Dances of the Heart

by Andrea Downing

  The door opened into a vestibule for two apartments, a filled coat rack outside one. The holiday décor did nothing to make him jovial as a maid came out and confirmed this was Ms. Bennett’s residence. She offered to take Jake’s coat, which he handed to her before she led him inside and directed him to the living room. Now he understood: Carrie was having a party, and everyone had thought he was a guest.

  He stood there in the marbled entryway, an elegantly decorated tree in the corner another sign the Christmas season was here. Uncertain what to do now, he wanted to tell the maid he would return another time, but she had already gone. He stood there feeling foolish and out of place.

  Just as he started back to the door, he heard Carrie call his name.

  Puzzled surprise mixed with worry flitted across her face as she advanced, a glass of champagne in her hand. She carefully drew the living room door partially closed, shutting off the murmur of voices and laughter. “How…What are you doing here? What a pleasant surprise. How are you?”

  “I’m fine.” He stood solemnly staring at her, taking in the elegant appearance so different from what she had worn at the ranch, and not knowing where to begin.

  “Is your father all right?” The words tumbled out like a child’s blocks falling.

  “My father,” Jake repeated as if trying the word out for size. The question seemed so formal, such a strange way for Carrie to be asking about a man she had lived with for a time, slept with, supposedly loved. “Yeah.”

  And then it hit him, either he must do what he had come to do or leave it, and there was no point in turning back now. He had nothing to lose. He was face to face with her, and she was waiting for some word, some reason for his being there.

  “I’m sorry—I didn’t know you had a party on. I…I saw Paige in Philadelphia, and she suggested I come before heading back. She didn’t say you had a party on today.”

  “She probably forgot. She has so much to deal with these days.” There was a moment’s hesitation. “Well, I’m so glad you did come,” Carrie began, going into hostess mode. “Can I get you a drink, something to eat? Please join us. It’s just a little luncheon party for the launch of my new book.”

  “I guess you’re busy then.” He screwed up his face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I thought we could talk for a minute.”

  And then he could see the light going on, the realization washing over her. “Of course we can talk. Come with me.”

  He followed her down a hallway to what appeared to be her study. Overlooking the park and all in white, it had a calming effect on him as it no doubt did on her when she worked.

  When she waved at a chair for him to sit, Jake declined with a shake of his head. “I won’t be long. I don’t want to keep you from your guests,” he said, spotting a stack of books on her desk. Dances of the Heart the cover read, by Carrie Bennett.

  “Is your father all right?” she asked again, distinct concern in her voice now. “Did he send you?”

  “No. No, he didn’t send me. Fact is, he doesn’t even know I’m here. I came up to check out some stallions at a farm in Pennsylvania and went on to Philly to see Paige while I was there. It was really her idea I come—though I have to say I thought it was a good idea, until I got here.” His mouth curved into a small smile. “Dad would probably shoot me if he knew. Well, maybe not but, you know, he won’t like me meddling in his love life.”

  Carrie put down the glass of champagne she’d been holding and took a breath. “His love life,” she repeated softly. Her gaze fled to the window as it rattled slightly in a gust of wind. “Did you…I mean, I know you cleared up everything with him in the end. You told him about Robbie and what you had done and all…all of that. He wrote—”

  “He did? He didn’t tell me.” Jake sucked in air. “Did you reply?”

  “No. No, I didn’t.”

  “Did you know what Ty had done—after you left, I mean. After Alamo?”

  “Paige told me. She kept me posted you were recovering, were well. And then I knew you had seen her in Bandera.” Carrie rested a hand on the desk as if for support, a look of regret crowding her features. “Listen, Jake, I’m sorry I butted in. I mean, I know you asked me to help that night at the ranch, but it wasn’t my business to do so, and I apologize for that. But things were said—by Ray and me, both of us—and it just came out. I truly am sorry for that.”

  He decided to let it all be; this wasn’t about him, it was about Carrie and his father. “Well, you paved the way for me, didn’t you? I mean, there was no turning back.” As she started to protest and apologize again, he put up a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, Carrie, I was grateful. Paige kept telling me I had to tell Dad the whole story, but it just kept going on until you stopped it. It was getting worse if anything, what with Alamo being killed. I was just a coward, I guess. I couldn’t face hurting him, not the way he felt about Robbie, not when he told me, as he had, how I had made him proud. He wasn’t pleased I’d done what I’d done, that I’d let that bastard Ty threaten me into things. That sure as hell didn’t make him proud. But I think we understand each other better now, and I think he respects me for finally telling him everything. Well, sort of respects me. He did say if I ever did anything like that again he’d run me off the property for good, but it won’t happen anyway.” He gave Carrie a sheepish smile.

  “Well, I’m glad to hear all that, Jake.” She glanced at the pile of books on her desk. “Is…is he well—Ray? How is he?”

  “Misses you like anything. But he’s not drinking if that’s what you want to know. He had one great binge when you left, smashed a few things and then sobered up.”

  “Well, then, he worked me out of his system,” Carrie said.

  “No, no he hasn’t worked you out of his system. I can see it in his face. He’s been real busy this past autumn, but I can see how he misses you. It’s like a part of him is gone. I told him if he drank, you sure as hell wouldn’t come back and he had better be sober the day you walked on in the door.”

  There were tears sneaking down Carrie’s face. Jake pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her but she reached for a tissue from a box on her desk, plucking out one to dab at her cheek.

  “Perhaps you should know we said some awful things to each other, terrible things. Maybe, in the end, we were too honest with one another.”

  “Well, at least you got everything off your chest. A lot of couples go for years letting things stew, letting things fester. Then they get divorced because of it, because they never cleared the air.” He tried to keep the note of pleading out of his voice now, but he was exasperated with the two elders. “They’re divorced now, you know,” he went on. “It’s final at last. Mom took his last offer and moved up to Wyoming with this guy. I don’t know why she thinks it’ll be better there, or she’ll be happier there, but I hope she is.”

  Carrie reached out as if to comfort him, then drew her hand back.

  There was a knock on the door, and a man, about Carrie’s age and well-dressed, smart silk tie gleaming from an expensive shirt and suit, took a step inside the door. “Carrie? Everyone’s waiting. You coming back soon?”

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” she replied. “Do you want to join us?” she asked Jake, as the man left. “Come have a drink. Have you had lunch?”

  He shook his head. “You seeing someone else now then?” His voice was almost truculent, disappointed.

  Carrie smiled. “No. He’s my agent, Jake.” She nodded to the stack of books and picked one up. “Will you give this to Ray for me?”

  She handed it to him and he flipped through, suddenly stopping near the front. “‘To Ray Ryder. No one does the Texas Two Step like you,’” he read. He looked up at her, perplexed and uncertain now. “You dedicated it to Dad. Is it about the two of you then?”

  “No. Though I’m sure he may recognize a few scenes.” She guided him back to the front lobby and motioned to the maid for his coat. “Tell him…tell him I’d like to know he’s
well from time to time. Tell him I’m sorry. For any pain I caused. I’m sorry.”

  Jake struggled into his coat, slipping the book into a pocket. “I’m sure he’s sorry too, Carrie. Real sure.”

  ****

  Ray sat with the book in his lap, his reading glasses hanging by one arm out of his shirt pocket, his phone in his hand. This was going to be the only way, a start perhaps—or an ending, he wasn’t sure which. If he phoned her, if he Skyped, it was far too invasive at this stage, after so many weeks. Another email was at the other end of the scale; she hadn’t answered the first, so why would she answer the second? It had to be this or nothing, a text, short and sweet, that would appear on her screen, that she could delete or answer as she chose.

  No, she wouldn’t answer. That was a fact. He would have to make the chase.

  He could beg her to come back, ask to see her, ask if he could go to New York to discuss things, but none of that made sense now. No, it had to be something basic, a beginning, something he could perhaps build on the way he had with the phone calls when she and Paige had first left Texas.

  In some ways, Carrie had made the first step by dedicating the book to him and asking after him. On the other hand, if Jake hadn’t gone to see her, would she have sent him a copy?

  Ray reflected on this; did Carrie leave those words in print for him to discover, thinking he might just buy the book at some stage? Or would she have sent it? With a note? Without a note? He could ruminate on that for hours but it would get him nowhere.

  The early winter light was filtering in, the evenings long past drawing in, days shortened now to the briefest of warm hours. A pervasive chill combined with just sitting for a while made Ray consider getting up and turning on the heat. The temperature had struggled up to sixty earlier today, but he figured a cold night was ahead. The rumble of Jake’s Chevy coming down the lane signaled he had to finally make up his mind.

  He slowly tapped in the brief message:

  Thanks so much for the dedication. It meant a lot. I hope you and Paige have a merry Xmas. Miss you, Ray.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Mother! For goodness sake, I have a final tomorrow. I can’t tell you what to do. You have to decide for yourself.” Paige blew out a breath into the phone and tipped back in her desk chair, the circle of light from her lamp highlighting the unread page. The loneliness of silence enveloped her, along with the knowledge Deirdre had already finished her finals and headed back to the comparative warmth of Texas, her term finished.

  “This is the second time he’s written to me, Paige.”

  She smiled to herself at the small note of happiness in her mother’s voice. Still, she had to see both sides of the question. “Or, then again, it might have been incredibly rude not to write and thank you,” she teased.

  “He says, ‘miss you.’ I’m so damn indecisive when it comes to Ray. He makes my head spin.”

  Now it was exasperation, Paige noted.

  “Okay. Here’s what I think, for what it’s worth. He’s emailed you, he’s texted you. Now you have to decide what to do. I cannot, nor will I, decide for you. What I will do…no, never mind. I won’t.”

  “Won’t what?”

  Paige could envisage her mother’s creased face. “I have to go. See you in a couple of days, Mom. Bye.”

  She tapped the ‘end call’ button, found Jake in her contacts list, hesitated, then put the phone down. It was ridiculous to phone him when she had no time to talk, unfair. She wrapped herself tighter in her baggy sweater and, thinking what the heck, stabbed at his name to dial his number.

  “I have to go,” were her first words.

  “What?”

  Jake laughed, and Paige conjured him, the now-long, dark hair hanging over those violet-blue eyes.

  “I have a final tomorrow and have to go, but I rang to say one thing—my mother is pleased to have heard from Ray.”

  “She heard from him? First I’m hearing of it.” There was bewilderment in his voice.

  “Ah-hah! Your father is playing his cards close to his chest. He texted my mother his thanks for the book with a ‘miss you’ at the end. Seems to me we got the ball rolling, cowboy.”

  Jake snorted. “So, is she going to reply?”

  “I doubt it. Not right away, anyway. Try to get him to keep texting. Wear her down. Wear her out. She’ll succumb. Gotta go. Bye.”

  Jake wondered if he should try the same method on Paige. He sauntered down to the office at the front of the house where his father was doing some late work, the dogs at his feet. He stood in the doorway, peering at his dad who was deep in concentration, just finishing adding up a column by the look of the taps of his pencil.

  His father peered over the top of his glasses. “Is there something wrong?”

  “I got a message for you from Paige,” he offered with a little smirk.

  “Paige?” His dad shuffled some papers aside and sat back, his shadow elongated along the wall. He removed his glasses and swung them in his hand for a moment, a guilty smile on his face.

  “Yeah, Paige. You remember Paige Bennett, don’t you?” Jake couldn’t stop his grin from widening.

  “I remember Paige Bennett. She’s that little beauty you keep speaking to on the phone and went up to see under the guise of checking horses in Pennsylvania, as I recall. That the one?”

  Jake shuffled at his own guilt, drawing an imaginary line with his toe on the wooden floor. “Yeah, I guess that’s the one.” He scratched his neck for a moment, waiting.

  “So, what does Paige say? Her mama thanks me for the text but asks I not write again?”

  “Nope.” Jake tapped an imaginary tune on the wall and grinned. “Says Carrie was positively over the moon to hear from you, but—”

  His dad burst out laughing, throwing his head back and playing with the glasses still in his hand. “You two, I tell you. That is such a lie.” He settled down. “Come on now, what did Paige actually say?”

  A bit sheepishly, Jake explained, “She says Carrie probably won’t reply…just yet…but you should wear her down.”

  He put his glasses back on, bending over the papers once again. “Wear her down, huh? Dang woman has me worn out, and now I gotta wear her down.” He glanced up briefly. “We’ll see.”

  Ray waited for his son to beat his retreat back into the living room before he got up and closed the office door. He dragged his phone from his back pocket and studied it as if it would magically come up with the answer of what should be next. A joke? A plea? No, he and Carrie wouldn’t be able to go on unless the air was cleared once and for all. He tapped out:

  We both said things we didn’t mean. You know that. Ray

  ****

  Carrie read the words for about the fiftieth time the next day. No, they had meant them, that was the thing; those words had been true, just about everything they said to each other was true. Where did that put them? Was Jake right that day he had visited, when he said they had at least cleared the air?

  Sitting at her desk, the staccato beeps of another message came through.

  I have no two-step partner now. My feet will forget the moves. Ray

  Oh, no … He was doing the same thing he had done with all the phone calls.

  She clicked the phone off, figuring anyone who didn’t get her on her cell would know the apartment number anyway. But concentration on work wasn’t easy. At five p.m., she had a reading and book signing at the local Barnes and Noble for which she had to prepare. She still hadn’t chosen which segment to read, and she had to change her clothes. At least the reading should prove a temporary distraction.

  ****

  Ray got in the passenger side of Jake’s car and slammed the door. “So, you really think Crockett and Star are gonna welcome a new little friend, do you? You really think a third dog’ll fit in?”

  His son started up the engine as he glared across at him and back to the front. “’Course another dog’ll fit. Doesn’t seem right without three.”

  “
You choose one already?” He yanked down the seat belt and clicked it into position.

  “Yeah, I sort of thought this one bitch had a nose on her. See what you think.”

  “You gonna take on the training, Jake? I got my hands full.”

  His son gave him another sideways glance as he drove down the ranch road and turned left. “Well, it’s a good thing Carrie isn’t here, then. You’d have no time for her, would you?”

  Ray noted the puckered smile on Jake’s face and glanced out the window. “I don’t think I need worry ’bout that none,” he replied quietly.

  “No word as yet? Even Christmas wishes?” Jake’s gaze remained on the road. There was only silence in answer.

  Carrie never replied, but that was better—much better—than a curt response asking him to stop. Through Christmas and New Year, Ray lived with the hope he would one day make her laugh, or she would succumb, or just plain come to her senses. He just couldn’t gauge her reaction. There was no further word from Paige either, so he had no idea where he stood.

  He adjusted his hat and looked back to Jake.

  “You gonna do all that paper bag banging and shooting blanks and stuff?”

  “I reckon. Anyway, if the dog’s any good, she’ll just follow along with Crockett and Star and learn real quick. You know it’s always easier when there’s a trained dog for them to follow.”

  Ray mulled this over a second. “Too bad we can’t train women like that,” he mumbled.

  His son smirked and laughed. “Oh, Dad, you got it bad.”

  He took stock of the scenery, trying to suppress thoughts of Carrie, but it wasn’t working.

  “What do you want to call her, Dad? We got a good Texas tradition to uphold here. I think we might be running out of names. Yellow Rose? Rose for short?”

  ****

  We have a new puppy. I’m calling her Two Step. Ray.

  Carrie put the phone down. The messages would continue; she had no doubt now. They would continue until either he got tired of it, met someone else, or she put a stop to it. Yet, she couldn’t do that, couldn’t end it once and for all.