Swept Away

by Karen Templeton

  “Sam, please…” Her eyes stayed trained on his, but it didn’t take a genius to see how shaken up she was. “Don’t read more into this than there is.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, swallowing down the trickle of irritation at the back of his throat, wondering why he wasn’t making use of what any other man would have pegged as the perfect exit line.

  Wondering why she wasn’t walking him toward the door to throw him out on his can. Why he was scanning the room, frowning, unsure why he was even thinking what he was thinking. Getting “ideas,” as his mother used to say.

  “What is it?” she said, as if worried he’d seen something large and many-legged on the wall behind her.

  He turned. “Why couldn’t you start up a dance school right here, out of the barn?”

  She flinched a little, like maybe he’d read her mind. “You’re not serious?”

  “Why not? There used to be a dance teacher here, up until seven or eight years ago, but she retired to Florida. I think some of the kids went to Claremore, or even Tulsa, but there’s a whole new flock of little girls—or maybe even boys, if you taught ’em to dance the way you were teaching Matt and Mike… Now why are you shaking your head?”

  “Sam, something tells me folks around here don’t have a lot of money for frills like dance lessons. And I do have to eat, you know.”

  He frowned at that skinny body of hers, thinking, Could’ve fooled me, then said, “Oh, well. It was a thought.”

  “And a very nice one,” she said gently. “Just not very practical.” Now she walked him to the door. “The boys will be, um, wondering…”

  “Yeah, I guess…”

  Oh, for Pete’s sake…now why was he ogling her mouth?

  “Night, Sam,” she said, gently pushing him outside, and the cold night air slapped him in the face, fast-freezing his over-heated libido as he walked out to the truck and away from her scent, and her laughter, and the promise of things that only existed in his imagination.

  Carly closed the door, then watched through the window as Sam walked back to his truck, taking with him his smile and his scent and the temptation to believe in something that barely even existed in her imagination. What was even worse, however, was that long after the brisk autumn night had swallowed up the sound of his truck’s engine, she stood with her back to the windows, her hands on her hips, envisioning the room filled with dancing, laughing kids.

  “Good Lord, Mama—” Hanging on to Max like he was a twenty pound sack of potatoes, Dawn shoved Ivy’s back door shut with her hip, but not soon enough to keep out a good strong belt of late October wind. “Could you bang those pots around any louder?”

  “Well, excuse me,” Ivy said, not taking any pains to set the skillet quietly on the stove. “Last time I checked, there was no law against a woman banging her own pots in her own kitchen. But then, I wasn’t expectin’ company.”

  “Gee, I wasn’t aware I needed an invitation to come by my own mother’s house.” Ivy guessed her daughter was not put off in the least by her bad mood. “We were just over at Ryan’s for Max’s six-month checkup, which kinda somehow slid over to seven months, and thought maybe you might enjoy a surprise visit. Clearly I was wrong.”

  Ivy hmmphed as Dawn planted herself on one of the kitchen chairs, immediately pushing everything on the table out of Max’s chubby-fisted, gleeful reach. Needless to say, the baby let out a squawk, so Ivy hauled a box of graham crackers out of the cupboard and handed him one to gnaw. “So,” Dawn said, flinging her own long braid over her shoulder, “you gonna tell me what’s got your drawers inside out, or what?”

  Wasn’t her drawers that were inside out, Ivy thought. More like it was her whole damn life. She yanked open the spiffy two-door fridge Dawn had bought for her last year, then slammed a package of cube steak on the counter.

  “Lane’s comin’ over for supper.”

  “Oh, yeah, I can see how that could be a problem.”

  “Don’t you laugh, little girl,” Ivy said, because Dawn was doing exactly that. “You have no idea what that man is doing to my blood pressure.”

  “Then why, might I ask, did you invite him to dinner?”

  Ivy shot Dawn a look. Took a couple of seconds, but then a big grin spread across her daughter’s face. “No kidding? You and he…?”

  Ivy nodded. Miserably. Max chortled and waved the graham cracker around, then flashed his two bottom teeth at his grandmother. Dawn contemplated her son for a moment, then lifted her eyes to Ivy.

  “Is he any good?”

  Ivy thudded a wide-rimmed ceramic bowl onto the counter, dumped a cup of flour into it. “Yeah. He’s good.”

  “And…?”

  She really didn’t want to talk about this. Especially with Dawn. Except there was a lot to be said for just fessin’ up and getting the torture over with.

  “And I think maybe I’m falling in love with him.”

  “Uh-oh,” Dawn said in the way of a woman who understands all too well the pitfalls attendant to losing one’s heart.

  “Yeah. Uh-oh is right.” Ivy slapped a piece of meat into the now seasoned flour mixture, pounding the flour into it with her fist. The chair scraped against the scuffed tile floor; Dawn’s hand landed on her back, Max’s garbled, graham-cracker-thickened coos a foot away.

  “Doesn’t he feel the same way about you?”

  Ivy refused to meet her daughter’s eyes, refused to give in to the frustrated tears that kept trying to make an appearance over the past week or so. She hadn’t cried over a man in twenty years, and damned if she was going to start now. “Oh, I have no doubt the man thinks he’s crazy about me.”

  “Sorry, but I’m not seeing the problem here.”

  “The problem is I’m not exactly thrilled about coming in second place, okay?” She pounded the meat some more. “Not again.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dawn said, dodging her son’s sticky, grubby fingers as he tried to pat her face.

  “I mean, if I have to hear about how perfect his wife was one more time, he’s gonna find himself with a one-way ticket for a little reunion.”

  She could hear her daughter try to suppress a chuckle. Although not very well. “I don’t suppose you’ve considered telling him this?”

  “And sound like some insecure female who’s jealous of a dead woman, for heaven’s sake?”

  “No, like a woman with the gumption to be honest about how she feels. I’m sure in your shoes I’d feel exactly the same way—”

  “Oh, Dawn…” On a heavy sigh, Ivy turned to her daughter. “I’m too damn old for this foolishness. No matter how you slice it, I’m still the first woman he’s been with after his wife’s death. What’re the odds he’s actually going to stick around, once the novelty wears off?”

  “I don’t know. But I would think it counts for something that the man moved here to be close to you.”

  Ivy felt her mouth thin. “I’ve had men who wanted to be close before. It’s the stayin’ part none of ’em seemed to have a handle on.”

  Dawn deposited the baby in the small play yard Ivy had set up in the corner of the kitchen, then turned back, concern beetling her brow. “So if this is upsetting you so much, break it off. Now. Before it gets any harder.”

  Ivy focused on her meat dredging. “You know,” she said softly, “I’d almost forgotten what it was like, having a good man around. And twenty years is a damn long time to go without.”

  She felt her daughter’s arm encircle her shoulders. Her daughter, who’d been so petrified of screwing up with Max’s daddy, she’d nearly walked away from what even she would admit was the best thing that had ever happened to her. “Life’s sure a bitch, isn’t it?” she said, her breath warm on Ivy’s cheek.

  Ivy hugged her back, one-handed, leaving a floury splotch on Dawn’s pretty little sweater.

  A week later, the idea of setting up a dance school right in Haven still hadn’t let go, despite Carly’s doing everything she could think of to pry it l
oose. Even after ten-hour days of helping her father wrestle the startled old farmhouse into someplace livable, by every evening, the half renovated barn—nice and frosty now as fall inched steadily closer to winter—would draw her back like a mother hen her chick, where for an hour, maybe two if her knee cooperated, she would dance.

  And mourn, a little, for the arabesque no longer quite as high as it used to be, the pirouettes that didn’t always land as precisely as they once did. Since she’d never perform again, it didn’t really matter, but still. She’d never been one to gracefully succumb to the inevitable. Yet, when the boys came, often enough that she’d begun to keep a hopeful ear out, she’d put on salsa or jazz or—if she could find any with lyrics that wouldn’t get her in major trouble with their father—hip hop, and they’d all dance, and her mood would lift, and little maybes…and why nots…and you knows…would wriggle past the no ways and she’d think…hmm.

  Sometimes Sam would come and watch, a relaxed grin spread across a face she’d begun to accept as comfortingly familiar, and his low laugh would fill the empty space both around and inside her, and she’d think, irritably, unreasonably, I can’t do this. Not that she was completely able, or ready, to face the whys of her resistance, but that didn’t lessen the absoluteness of it one whit.

  The heart-stopping fear.

  It was like watching a thriller and being able to spot the setup for somebody getting blown up.

  Oh, yeah, Carly thought that Friday night, watching Sam poke around the gutted tack room, all too aware that the warmth swirling through her had nothing to do with snuggling back inside her down coat, she’d had lots of practice in recognizing the signs of impending doom.

  All his boys were standing in the middle of the room, seeing who could yell the loudest. Carly walked over to where Sam squatted, inspecting something jutting out of the wall. He’d yet to tell her why he was there, although she guessed it had something to do with all the poking and prodding he was doing.

  “Libby finally recover from her party?” she asked.

  Sam tossed her a weary grin. Since there’d been a teacher’s meeting that day, Blair and several of Libby’s other girlfriends had decided to throw her a surprise sleepover party last night at her house. The boys had spent the night at Lane and Carly’s so they wouldn’t be in the girls’ hair. It had been an interesting experience, to put it mildly. Although judging from Sam’s still slightly gray complexion, hosting a houseful of teenage girls hadn’t done his constitution any favors, either.

  “Yeah. Sure wish I had. Do you have any idea how much noise ten giggling teenage girls make?”

  “Yeah. About half as much as four boys.” He chuckled; she crouched beside him. “I know I’m going to regret asking…but what are you doing?”

  He smiled at her, sending another, deceptively pleasant feeling through her, like the first bite of ice cream straight from the carton that would only lead to a bellyache if indulged. Except who thinks about the potential bellyache while that first—or second or third—bite is melting gloriously against one’s tongue?

  “I never got a good look at what the previous owners did. But it sure would appear—” he shifted his weight to his other leg, gesturing with a broad-brimmed cowboy hat that worked really well with all those angles in his face “—that this is pretty much ready to go. Plumbing seems to all be in place, just waiting for the fixtures and appliances. If, you know, you wanted to move in.”

  “Where they’d find me frozen to death one morning.”

  “Ductwork’s all in, too. All you need is a furnace.”

  The boys tore outside; Carly sank crossed-legged onto the floor, covering her face with her hands. Sam reached over and peeled away enough fingers to look into her eyes.

  “Let me guess. Putting in a furnace implies commitment.”

  “Damn. You’re good.”

  “And you know you want to do this.”

  She dropped her hands. “Okay, so maybe I’ve been thinking about it. A little. But—”

  “Your father’s already said he’d pay for whatever you need. And between the two of us, we could get everything installed in no time.”

  “But how—”

  “It’s winter. Or just about. Not that there’s not stuff to do, but things definitely ease up between now and March.”

  “But then Dad would be alone…oh,” she said at Sam’s funny expression.

  He chuckled. “My guess is Lane would do just about anything to have you out from underfoot. And you gotta admit, this would be perfect.”

  Yes, it would.

  She got to her feet and walked away, thinking.

  “You’re not saying ‘no,’” Sam said behind her.

  “Out loud.”

  He walked past her to the window, standing with his hands in his pockets, watching the boys running amok outside, his heavy chore coat bunched up behind him. “You got any idea what you’re so scared of?”

  Tears bit at her eyes. “All of this. The town, my options…You.”

  His head snapped around, his light brows crashed together over his nose. And she saw, in that instant, that her feelings were more than reciprocated. Except they weren’t, not really, because if she knew nothing else, she knew that Sam would be coming at this from a totally different level, one Carly had never been anywhere near. For her, this was all about sex, as it always had been. Oh, yeah, she liked him—she liked him a lot—but there was a huge gap between the two she had no idea how to bridge.

  “I don’t supposed you’d care to explain that?” he said.

  “I don’t know that I can. It’s just…this all seems so, so real. And I’m…” She met his gaze, sadly shaking her head. “Not.”

  Sam’s face hardened. “That’s crap, Carly.”

  “No, it’s not! Sam…please, please don’t start thinking you’re seeing someone who doesn’t really exist.”

  He withdrew his hands from his pockets, then took three or four slow, deliberate steps toward her. “Funny thing,” he said, “but I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the difference between illusion and reality. And far as I’m concerned, you are one of the most real women I’ve ever met. So deal with it.” He slammed his hat back on his head and headed toward the door, only to turn back and say, “By the way, I’ll be picking you up for the dance tomorrow night around seven. I’d appreciate it if you’d wear something to make every male in the room regret not being me.”

  Lane was watching TV in the newly-open-to-the-kitchen living room when Carly stormed through the house and up the stairs, after which he was treated to several minutes’ worth of thudding and stomping around. He half thought of going up and asking what was wrong, but then reason returned. Besides, he had enough troubles of his own these days.

  Not that he’d tell Carly, but Ivy had been acting strangely for most of the past week. As though she was keeping something bottled up inside that she was afraid to let out. On the surface, they still seemed to getting along just fine—in bed and out—but a man doesn’t survive nearly four decades of marriage without learning to spot the clues when something was wrong. He wondered if Ivy was tiring of the relationship. After all, she’d never been married, and he surmised that she hadn’t been alone for so long solely by chance. Maybe she was simply one of those women who for the most part preferred her own company, and she now felt that Lane was crowding her.

  He clicked off the TV, plunging the room, and his mood, into darkness. If Ivy was pulling away…well. What a kick in the butt to discover he wasn’t as prepared as he’d thought to deal with rejection. He wouldn’t go so far as to say he’d fallen in love with Ivy, but he’d grown very fond of her, in large part because she was so different from his wife. Dena had certainly been a brick in her own way, but thinking back, he realized how wearing he’d often found her tendency to defer to him. Ironic that the very thing that attracted him to Ivy—her independence, her ability to deal with whatever life tossed in her path—could also be what eventually tore them apart.

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nbsp; However, there was little point in sitting here conjecturing, Lane thought as he pushed himself up out of his favorite armchair, carrying his empty hot chocolate mug to his disaster-area kitchen. Ivy was going to help him babysit for the boys while Sam and Carly went to the dance; but as soon as the boys were asleep, he and Ivy had some serious talking to do.

  Whether she wanted to or not.

  The morning of the dance, Main Street might as well have been the Wal-Mart parking lot on Christmas Eve, both from the number of cars clogging the streets and the number of yapping women in or surrounding them. Most of whom, Sam guessed as he and Travis carefully navigated bumpers plastered with political campaign stickers and assorted religious sentiment, were either on their way to or had recently left the Hair We Are. The bigger the event, the bigger the hair, was the philosophy around here.

  The uncommon traffic congestion, not to mention Radar’s incessant, cheerful barking at all the ladies desperately trying to shield their fresh do’s from the raw wind, did nothing to ease his edgy mood. But at least parking wasn’t a problem in front of Dawn’s law office, where he needed to sign some paperwork for his brother. When he walked in, however, the woman seemed to be in almost as much of a state as he was.

  “Coffeemaker broken?” he said, and she sort of growled at him. In her long denim skirt and boots, a sweater baggy enough to smuggle arms, she could have probably passed for her mother at about that age. “Just got a lot on my mind, is all,” she said, her shiny brown hair streaming down her back as she walked over to a file cabinet to put something away. It was pretty enough hair, Sam supposed, but all it did was lie there, flat and smooth and kind of lifeless. These days, Sam had a thing for hair with a little more substance to it.

  Which partially accounted for his state. What accounted for Dawn’s, however, God alone knew.

  She slammed shut the file cabinet, then turned, her face all scrunched up like she was fixing to ask him something, but hadn’t yet decided whether she should or not. Out in the reception area, Travis was entertaining Dawn’s secretary, Marybeth Reese, by reciting the entire plot of Finding Nemo. Judging from the older woman’s periodic “Uh-huhs” and “Isn’t that nices?” they were getting on just fine.