You don’t think I’m gonna let a good dancer like you get away, do you?” With that, he pulled her with him as he jogged too fast to the slow love song.
Lanie was about to murmur an excuse about her tired feet when Reece tapped on her partner’s shoulder.
“Man, you must be crazy.” Ed pressed Lanie tighter, flattening her breasts against him, and turned his back to the intruder.
Lanie considered stomping on his instep or kneeing him. She discarded those ideas when she remembered he was wearing leather brogues and she was shoeless, and at this close proximity, her knee would be ineffectual.
Fortunately, Reece was not easily shrugged off. Mocking Ed’s steps, he danced behind the farmer and winked at Lanie.
“I heard you need some help putting up that new barn of yours,” Reece said.
Ed slowed as he appeared to consider Reece’s statement. Then he stopped and handed Lanie off. “It was a pleasure.” Turning to Reece, he said, “Monday afternoon at four o’clock.”
Before Lanie could follow Ed off the dance floor, Reece stepped in front of her, his arms opened for her.
She hesitated only a moment before accepting his unspoken invitation. Telling herself she’d be the worst kind of heel if she refused after he’d so gallantly saved her from being asphyxiated in Ed’s death grip, she moved into Reece’s arms.
In his gentle hold she felt safe from everything but her own flaming emotions. Why did forbidden fruit have to be so tantalizing?
“Thanks for the rescue,” she murmured against his chest.
His hand tightened on the small of her back, just above where her black dress flared out into a succession of hot-pink and neon-green ruffled bands.
“We’re even now.”
Lanie knew he was smiling by the way his cheek moved where it rested against her temple.
“Besides,” he added, “there’s no way I’d let you slow dance with Ed Lowell after you’d been turning me down all evening.”
“Kind of flattens the old ego, huh?”
He didn’t respond in words, but his breath puffed against her hair in a soft, feathery laugh.
Moving slowly to the popular melody, they circled the crowded floor. Lanie knew she shouldn’t be enjoying this so much.
In the morning, without romantic music and dimmed lights to cloud her thinking, she’d look back on this moment and regret letting her impulses rule again. But for now, she would let her body flow with his, feeling the vibrations of his chest against her sensitized breasts.
He was humming. Lanie closed her eyes. Just a few more seconds until the song was over, and she’d go back to being just his neighbor and office manager. His humming changed, and Lanie realized that, though barely audible, he was now singing the words.
Something about loving her, and that he always would.
Lanie’s breath caught in her throat as she wished in vain that the words were meant for her. So what if, at that moment, he molded his body to hers in an e
mbrace so sensual that she almost forgot they were on a public dance floor?
For a brief instant, she found herself wishing they were someplace private so she could explore these strange, new sensations.
Quit kidding yourself, Lanie mentally chided. It’s just a song. He didn’t mean anything by it.
People often mouth the lyrics to songs without giving a thought to the meaning, she reminded herself. And even if Reece had been singing the words for her benefit, Lanie knew he was grievously wrong in doing so.
She was about to step away from him and flee to the safe, neutral territory of their table when the lights flickered once, then twice. Just before they went out for the third and last time, Lanie saw Barbara Gardner take her place on the platform. A second later, the room was black, and wisps of harp music floated around her.
When Reece’s lips touched hers, all rational thoughts of keeping a “platonic relationship” and being “strong for both of them” evaporated from her head. Like Scarlett O’Hara, she’d worry about that tomorrow.
But tonight, she’d give in, just one last time, to his mind-drugging kiss. Her hands clutched his waist, then roamed over the hard planes of his back. Her fingers ached to pull his shirt loose and explore the lean flesh of his bare torso.
Pressing closer, she knew that Reece’s desire was as strong as her own, and she couldn’t get close enough to the warmth he exuded.
She shifted in his arms and returned his kiss with a fervor that left no doubt of her need.
A wave of euphoria washed over her, filling her with a sense of peace. Of rightness. It was as if she had found her niche, and that special place was in Reece’s arms. It felt as though, after a lifetime of searching, she’d found a home.
Agonizingly, Lanie found herself being released from Reece’s kiss and from his arms as the last strains of harp music faded away.
The paddle fans on the ceiling swirled humid air over her as the lights blinked back on. Though the room was still shrouded in semidarkness, Lanie felt sure her cheeks must be glowing like stoplights.
