by Lisa Wingate
I wasn’t sure what to think. “Oh. Seems like what he’d really need to be doing is actually working here. You know, learning how to run the place.”
Amy fidgeted. “I guess he does that during the day when I’m at work.”
“No. He really doesn’t.”
Amy blinked, her blue eyes wide, earnest, painfully clueless. She cut a nervous glance toward the bathroom door. I heard the toilet flushing.
“I imagine he’s got it all figured out.” Amy shifted a step closer to the rest room. “I love this place. My pop-pop and my nana met here, right after World War II. It was love at first sight. First dance, really. She was the only one he ever met who could follow his lead like that.”
An acidic feeling drained from my throat to my stomach. Please don’t tell me you’re in love with my brother. He has a girlfriend in Fort Worth. . . .
I bit down on the words, unable to say them. The bathroom door opened, and the front-desk nurse from the rural medical clinic came out. Her hair was gray now, but her face hadn’t changed. Amy bolted for the door like she’d been catapulted from a crossbow.
I returned to my table, where the catfish platters had arrived. Blaine and I chatted as we ate, and I was once again trying to steer the conversation around to the subject of Clay and Amy when the band returned from a break. We paused to clap along with the rest of the crowd, welcoming the band back to the stage. They weren’t half bad, the music a combination of country and Cajun, the perfect atmosphere for a floating catfish joint. My gaze drifted to the deck, where couples were dancing again—the pastor and his fiancée, an elderly couple, a guy in a uniform—probably a park ranger or game warden—and a dark-haired woman. Clay and Amy were out there, too. I remembered the story about Amy’s grandparents. Love at first dance. What would that be like? How would it feel?
I wanted to know. I was afraid I never would. I was afraid I didn’t have it in me.
“Want to dance?” Blaine offered, perhaps misinterpreting my dewy-eyed look as a desire to hit the outdoor dance floor.
“I don’t know how.” I hated to admit that, but it was the truth. While kids like Blaine were scooting a boot at the rodeo dance or having parties at backwoods hangouts, I was home cooking supper, taking care of my little brother, washing clothes for school, or helping set up for funerals at Harmony House so that I could earn a little money to keep us from being total freeloaders until the insurance company paid off my father’s policy.
“It’s just a two-step,” Blaine pointed out, finishing the last bite of his coconut cream pie. “It’s not that hard. One-two-three, one-two. You’re the math genius, remember?”
I studied the deck again, pushing the remains of my dessert away. A part of me, the girl who’d sat home on Saturday evenings dreaming of a moment like this, wanted to be out there under the stars, twirling off into the night. But the woman who practically lived in her office spoke up instead. “No way I’m dancing in front of everyone.”
Blaine’s gaze tangled with mine, and I felt the two of us toying with the ends of the rope in a playful tug of war. “C’mon . . . where’s that sense of adventure? What are you afraid of?”
“Ummm . . . let’s see . . .” I sifted for an answer. Looking like a dork in front of everyone, was on the tip of my tongue, but I was reaching for something more clever, more . . . charmingly coy.
The man in uniform and his dance partner came in the back door and stopped at our table, and Blaine introduced me. Mart McClendon, the local game warden, and his girlfriend, Andrea. Blaine asked about Andrea’s broken wrist, and she held up a pink cast, offering a wry smile and saying she would never again let her son talk her into skateboarding down the driveway. The conversation went on from there, but I lost track of it. I was watching Blaine and marveling at the fact that he seemed to have a rapport with everyone in town. Not only did he have rapport, but he knew about their lives. He asked after their health and well-being. Either he was a natural-born politician, or he genuinely cared. It was no wonder Clay liked him. He was incredibly charismatic.
As he was wrapping up the conversation, I glanced at the takeout counter and spotted someone familiar. My stomach sank, lead-lined all of a sudden. Blaine’s stepmother had just finished putting in an order. She was turning around, her gaze slowly sweeping the room from left to right. She offered finger waves here and there. I sank in my seat, working toward invisibility, but the game warden moved away just in time to leave me directly in her line of sight. She stiffened immediately, her chin coming up. In my head, I heard the sound that alley cats make when they meet in the night—an unholy noise between a scream and a growl. One of Mrs. Underhill’s eyes narrowed more than the other, squeezing almost closed as if she were sighting down a rifle at me. Good thing she didn’t have one in her hands.
Blaine, completely unaware that we had gained an audience, leaned across the table, pat-tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “C’mon, let’s go. I’ve got an idea.”
I was fully in agreement with the Let’s go part, except for the fact that Blaine’s wicked stepmother was standing by the door. “Let’s head out the back way,” I suggested, nodding toward the exit onto the deck.
“Let me get the bill first.” Before I could stop him, he started across the room. I vacillated between following and staying put, then finally proceeded to the counter. I wasn’t letting that woman put me in a corner anymore. I was no longer some shy, messed-up teenager. I was Heather Hampton. I could travel the world, handle demanding clients, bridge cultural barriers, mediate difficult situations, find solutions, impress the bigwigs, create tall buildings with a single stroke of an electronic tablet. Surely I could handle an aging small-town belle with an attitude.
“Heather.” My name appeared to have a bad taste to it at first, then she forced a smile. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
Blaine cleared his throat and sent her a warning glance over his shoulder. I had a sense that, in the few moments I’d been deciding whether or not to cross the room, they’d had a conversation about me. Mrs. Underhill pressed her lips together, wrinkles forming around the edges. “I meant to say that I thought you wouldn’t be in town for long.”
“I don’t plan to be.” With some luck, I could allay any reason she might find to either give my family trouble or sic the casserole ladies on me. They undoubtedly loved Blaine as much as everyone else did. They wouldn’t want to see him out to dinner with me, of all people.
I had the sense of being watched from behind. Perhaps some member of the casserole mafia had called Blaine’s stepmother when Blaine and I showed up at Catfish Charley’s together, and that was why she was here—doing recon, so to speak. “Just a little longer than I thought,” I added lamely.
“Oh.” Another pucker-lip punctuated the response. “Well, have a lovely trip home, if I don’t see you again.”
In other words, Don’t let the door hit you in the backside on the way out.
A gush of water-laden night air pushed past us, and when I looked up, Mama B was working her way in the door, the hood of her pink sparkly jacket blowing over her face. Pushing it back impatiently, she spied Blaine at the cash register. “Well, hi, darlin’! What’re you doin’ here?” Without waiting for an answer, she swept him into a hug and rocked him back and forth before letting go.
He actually blushed a little, which was cute. “Just having catfish, Grandma.” He glanced my way, and Mama B honed in, her gaze traveling back and forth between Blaine and me. “Well, my lands, are y’all out on a date?”
Blaine’s stepmother gasped, horrified at the concept. “Of course they’re not. I’m sure Heather just wanted to see the restaurant before she went home. To Seattle.”
Mama B scowled at her. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Claire Anne, mind your business. The boy needs to meet some gals he hasn’t known since kindergarten. Maybe he’ll get interested.”
The wash of color in Blaine’s face crept down his neck, giving him the look of a little boy having his cheeks pinched by
the old ladies in church. A laugh tickled my throat, and I coughed to cover it up. Was it my imagination, or was Blaine in a remarkable hurry to get his wallet back into his pocket? The teenage checkout girl tried to suck him into a conversation, and for once he didn’t respond. He turned back to me and said, “Ready?”
I definitely was. Mama B patted my arm and gave it a little squeeze. “Y’all have a good time this evenin’. Go look at the stars or somethin’.” Then I exchanged a lemon-juice good-bye with Blaine’s stepmother and hit the door before Blaine could even open it for me. An awkwardness descended over us, and as we climbed into his boat, I couldn’t help asking myself what I was even doing. What could I possibly hope to accomplish?
I’d be better off back in the cottage, curled up with Roger. At least a half-dozen times during dinner, I’d tried to bring up the subject of my brother, and Blaine had deflected the conversation every time. Now he turned the boat away from Harmony Shores, rather than toward. “Where are we going?” I bundled my coat tighter and sank down into the furry collar.
“Just across the cove.”
I knew what was across the cove—the legendary Blue Moon Bay, a little inlet with an old campground where the teenagers probably still congregated on summer weekends. Not much ever changed in Moses Lake. I’d never been to the Blue Moon, except in a few ridiculous teenage dreams.
“You’re taking me to the Blue Moon?” I didn’t have to work at it to sound incredulous. The Blue Moon was also known as the place where kids who were fortunate enough to have access to a waterborne vehicle went parking.
“Ever been?” His tone was intimate, slightly suggestive. It flowed over me like warm water, raising goosebumps on my skin.
“Oh, sure, lots of times.”
He knew that wasn’t true, of course. The trouble with spending time around someone who remembers you from high school is that you can’t gloss up the past. In Seattle I had total anonymity. I thought I liked it that way, but now there was something alluring, even freeing, about not having to hide.
I tried not to focus on it too much as we crossed the cove. The night and the location seemed too perfect to be tainted by worry. Overhead, the winter moon hung large and heavy, casting a soft light that reflected off the quaking leaves of the live oaks, making them wink and shine as if each leaf had been freshly washed just for us. The air smelled cold and sweet, and Blue Moon Bay, with its overhanging cliffs and ancient, gnarled trees was, indeed, as beautiful by moonlight as I’d always imagined it would be.
“They have a private dance floor here, you know.” Blaine’s voice held just enough volume to be audible over the low rumble of the boat, as if he were taking care not to disturb the peace of the night. When he cut the motor, I could hear the twangy rhythms of music drifting over from the dancing deck at Catfish Charley’s.
“A private . . . wha . . .” I stammered as we floated up to the wide, flat rock shelf where tiny crystals reflected the moonlight like a sprinkling of sugar. I gathered his meaning as he grabbed a scraggly cedar to tie on. “You realize that would be, like, taking your life in your hands?” I imagined our feet tangling, and the two of us tumbling off into the lake, potential hypothermia only minutes away.
“I’m not worried.” He climbed out of the boat in three agile steps—one on the seat, one on the side rail, and one on the rocks. He made it look easy enough.
“You know, I’m seriously not one of those girls who hung out at the rodeo and learned to scoot a boot at the street dance.” I kept my seat, but I was only teasing now, really. I knew I would be going over the edge soon enough. There was a private dance floor waiting, after all. The idea was heady, thrilling, exciting in a way I wasn’t prepared to defend against. Nothing like this had ever happened to me. I’d wanted it to, but it hadn’t.
“That was my mistake,” he murmured, and I was hopelessly lost. I stood up, moved toward him, took his hand when he stretched it out. The boat shifted underfoot as I stepped onto the seat, then tried to decide whether to step on the railing or go straight for the rock. Below, I saw a narrow, black slice of water reflecting the glow of the boat’s running lights. A chill slid under my coat, a pinprick of fear coming with it. The boat was drifting farther from the rocks now, the watery crevice widening.
I thought of Ruth’s story, of the girl in the blue floral dress—bold, certain, unafraid.
I wanted to be the girl in the blue dress.
One jump from the boat suspended me in space, Blaine’s hand pulling me in, guiding me until I landed safely on the rocks. Momentum carried me forward, so that I was pressed against his chest, my free hand clutching his coat. I wondered if he could feel my pulse pounding through the tips of my fingers as his face dipped near mine. I looked up and knew he was planning to kiss me. “I thought we were dancing,” I said, but the words were an invitation.
“We are,” he whispered close to my lips, his arm sliding around my waist, his fingers, cool from the trip across the cove, trailing over the wind-reddened skin of my cheek. “Dancing.” The words were barely a hint of sound. His lips found mine, and I felt the dance begin.
By the time the chill of the night forced us to return home, I knew two things. The waltz and the Texas two-step weren’t as far beyond my reach as I’d thought, and I’d never gotten over my high-school crush on Blaine Underhill.
I came home feeling buoyant and giddy. Unfortunately, right after Blaine delivered me to the cottage door, I discovered that I had locked myself out during my earlier rush to change footwear.
“Here, let me try,” he said, as if somehow locked doors would open for him when they would not open for me.
“It’s really locked,” I assured him, but he tried it anyway, then bent down and gave the knob a good look, trying to peer through the old keyhole.
“It’s locked,” he concluded.
I shook my head, chuckling despite the fact that I was stuck out in the cold. “I can get a key from the main house.” Both of us looked up the hill. The windows were dark, everyone obviously in bed.
“I’ll drive you up,” he offered.
“We came in a boat.”
“Good point. I’ll walk with you.” Considering it was after midnight, Blaine was amazingly upbeat. He didn’t sound the least bit cold or tired.
“No, it’s okay, really.” The last thing I wanted was to create a bunch of commotion that would wake everyone so they could take note of what time I’d arrived home and whether I had a telltale flush on my cheeks. I was fairly sure I did, but I was better off keeping that to myself. The evening had already traveled far, far beyond anything I’d planned.
Blaine stood in front of me, blocking the steps, his head tipping to one side, dark curls bunching in his collar. “My grandma raised me better than that. What kind of gentleman would let a lady go tromping around in the dark by herself?”
The kind I usually date. “I don’t know. What kind?”
He walked backward down the steps, his lips spreading into a grin as he gave a quick, sideways jerk of his head, motioning toward the big house.
I felt myself wavering. Was there any way this guy could possibly be for real? I mean, it had to be an act, right? Anybody that perfect would be married to a former beauty queen and the father of two-and-a-half kids by now.
“Not this kind, darlin’,” he said, his voice throaty, the words hanging in the air in a puff of vapor.
I melted into a little ball of goo right there on the porch. I give up. I’m putty in your hands, I thought as I followed him onto the lawn. We walked up the hill toward the house without talking, our feet making trails in the white-tipped grass amid the moon shadows of the winter-bare trees. At the top of the hill, the house towered imposingly, the tall, wood-paned windows unevenly reflecting the glow from outdoor gaslights, creating the haunting appearance of movement.
Blaine tucked his hands into his coat pockets. “Man, I can see why this place was a double-dog dare at night.”
Was it my imagination, or was he slowi
ng up a little? “You’re not scared, are you?”
He scoffed indignantly, “Uh, no . . . Do I look scared?”
I pretended to check him out as we passed by one of the yard lights. “Well . . . yeah, kind of.”
“I just didn’t want you to be scared.” Climbing the steps to the veranda with me, he studied the house.
A chill slid under my collar as I moved carefully across the slick, frost-covered decking. “I used to live here, remember? Anyway, they can smell fear, you know? The ghosts. It wakes them up.”
“Thanks a lot.” He stood to one side and waited while I reached for the utility room door, which I quickly determined to be locked. “Uh-oh.” It was a fairly certain thing that, if this door was locked, all of the doors were locked. Back when the funeral home was in operation, Uncle Herbert had always been somewhat meticulous about that, as combinations of money, personal effects, and treasured loved ones could be stored in the house at any time. Old habits died hard, I supposed.
I turned around and started back across the veranda. “We’ll have to go in through the cellar door.” For those who knew the way around Harmony House, the ground-level doors that led to the basement were easy to jimmy.
“The place with all the old coffins in it?” Blaine wanted to know. “That basement?” His cowboy boots slid on the decking, and he did a fairly agile ice-skating maneuver before grabbing the railing.
“I thought you weren’t scared.” Despite my show of bravado, a shiver ran over me, making the shadows on the side of the house and the vapor puffing from our mouths seem unusually eerie. I had never liked Harmony Shores at night, but if the alternative was to wake everyone up and have a date discussion—which we would, because Uncle Herbert, having been in the funeral business, was hospitable at any hour of the day or night—I’d take my chances on the basement. I was glad, however, that I didn’t have to do it by myself.
“I’m not scared,” Blaine assured. “I was just worried about you.”
