by Merry Farmer
“Ronny Bonneville and Natalie Warner,” Quintus announced.
“Oh God, poor Natalie,” Laura exclaimed with an uncomfortable laugh.
“Looks like we’re going to be hearing way more about this competition at work than I’d hoped,” Will added, shaking his head.
“If anyone can put up with Ronny, Natalie can,” Jonathan said with a shrug.
The discussion about Natalie’s fate almost kept them all from hearing Quintus announce, “Joginder Sandhu and Sandy Templesmith.”
Sandy went hot and cold at the announcement. The knot in her gut yanked tighter. She darted a sideways glance to Jogi, only to find his eyes as round and startled as hers. Worst of all, Quintus looked their way with an all-too-knowing grin. He couldn’t have arranged for the two of them to be paired up, could he?
Then again, Quintus had been at the coffee shop when Jogi came to her rescue. He was just a kid, and kids had terrible ideas. She was going to murder the little twerp.
“There you go, folks.” Howie took the microphone back from his son. “First lesson is Saturday at one o’clock, and the first competition is next Friday at eight. We’ll see you then.”
A tense silence hung over the table as Sandy turned to face forward. She didn’t know what to say. Her mind raced for a way to back out of the whole thing.
“What are the odds of that?” Laura asked, grinning like a cat. “The two of you were paired for the orienteering event and now this dance competition too.”
“Yeah, funny how that worked out,” Jonathan said, far more skeptical than amused.
“Do you think they picked the teams randomly, or did they do that on purpose?” Melody asked.
“I’m sure it was on purpose,” Jogi said, barely more than a mumble. He pushed his chair back and stood. “Excuse me.”
Sandy opened her mouth to say something, but considering she didn’t have a clue what that something was, no sound came out. She followed Jogi with her eyes, assuming he would go speak to Quintus or Howie to get things sorted out.
But he didn’t head for the front of the room. Instead, he marched straight for the planetarium exit. He didn’t speak to anyone else on his way out, even though Quintus moved as if he wanted to catch him. Jogi just walked through the door, turned a corner, and left.
Chapter Eight
It took Jogi days to cool down. Not over being paired with Sandy for the dance competition, but because Quintus had obviously taken it upon himself to orchestrate the whole thing. Being manipulated into an uncomfortable situation by a teenager was not his idea of a good time.
But walked over to the high school gym, where the Saturday dance classes were being taught, he had to admit there were advantages. He and Sandy already had a history, so he wouldn’t have to waste time on small talk, getting to know someone new, when he wasn’t in the mood for it. Sandy was probably just as annoyed as him, so he wouldn’t have to pretend everything was fine.
And if the two of them were forced to be in each other’s company, maybe he could make things right and bring some sort of closure to the whole messy situation.
All of those thoughts blasted right out of his head the second he stepped through the gym’s double doors.
“You’re late.” Sandy was waiting for him near the doors, her arms crossed, a frown etched into her otherwise elegant face. She wore a black skirt that fell below her knees and swished as she walked toward him, a knit tank-top that showed off all of her curves, and heels that made her legs look as long as a lazy summer afternoon.
Frustration roared in Jogi’s gut. “It’s only just one o’clock now,” he argued, although the clock at the far end of the gym said it was one-ten.
“They started five minutes ago,” Sandy informed him in a flat voice.
“Welcome newcomer!” An overly cheery shout sounded from the center of the room.
Jogi glanced past Sandy’s irate scowl to find a woman with blond hair and bangs so large and stiff they would be at home in the 80s waving to him. She wore a peacock-blue dancing outfit, complete with an actual peacock made of colorful rhinestones across her top. It was just a rehearsal, but she wore enough make-up to stop a truck.
Her dance partner was even worse. “Come join us. We’re learning the fox-trot.” Even yards away, Jogi could see that he had just as much hairspray holding his pompadour in place, and the rhinestone peacock on his shirt glittered just as brightly. He might have been wearing make-up too.
Suddenly, Sandy’s irritation took on a whole new meaning.
“Are they for real?” Jogi asked, momentarily forgetting that things were not good between the two of them.
Sandy huffed an ironic laugh. She grabbed Jogi’s hand and stomped over to join the other two dozen or so couples waiting for further instruction.
“For those of you who are just joining us,” the male instructor said with more enthusiasm than Jogi thought was legal. “I’m Carl—”
“And I’m Buffy,” the female instructor added on cue.
“We’re here to teach you everything we know about the fine art of ballroom dance so that you can ace Howie Haskell’s competition.”
“This competition is such a great idea.”
Buffy smiled at Carl, and Carl smiled back. Both of them had teeth so white they were almost fluorescent. Jogi sent Sandy a sideways glance, dying to crack some sort of joke, but Sandy stared at the instructors, aggravation radiating from her. Jogi lost any impulse to grin, cleared his throat, and paid attention to the lesson.
“Like I was saying,” Carl went on. “We’ll start with the foxtrot. It’s one of the simpler dances to learn and will provide a great foundation for other, more complicated dances.”
“Everybody in dance position,” Buffy ordered with her neon smile.
Jogi turned to Sandy and held out his arms. He’d never had formal lessons, but standard dance position wasn’t hard to figure out.
Except that Sandy looked like he’d committed some grievous mistake as he attempted to take her into his arms. She sighed heavily, grabbed his right hand, and moved it from her waist to a spot higher on her back before closing his left hand in a death-grip.
“Excuse me,” he protested, feeling the heat rise up his neck.
“You were doing it wrong,” she told him, meeting his irritated gaze with a challenge in her own.
“And you were awfully quick to let me know, weren’t you?”
She didn’t reply, but her gaze drifted to the side. Three minutes in a room with Sandy, and he was already worked up. And not in the good way. Although there was definitely a sizzle of energy between them as he made a point of tugging her closer in a firm version of the dance position all of the other couples were standing in.
“Right,” Carl went on in his used-car salesman voice. “The basic step is easy. Slow-slow-quick-quick.” He practically sang the rhythm as he guided a smiling Buffy through the basic pattern.
The two of them made it look easy. It probably was easy. Jogi looked down at his feet and guided Sandy through the steps as Carl repeated, “Slow-slow-quick-quick, slow-slow-quick-quick.”
“Take bigger steps,” Sandy said.
“My steps are just fine the way they are,” Jogi bit back.
“It’ll look more graceful if you take bigger steps,” she went on. “And don’t look at your feet.”
He snapped his eyes up to meet hers. “Are you teaching this class or are Carl and Buffy?”
Sandy pressed her lips closed and stared hard at something over Jogi’s shoulder.
“Good, very good,” Buffy encouraged them all like an aerobics instructor. “You’ve got the hang of it.”
“Now, since you need to master this dance and be ready to perform it by Friday night,” Carl picked up in an equally sunny voice, “we should add as many elements as fast as possible. So let’s try a quarter turn, shall we?”
Jogi doubted the wisdom of adding anything more complicated to the dance he and Sandy were already doing, but he didn’t have muc
h choice. He paid attention as best he could to Carl and Buffy while trying to tune out Sandy’s frustrated sighs and irritated tongue-clicking.
“Yes, I know you like to be the best at everything you do the instant you learn it,” he growled as they struggled their way through a promenade twist. “But just cool down and have a little patience for three seconds, will you?”
Sandy huffed out a breath through her nose. “I would be a lot more patient if you hadn’t come inches from stepping on my toes five times.”
Jogi clenched his jaw. “Carl said the point in competition was to coordinate your steps as closely as possible.”
“That doesn’t mean attempting to occupy the same space as me at the same time.”
The fire in her eyes as they made another attempt at the twelve-beat promenade step was enough to burn the whole school down. Anyone watching would probably have sworn the two of them hated each other. But the longer Jogi held Sandy in his arms, the higher the stakes rose as Carl and Buffy led them through more and more complicated steps, and the stronger the attraction Jogi felt between him and Sandy. It was bizarre and wrong on just about every level, but by the time the instruction portion of the afternoon ended and Carl announced, “Okay, let’s put on some music so you guys can dance away the rest of the afternoon,” Jogi’s heart was pounding.
The tension that hung over the room full of couples eased as formalities dropped and big band music started to play over the PA system. At least, it eased for everyone but Jogi and Sandy.
“You need to break yourself of the habit of looking at your feet,” Sandy said as they paused and stepped apart.
“I haven’t been looking at my feet for the past five minutes,” he argued. He hadn’t been looking because he’d been too busy studying the angry lines of Sandy’s face. Something about her shone when she was in a snit.
“I’m just saying that there’s no way we’re going to win the competition if you spend the whole dance checking your laces.”
Jogi’s brow shot up. “You think we’re going to win this thing?”
“Isn’t that what competitions are for?” she shot back.
“Not at the rate we’re going.”
He was about to scoop Sandy back into his arms when Ronny and Natalie came swooshing past them.
“Trouble in paradise?” Ronny asked, his voice and grin so smarmy Jogi wanted to punch him.
Natalie sent Jogi an apologetic look and rolled her eyes at her partner.
“Go away, Ronny,” Sandy growled.
Jogi settled for simply glaring at Ronny and taking Sandy into his arms firmly enough to show her who would be leading. He was rewarded by a quick intake of breath from Sandy—one that didn’t sound annoyed or frustrated. That snapped his full attention back to her.
A splash of color filled Sandy’s cheeks. Whether it was from anger at Ronny—or him—or something a little closer to the passion of the dance and the way Jogi held her, he didn’t know. He tried to tell himself he didn’t care, but that would have been a big, fat lie. The truth was, his body remembered too well the way she felt against his, and the scent of her sparked things in him that he was going to have a hard time fighting.
“Keep it simple,” he told her as they stood, poised and throbbing with energy, while Jogi listened to the music to find the beat. “This is practice. We’re just going to run through the steps. So don’t lead.”
“I wasn’t going to,” she answered, maybe a fraction quieter than he would have expected.
He found the rhythm of the music, let it sink into him, then pulled Sandy into the first, basic foxtrot steps. Slow-slow-quick-quick, slow-slow-quick-quick. It was far from the frantic pace his heart was setting inside of him, but at least it was something he could concentrate on.
By the time they’d run through all of the steps they’d learned several times and three songs had passed with not a word being spoken between the two of them, Jogi began to feel like he might actually make it through the afternoon.
At least until Sandy said, “So you tried to get a show at Sedgewick Gallery?”
Jogi frowned and took his time answering. “It didn’t happen, so don’t worry about it.”
They danced on. The music was upbeat, but Sandy’s expression grew more and more troubled. “It’s a shame Haskell only has one gallery.”
“There are other towns,” he said. He’d been staring at the space just to the right of her head as they danced, but his gaze slipped over to meet hers. “Besides, I set things up on one of those online galleries.”
Her expression brightened. “The ones where people can buy your photos?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t her business, and he wanted to tell her it wasn’t. But he’d been dying to talk to someone about the steps he’d been taking with his photography for weeks, and she was one of the few people who knew how seriously he took the whole thing.
Silence won out, though.
Sandy’s momentary flash of civility flattened into a frown once more. “You shouldn’t settle for an online gallery. You need to keep pushing until you get yourself a real showing.”
“Like you keep pushing me?” he asked with more force than he intended.
He expected her to react with the same fire that had gotten him so worked up over the course of the dance. Instead, the tension in her arms and back seeped away. “I was only trying to help.”
He didn’t answer. Mostly because he knew she was telling the truth. Too bad he didn’t care for her method of helping.
“Maybe if I talk to Abigail,” she went on. “I have to talk to Guy about the bank anyhow.”
“No.” Jogi put his foot down—a little too close to hers, as it turned out. He stepped on her toe. They jerked apart.
“Ow!” She glared at him. “I’m just trying to kill two birds with one stone. No need to get violent.”
Jogi sighed. “I didn’t try to step on your foot. You threw my rhythm off.”
She let out an ironic laugh. “You call that rhythm?”
“You call what you’re suggesting help?”
Her lips snapped shut. Jogi pulled her back into her arms. Heat radiated from her.
Half a dozen dance steps later, guilt started to pound him. He wasn’t that kind of guy. He wasn’t the sharp and broody sort. He never had been. At least, he hadn’t been until Sandy foxtrotted into his life.
“Still having trouble with the bank?” he asked, the question stilted. It was frustrating to try and be polite when he wanted to screw the whole situation and walk away.
“I refuse to let the Bonnevilles win,” Sandy answered.
“Yeah, well, you might have to get used to at least one of them winning on some level.” He nodded to the side where Ronny and Natalie were cutting up the dance floor.
Sandy turned to look, groaning just loud enough for him to hear. There was no denying that Ronny was a good dancer. He’d obviously had more than the one lesson. Jogi had the feeling the way he held Natalie was the way dancing was supposed to look. And damn the asshole, but he had a natural glide as he moved Natalie through the steps and around the room.
“He makes my skin crawl just thinking about him,” Sandy murmured.
She was so sincere that Jogi turned back to her, his brow lifting out of the scowl he’d been wearing. “You were the one who had coffee with him the other day.”
She made a disgusted sound. “Don’t remind me. That was a huge mistake.” There was a pause. She lifted her chin enough to meet Jogi’s eyes. “Thanks for coming to my rescue, by the way.”
The pulse of longing that had been just under the surface flared to the top of Jogi’s feelings. “I wasn’t going to let him treat you like that.”
She smiled. It was a weak smile, but a smile all the same.
And two seconds later, it was gone. “I hate the fact that he’s going to win this competition.”
“Well, what can you do?”
Sandy’s expression sagged into even deeper misery. “It’s like he’s cheating, as
usual, with all those dance lessons he had when we were kids.”
“Then maybe it doesn’t sting so bad to have him win.”
“Are you kidding?” She snorted and rolled her eyes.
Another awkward silence fell. The song they’d been dancing to ended. Jogi loosened his hold on her, taking a half step back. “It wasn’t like we were going to win anyhow.”
She didn’t argue with him. She didn’t say anything at first. She just glanced down at his feet, her arms slowly sliding away from him.
He hated seeing her look so defeated. He had to do something. They were going to lose, but maybe they could lose on their own terms.
“I tell you what,” he said, catching her hands before she could pull away entirely. She looked up and met his eyes. “We can’t win, so let’s just lose on purpose Friday.”
“What?” Her question was hushed.
Jogi shrugged. “This all turned out to be more than we wanted. Let’s just do a mediocre job on Friday. No one will be the wiser. Half the couples in here will be out of the competition after Friday anyhow.”
She pursed her lips, her brow wrinkling. “With so many other people being eliminated, it’s not like people would call us out for throwing the dance.”
“Exactly.” An odd, paradoxical sense of relief that they were on the same page—even if it meant they were giving up—filled him. “Then you go your way and I go mine, and we never have to bother each other again.”
She bit her lip and glanced anxiously at him. “If that’s what you want.”
It wasn’t. At least, he didn’t think it was. Not after the hour he’d just spent holding Sandy in his arms, no matter how much they’d bickered.
“Isn’t it what you want?” He threw the question back on her.
She took a long time answering. They were still holding hands.
“Yeah, I guess,” she said at last with a sigh. She let go of his hands and stepped away.
