“I do realize that,” he said. “I thought of it the entire time I was overseas.”
The song switched again, and this time it was a slow one, giving the dancers an opportunity to catch their breath. A few couples collapsed on chairs around the tables next to the floor, worn out from the exhausting moves of the Charleston.
Ty curled an arm around her waist and folded the fingers of his other hand around her palm, holding her arm in the air as their steps naturally flowed into a slow, easy two-step.
“The entire time I was in the army, I remembered my payment came from taxes paid by people who were pouring their own blood, sweat and tears into their private businesses back home. That’s what kept me going—knowing I was protecting them.”
He’d changed his clothes from earlier in the day. Now he wore a gray shirt that shimmered in the pale lights overhead, and Norma Rose had a hard time pulling her gaze off his shoulder to meet his eyes. Several local men had served in the war, including Uncle Dave, and she knew firsthand that they didn’t like talking about what they’d seen, what they’d experienced. But there was more to it than that. More to why she was afraid to look him in the eye. She might get pulled in again. Start thinking of him as someone other than just a federal agent. Like the man who’d helped her look for her sister all afternoon. The one who’d won her a snow globe and bought her cotton candy.
“Don’t frown, Norma Rose,” he said softly.
She sucked in air, glanced up and instantly felt herself sinking. His brown eyes were so dark that the ceiling lights reflected in them like stars she could wish upon in the sky.
Little crinkles appeared near Ty’s eyes as he added, “We’re winning.”
A few more people had found seats, but she answered, “There’s still a lot of couples dancing.”
“But we have a chance at winning,” he said. “We just gotta keep pacing ourselves.” He increased the pressure of his arm around her back. “Nice and slow until the end, when we wow them with the Charleston.”
“Wow them?”
He grinned broader.
“What if I don’t know how to dance the Charleston?”
“I’ll teach you.”
Her feet barely moved, as he eased her back and forth through the dance steps, but her insides were flying hard and fast, and so was her mind. Once again she attempted to remind herself he was a snitch. A government agent wanting to arrest her father, make her family penniless again, yet she couldn’t believe it. How could she, of all people, feel this way about a man like that? For she was feeling things. Sensations and emotions she’d never imagined were a part of her. Her eyes started to smart and she had to close them.
* * *
Ty had won. At least that’s what he told himself. Norma Rose was crumbling in his hands. Why then, did a hollow, sinking numbness spread across his chest?
The musician who’d almost put the entire crowd to sleep earlier transitioned into another song. An upbeat ragtime song that had the crowd cheering again.
Norma Rose lifted her chin, giving him that haughty and overly coy smile, and the numbness faded inside Ty, giving room for other things to arise. He hadn’t danced in ages, not with a woman this pretty, nor could he remember the last time he’d had fun like this.
He lifted Norma Rose’s hand higher in the air and, using his other hand, twirled her around in a perfect pirouette. The audience, those watching closely and placing bets on winners, applauded.
She was more graceful than a swan. Had been from the moment he’d ushered her onto the floor. He hadn’t planned on that—dragging her into the center of the room, dancing. The crowd was toasting Brock Ness and his radio deal when he’d arrived in the dining room. It had been seeing her reaction to giving away the snow globe that had put a knot in his stomach.
It was hers, and he’d see it remained in her possession. Pacing themselves, so they weren’t exhausted for the last ten minutes of the dance-off, was how it would happen. He was used to waiting for the showdown, but Norma Rose was more like a mother hen, rushing in and using up all her energy in the first few moments. Teaching her restraint, in other ways besides dancing, was an enjoyable thought, too.
He was leading her through the long flowing steps of the fox-trot, a dance that could be altered to fit any tempo and rhythm. She was a fast learner, adapting to the easy, smooth steps even as he spun around for them to dance shoulder-to-shoulder instead of chest-to-chest.
The hardest thing about forcing one’s mind to occupy other thoughts was making the body follow suit, and in this case, his was being a hearty opponent. It had been ever since that first bunny hop, when her breasts had collided with his chest, sending his pulse racing so forcefully, he thought it might split his skin.
Her enjoyment did things to him, too. Those magnificent blue eyes glittered like diamonds and her smile was the first totally natural one he’d seen her make. There was no falseness behind it. Nothing hidden, fake, or shy.
He spun her beneath their clasped hands again, waiting until she’d made a full circle before pulling her close to sweep her across the floor. The heat of her palm, planted firmly on his shoulder, could have been the bottom of a logger’s branding iron burning a stamp into the ends of logs in the north woods. He’d worked in one of those logging camps in upstate New York prior to the war, and wondered, for just a moment, where he’d be today if he’d gone back to it after returning home. Not here. That was a given. Not dancing with a beautiful woman.
Despite his efforts to last to the end, Ty was growing tired by the time there were only five couples left on the dance floor. The crowd, most of them having gained their second wind from sitting at the tables and downing a few more cocktails, surrounded the dance floor, cheering and shouting names.
Led by her sisters, people shouted their names. Norma Rose’s cheeks were bright red, and Ty understood it didn’t come from the dancing. Competitive to the core, her determination now matched his.
“Less than five minutes left,” Dac Lester shouted. “One dance!”
The crowd cheered.
“What if there’s more than one couple still standing?” a breathless woman asked, sagging against her partner as Wayne ended a slow song.
“There won’t be,” Norma Rose declared. The crowd roared and her glittering eyes sparked with energy. She stepped out of Ty’s arms, but held one hand tightly. Lowering her voice, so only he’d hear, she said, “Time to teach me the Charleston.”
“I think you already know it,” Ty replied, pulling her into the center of the floor.
“I do,” she answered proudly. “So, I’ll teach you.”
“I’m all yours,” Ty said, striking a pose.
She laughed, and set her feet even with his.
Wayne struck the first keys with all the skill of a master musician, and the dancer in both of them went to work. Heels clicking and soles shuffling, they edged toward each other and retreated as if playing a game of cat and mouse.
The crowd cheered, filling the entire room with noise that almost drowned out the music. Not that they needed it. He and Norma Rose were too tuned in to one another to need much of an outside encouragement.
Norma Rose knew the steps of the Charleston better than those living in the city that had created the dance and Ty kicked his last bit of vigor into full force. He didn’t like losing, not even a silly dance-off. However, for the first time in about as long as he could remember, he wasn’t thinking about himself. What he wanted. His focus was on her. She’d stretched her neck to allow this dance-off, giving her sisters some rope, and he was going to make sure she wasn’t the one who got hanged in the end.
He’d seen enough of that already, the way she’d been responsible for her sisters, right down to the mistakes they’d made, which truly had nothing to do with her.
Nightingale wasn’t blind, or brainless, as he’d just proven back in Dave’s cabin, and how the man didn’t see what he was doing to Norma Rose was beyond Ty.
She clapped and laug
hed as he tapped his way around her, and he did the same when she took her turn, bowing after she’d made it all the way around him and sashaying her backside with a toe-curling little twist before grabbing his hands. It was almost as if they were in competition now, trying to outdance each other.
With exclamations that drew everyone’s attention, two other couples collided into one another and hit the floor, gasping for air as they tried to untangle legs and arms. All four barely managed to crawl to the edge of the dance floor without being trampled by one of the last couples still dancing.
“Just us and two others,” he said, hooking her shoulder for a duo tap.
“I know,” she answered, stretching her arm along his and over his shoulder to grasp the back of his neck, holding on tight as their steps matched perfectly.
She didn’t sound as breathless as he felt, and he sucked in air until his lungs were full in order to keep up.
“There goes another,” she said, as a couple danced right off the floor, crashing into a table and taking several bystanders down to the floor with them.
The last couple, besides them, was on the far side of the floor, and Ty wrapped his fingers around Norma Rose’s palm. “Tap to the edge,” he said.
Clicking her heels loudly, she added, “And back.”
The crowd cheered them on. Ty laughed at how that increased Norma Rose’s speed even more. In the center of the room, while she tapped around him, he crouched and knocked his knees together while flaying his hands in a crisscross pattern over his knees, in time with the music.
Head thrown back, Norma Rose laughed aloud. When she faced him again, she crouched down, knocking her knees and crisscrossing her arms in time with him.
The other couple followed suit, and knowing he needed a move to put their dance above the rest, Ty stood and tapped his way around Norma Rose while she stood. Then he grasped her waist. Hoisting her into the air, he tapped another circle. She held onto his shoulders, keeping her body in a straight line that allowed them both to maintain their balance. He hoped they looked as good as he felt, for it did feel marvelous, holding her up like that.
In response, the other couple attempted to copy them, but as the man hoisted his partner, their timing was off and they both went over backward. The ceiling above rumbled as the crowd erupted.
As Ty set her down, Norma Rose exclaimed, “We won! We won!”
Wayne still pounded on the keys, so Ty grabbed her hands to dance her into the center of the now empty dance floor. “Time’s not up,” he said. “Besides, we have to give them the grand finale.”
“Which is?” she asked, tapping her heels and shuffling a fast four-step.
“I’m going to throw you around my back.”
She shook her head, but asked, “You are?”
“Yes, I am,” Ty answered. Without missing a beat or step, he hooked one arm around her waist and lifted her up, flipping her horizontal with the floor. “Just pretend you’re an airplane.” She stretched her arms out, no doubt having seen the move. “Ready?” he asked, still tapping to the music.
“Ready,” she responded.
With a quick twist of his hips, he flung her sideways around his back.
In the split second that he didn’t have a hold on her, the crowd went silent. Time seemed to stop, too, except for the pounding of his heart echoing in his ears. He wouldn’t let her down. Wouldn’t fail her.
His catch was as smooth as the rest of their dancing had been. He savored the relief deep down and flipped her upright to land on her feet.
Without missing a beat, she tapped backward and then forward again. “That was perfect,” she said, catching one of his hands for another graceful pirouette.
“Time!” Dac Lester shouted. “Time’s up!”
She finished her twirl and Ty once again grabbed her waist, tossing her straight up into the air. Norma Rose grabbed his shoulders, and as she started her descent, he caught her by the hips, stopping her before her feet touched the floor.
Holding her there, her head slightly above his, his heart stopped beating. Her eyes were so full of stars he could hardly see any of their wonderful blue, and her lips held a smile that would have made the Mona Lisa jealous.
The crowd roared and cheered, and Ty, unable to resist, gave in to the one desire he’d tried to bury since he’d first laid eyes on her.
He kissed her.
Chapter Twelve
Norma Rose clung to Ty’s shoulders, lost in a different world, one that was far more vibrant and effervescent than anything she’d ever known. He tasted as good as he smelled, and she tilted her head, so nothing was in the way of their lips connecting.
If the roaring in her ears would stop, she’d have nothing to distract her from completely, fully, enjoying the connection. If whoever was shouting her name—
Wrenching her lips off his, Norma Rose blinked, several times, trying to make sense of the wild vibrations still racing through her body while trying to recall where she was.
Someone was saying her name, and she was...she was kissing Ty.
Oh, Lord.
“You won!”
Twyla’s voice was now recognizable, so was the gleam in Ty’s eyes.
Norma Rose’s entire being experienced a flood of disappointment. They’d won. Which meant the dance was over. She swallowed and, gathering a few more bits of reality, pushed at his shoulders. “Put me down.”
“I have,” he said.
She wiggled her toes, testing if the floor was indeed beneath her shoes.
It was.
Sliding her hands off his shoulders, she pressed her feet harder onto the floor and locked her knees, afraid that without his hold, she’d collapse. Norma Rose begged and pleaded, silently, for that not to happen.
It didn’t.
Perhaps because Ty still had hold of her waist, and twisted her, pulling her against his side. She shouldn’t allow that. If she trusted her legs, she might not have. Between the dancing and his kiss, she didn’t trust any part of her body right now.
Her thinking wasn’t overly lucid yet, either.
“You won!” Twyla repeated.
Norma Rose’s vision cleared, enough to see the crowd that had descended upon them. Twyla and Josie were in the lead. One holding a bottle of whiskey, the other her snow globe, and both looked happier than she’d seen them in years. She wasn’t sure who handed what to whom, but she ended up with the snow globe and Ty had the whiskey bottle.
“Your winners, ladies and gentlemen,” Twyla said, stepping aside to wave a sweeping hand at both of them. “Nightingale’s own Ty Bradshaw and my sister Norma Rose!”
For the first time in her life, finding a smile to plant on her face was beyond her, until Ty grabbed her hand and forced her into a bow.
Head down, he hissed, “Smile.”
She did, partly because he sounded as flustered as her. They lifted their heads simultaneously, smiling at the exuberant crowd.
People moved in with congratulations, hugging her and patting Ty on the back.
“I haven’t had this much fun in ages,” Scooter Wilson said. “You gotta have dance-offs more often.”
She nodded, but Ty spoke. “I don’t know that I can handle more than one a year,” he said. “That was a heck of a lot of work.”
Laughter filled the room again.
“We’ll step aside now,” he continued, taking Norma Rose’s elbow to guide her forward. “And let others take a turn at dancing.” He waved at Wayne. “That’s one electric piano player.”
Wayne made a show of bowing before he sat back down to play another tune that had people moving back onto the dance floor.
“Here,” Josie said, handing over a glass. “It’s just water. You look like you could use it.”
“Thanks,” Norma Rose said, glad her voice did still work. She drank the water, all of it; she was thirstier than she’d ever been.
She sat down in a chair that magically appeared. Maybe she had walked to it. Her legs were too shaky to
know for sure and the bottoms of her feet stung so badly they were almost numb.
“I had no idea you could dance like that,” Twyla said.
“Me, neither,” Ty, who was sitting with his arm across the back of her chair, said.
Norma Rose tore her gaze off his arm to say, “Me, neither.”
The occupants of the table—Josie and Scooter, Twyla and Jimmy, Dac, her and Ty—all laughed. Norma Rose took another look around the table, and at those filling the chairs. This was all new and she felt completely out of her element, yet comfortable at the same time. So many new things. Crazy things.
The craziest of all was how she trusted Ty. Even to throw her around like that. The idea of not trusting him had never crossed her mind. Not that she’d had a lot of time to think about it. She’d been completely caught up in the moment.
She couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t her, Norma Rose. This was some imposter, sitting here, listening to her sisters and Scooter and Jimmy and Dac, and even Ty, talk about the dancing. How word would spread and soon everyone would want to attend one of the resort’s dance competitions. How it would be the talk of the town tomorrow. How she and Ty had won. How he’d thrown her in the air and—
The sweat on her forehead and the back of her neck turned ice-cold and whatever snapped inside her hurt. Norma Rose jumped to her feet. “Excuse me,” she said, spinning away from the table.
“Norma Rose—”
She moved faster, edging farther away from Ty.
He still caught her by the arm. “What’s wrong?”
“Why don’t you tell me, Agent Bradshaw?”
Sighing, he walked beside her, all the way through the arched ballroom doorway and into the resort’s entranceway before he asked, “So, we’re back to that again?”
Yes, we’re back to that again, she wanted to shout. She didn’t because she should never have forgotten it in the first place. Who he was. It was the only defense she had.
With no real place to go, she marched into her office, fully prepared to slam the door in his face. If he’d been weaker, and slower, and if her reflexes had been faster.
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