Dancing With Danger: Book 8: Dancing Moon Ranch Series

by Patricia Watters

  Taking the dress, Genie gave him a quick kiss, then walked over to where the overnight bags were set randomly about, grabbed hers from the pile, and headed for the ladies' dressing room. After twisting her mane of honey-colored hair into a coil on top of her head and impaling it with a couple of wooden pins to keep it out of her face, she slipped into the dress. As she was leaving, she glanced in the mirror on the wall and had to hold back a giggle. Now she looked like someone out of Little House on the Prairie.

  When she walked toward Josh, the expression on his face told her clearly that he liked the prairie look, maybe even better than the rodeo cowgirl look, which he affirmed, when he said, "When I saw the dress I knew you'd be my kind of woman in it."

  Genie laughed. "Your kind of woman in this?" she said, while spreading out her arms and displaying pink gingham and lace. "With all your rodeo involvement, I'd think you'd like the cowgirl look, with tight jeans and a bust-hugging, western-cut shirt."

  "I like that on you too," Josh said, "but you really look pretty in that dress, like you belong on the homestead. Meanwhile, I've got to get the dancing started, but this conversation isn't over. Later tonight I want to spend some time alone with you so we can start figuring out a way to make things with us work because I intend to have it done by the time the rodeo rolls around."

  Genie said nothing because the time of the rodeo would take her right up to the time when she'd have to make a serious decision about the direction of her life, and the one direction she knew it would not take was she and Abby trailering along with Josh from rodeo to rodeo, even if he could convince her he was quicker than the bulls. But she did want some time alone with him later, if only to sit with him under the stars and have his arms around her and snuggle close.

  ***

  After whistling for everyone's attention, Josh announced, "Time to start hopping, guys and gals. We'll be doing a few traditional, four-couple square dances, but before we start, I need a gal to help demonstrate some dance moves." He looked directly at Genie, who was across the floor from him, and held out his hand.

  A rustle of quiet voices reaffirmed what Josh already suspected, that the campers knew something was up between him and Genie, which didn't bother him, but must have bothered Genie because she was batting her eyelids nervously, and her smile was more like a grimace. Still, he'd decided at the outset that his time on the overnight with Genie would not be spent playing cat and mouse in order to hide their relationship from the campers. "It's okay, babe," he said to Genie across the floor, "they're on to us now and we're among friends." Everyone laughed.

  Genie offered a self-conscious smile before stepping over to Josh and taking his hand. Lacing his fingers with hers, Josh raised her hand high, and said to the campers, "This is my girl, Genie, and that's spelled g-e-n-i-e, like the magic lantern. She comes by her name honestly though because she's also a magician." He looked down at her then, and said, "You ready to tell me the thumb trick yet?"

  Genie shook her head, and Josh laughed and said to the others, "It's an inside joke, so setting that aside, Genie and I will start with a do-si-do and take you through the basic moves, so partner up and follow along with us."

  As the campers broke into couples, Josh leaned toward Genie, and said, "Annie told me you knew how to square dance. Was she right?"

  "She's right, but I haven't danced in a while," Genie replied.

  "It'll come back," Josh said. "Is it okay that you're my girl?"

  "We never discussed it and it really is premature," Genie said. "We're a long way from resolving things and I don't want you to think it will all work out because, to be honest with you, I don't see how it can. But I like the idea of being your girl, at least for a little while."

  Josh couldn't help smiling because as far as he was concerned, he'd won half the battle with Genie. Raising his hand to get everyone's attention, he said, "Okay folks, fold your arms for a do-si-do." Turning to Genie, he added, "You ready, babe?"

  "I'm ready," Genie replied.

  Folding their arms, they passed around each other, first back-to-back, then face-to-face. Josh smiled at Genie at that point, and as their eyes held, Genie paused for a moment and stared at him, as if she'd lost track of things, so he took the opportunity to give her a quick kiss, which had her batting her eyelids before collecting herself and completing the do-si-do. Glancing beyond her at the smiling faces, Josh winked at the crowd, which brought another round of laughs.

  "Now, promenade by connecting right hand to right hand." He reached across Genie and took her right hand with his right hand. "And left hand to left." He repeated with their left hands. "And with both partners facing the same direction, circle the ring counter clockwise... guys on the inside, gals on the outside, so fall in step with us."

  A couple joined in, then several others, and before long, little clouds of dust were billowing into the air as couples promenaded around the flat clearing in a wide circle. When Josh looked at Genie, her eyes were alive and she was smiling broadly.

  After demonstrating an elbow swing, a grand right-left, an allemande left, and a few others, Josh announced, "Now that you folks know the basic moves, we're ready to do the Grapevine Twist, so form a square and remember, when circling, it's guys' hands palms up, gals' hands palm down, and elbows slightly bent to keep the circle round."

  After they'd finished the walkthrough, Josh held Genie's hand up and said, "I've got to manage the music so my gal needs a partner."

  An older man, whose wife nudged him to go ahead and dance while she sat on the sidelines, walked over and stood next to Genie, and Josh turned away from them and clicked on the CD player. A combo banjo, fiddle and harmonica began a lively round, accompanied by the rhyming patter of the caller saying, "Take that lady, by the wrist, around that couple with a grapevine twist, back to the center with a figure eight, then around the gent and don't be late…"

  It was one of several CDs Josh and a couple of buddies put together back at the Dancing Moon Ranch to be used when a live combo wasn't available for their Friday night dances. To get things going, he started clapping in time. Those on the sidelines joined in, and before long the scene became a swirl of music and dancers accompanied by stomping feet and clapping hands.

  Leaning one shoulder against a post, Josh folded his arms and watched Genie, something he liked to do. More accurately, something he was becoming preoccupied with.

  Ever since she showed up at the ranch she'd taken over his mind. When he was away from her he relived the things she'd said and done, so it was like having her with him every minute of the day, and no matter what he was doing, he couldn't shake thoughts of her. Nor could he figure out why he was stuck on a woman who was opposite in every way from the woman he'd always imagined himself settling down with someday, which, until recently, had been a someday far into the future. But as he watched Genie dancing, she was like a bright star in his life, and from the sparkle in her eyes, and the brilliance of her smile, she was clearly enjoying herself.

  She also danced with energy and enthusiasm, and he couldn't help thinking that she wasn't so out of her element at the ranch. In fact, he couldn't help wondering why she'd learned to square dance. At the Dancing Moon it had been a regular Friday night event for ranch guests from as far back as he could remember, so he'd grown up taking part in it, mostly because it gave him a chance to check out the pretty girls whose families were staying at the ranch, but Genie was a nurse and a city girl, a definite disconnect.

  After about forty-five minutes, he saw that some of the couples were sitting on the sidelines, and others seemed to be losing steam, so he announced the last dance. He was also anxious to get on with his evening ahead with Genie. He had no idea what he expected to achieve when he got her alone, but whatever it was, he'd be laying out the foundation for something he had less than two weeks to accomplish.

  CHAPTER 10

  While the campers, who had broken into small groupings of families and couples, unrolled and arranged their bedrolls and sleepin
g bags for the night, Josh came over to where Genie had set up her pad and sleeping bag and was sitting cross-legged on it while talking to an older couple, and said, "I could use your help over at the chuck wagon."

  Genie looked askance at the woman, who'd been telling her an amusing story about how she and her husband met, and said to the woman, "I'll be back to hear the rest of the story."

  The woman patted her arm. "It's too beautiful a night to spend with an old married couple, honey. You two enjoy the evening and I'll finish the story in the morning."

  Josh offered his hand to help Genie up, and after she was standing, he continued holding her hand, while walking with her and saying, "Something I've been curious about all evening. What got a city girl like you into square dancing?"

  "I'm not a city girl by choice," Genie replied. "The city's where my job is. My fondest memories are of visiting my grandparents in the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia. Grandpa was a coal miner and Grandma raised eight kids on a tiny plot of land that had chickens and pigs and a couple of milk goats and a vegetable garden where I could dig in the dirt and eat my fill of tomatoes and peas."

  Josh looked askance at her. "Your father's folks or your mother's?"

  "Mom's," Genie replied. "The family was poor, so Mom left home like all the other kids did when she'd finished high school. She made her way to Nashville where she got a job in a nightclub. A couple of years later, Dad was contracted at the same nightclub for a few weeks and he spotted Mom, who was real pretty, and offered her a job as his assistant. They were married shortly afterwards."

  "So, when did you start square dancing?" Josh asked.

  "When I was around ten," Genie replied. "During summer vacation from school my brother, Dimitri, always wanted to tag along with Dad, but I wanted to go with Mom to visit Grandma and Grandpa, and dancing was big there. Grandpa had a naturally loud, deep voice, so he was caller because he could be heard over the band, but most of the people didn't need to hear his calls because they'd memorized the figures and combinations, so Grandpa just had to announce the dance or set, and the band would start up, and off the dancers went. I can also do a really mean clog dance," she added. "Clogging was a big thing with Grandma. She had leather-topped shoes with wooden bottoms, and she'd get up there and strike the floor with her heel and toe, or both, with her heel keeping up the rhythm with a heavy downbeat."

  "Do you still go there?" Josh asked.

  Genie shook her head. "Grandpa died of emphysema and lung complications from so many years in the coal mine, and Grandma just up and died a few months later. I think she just wanted to be with Grandpa. I like to think that my mom is with them too. I don't think she ever really left West Virginia. So where is it we're going?" she asked, as she continued walking with Josh.

  "Over here," Josh replied. He tugged her over to where he'd set up his bedroll, which butted up against the stump of an old juniper tree. "But before we start in on working out a solution for us I need a kiss." Pulling Genie to him, he covered her mouth with his, and Genie responded by curving her hands around his neck and combing her fingers into his hair, and drawing him closer until the kiss became a long, open mouth kiss, with tongues entangling, and breaths quickening, and little moans escaping Genie's lips.

  Josh broke the kiss long enough to pull Genie down with him onto the sleeping bag. Curving his arms and legs around her, he drew her tighter to him and again covered her mouth with his, until Genie felt almost overcome with wanting what she was determined not to have.

  Breaking the kiss, she drew in a long ragged breath, pressed against Josh's chest to put some space between them, and said, "We both know where this is leading and it's way premature. We're supposed to be finding a way to merge our lives, not our bodies." She moved to sit on the bedroll beside Josh.

  "I suppose," Josh replied, while dragging himself up to sit beside her.

  "Okay then," Genie started in, "you said you wanted to talk about how to make things work with us, so you have to be the one to start because I keep drawing a blank. You love what you do, and I couldn't live with it, and I'll never ask you to give it up, so that leaves little to work with."

  "Maybe we could set aside my bullfighting for now and concentrate on you," Josh replied. "This is a two-way street. It's not just about me."

  "Okay then, what do you want to know about me?" Genie asked.

  "Why you're thinking about quitting nursing? You're a good nurse. I gave you shit when I was your patient because I was trying to get your attention, and you'd had it with me, and it took an ice water bed bath to cool me down and convince me I was the biggest pain in the butt on the floor."

  "Having you as my patient has nothing to do with it," Genie said. "I went into nursing because I wanted to help people get better, but I also wanted to make deep connections with my patients and develop working relationships that would bring them to a better state of health."

  "Which is another black mark for me," Josh said. "When you tried to develop a working relationship, instead of me doing what you wanted, I gave you a lot of bull crap about how pretty you were—well that wasn't bull crap, it was the truth, but with my own self-interest in mind—and instead of doing what you asked, I rang the bell to get you back in my room so you could do it for me and I could look at you some more. The problem was me not you. I was flat on my back, with a couple of grapefruit between my legs, while trying like hell to be smooth."

  "I've had other patients like that and it was okay," Genie said. "At least I was interacting with them, but the way it is now, before I can even implement a recovery plan for my patients, they're either sent home too early or shipped off to a nursing facility rehab as soon as a bed is available, leaving me frustrated because whatever plan I'd set up was a moot point."

  "You still would have made a difference during the time you had them," Josh said. "I know you did with me."

  "No, I didn't," Genie replied. "You're still fighting bulls."

  "I'm not talking about bulls. I'm talking about following the instructions you laid out for when I got home, which wasn't easy to carry out with my brothers making jokes about the size of my balls, and my mother fussing over me like I was about to lose them, and Maddy not even talking to me because she was too embarrassed."

  "If the hospital hadn't sent you home so soon it would have been taken care of there. Another major frustration, patients being sent home too early only to be readmitted days later because they're worse."

  "That's the nature of a bureaucracy," Josh said. "Its goal is to make sure nothing's run efficiently, and your job is to figure out ways to get around it. Meanwhile, the patients still need good nurses like you to help them get through the worst of it."

  "That's what I thought when I started into nursing," Genie said. "The problem is we're being assigned far more patients than we can handle, which means never-ending paperwork. And then there's all the charting… endless charting, but we have to do it to protect our licenses. It's like being in a circus, a three, four, five or six-ring circus depending on how many patients I'm assigned. We spend our time racing from ring to ring to perform for the masses, which are our patients and their families, who cheer or boo us depending on how we're doing. We're the people in the crowd yelling popcorn-peanuts, while attempting to fill patient and family demands for whatever they need or want...medications, denture paste, nail clippers, pillows, blankets, all kinds of food. We're also the comic performers, aka the clowns, with the gowning and gloving. And we're the jugglers, and gymnasts, and handlers who work with exotic animals, also known as doctors, who need to be lead through hoops and around obstacles, but who can be unpredictable."

  "Bulls are unpredictable too," Josh said, "which is why you watch videos and study their moves so you can be ready for them. It should be the same with doctors. Eventually you figure out their idiosyncrasies and work around them."

  "That's true to an extent," Genie said, "but there's also the nurse-patient relationship, which can be likened to an aerial act, with me b
eing the catcher and the patient the flyer. Sometimes it goes without a hitch, but other times the grip slips, and depending on the patient's safety net, i.e. age, health and constitution, they can be brought back to fly again or the nets are weak and they fall. When that happens, I relive the moment over and over and over, while trying to figure out what went wrong and how it could have been avoided. And I question myself and my skill and just want to go back and fix things. And when a patient dies, it's like a part of me dies too."

  "Honey, did something bad happen?"

  "Yes," Genie replied. "My mom died and things are different now. I feel adrift and I'm having trouble letting go."

  "I know the feeling," Josh said. "When something takes a wrong turn, the moment replays over and over in your head, but when you finally come to the realization that you did your best and nothing could have changed the outcome, you have to let it go."

  "That's the problem," Genie said. "I can't let it go. These things stay with me."

  "Honey, come here."

  "Where?"

  "Right here." Josh patted his chest. "Sit between my legs and lean back and set everything aside for now and look up at the stars."

  Genie let out a soft sigh then turned around and settled back against Josh. Josh closed his arms around her and she tipped her head back until it rested against the hollow of his shoulder. For a while she said nothing, her attention focused on the closeness of Josh's arms around her and the realization that she didn't want him to let her go. But gradually her attention was drawn upward to a sky resplendent with stars.

  "I've never seen as dark a night before, or stars as brilliant, like billions of pinpoints of light in an otherwise black sky," she said

  "That's because Harney County has the lowest ambient light in the country," Josh replied. "It's what scientists call a dark place because with less than 7500 people in 10,000 square miles, it's one of the few regions left in the country where it's far enough away from city lights so the night sky's truly black. It's also common to see the Aurora Borealis here. It shows up like a faint green or red glow on the northern horizon, like the sun's coming up in the wrong place."