She found herself sitting with Darla on one of the benches, watching some kind of line-dance going on, the steps of which looked highly complex. Deryn was taking part, twining his arm through Lily’s as they spun, stepped and turned.
“Aye, he’s quite a sight isnae he?” Darla said. “I canna blame ye for falling for him.”
Maddy looked at her friend, startled. “I’m sorry?”
Darla nodded at Deryn. “Ye have barely taken yer eyes off him all day, nor him ye. It’s obvious how the two of ye feel about each other.”
Maddy felt her cheeks flaming. Was she that obvious?
Darla laughed softly. “There’s nay need to be embarrassed, my dear. He’s a mighty fine man and it’s about time he found someone to fill his life again. It isnae right a man like him being alone.
“To fill his lifeagain?” Maddy said. “What do you mean?”
But before Darla could answer, Craig came stomping over wiping sweat from his brow. “All right!” he bellowed—the only volume Craig seemed capable of. “Enough gossiping! There’s dancing to be had!”
Before either woman could protest, he grabbed their wrists, hauled them to their feet, and dragged them down to the dancing area.
Maddy found herself in the line next to Darla. “But I don’t know how to—”
Her protests were cut off as the music began and Craig was suddenly linking arms with hers and whirling her around before she was passed off to the next man in line—an oldster with a bent back and white beard who didn’t let his advancing age slow him down one bit. She let herself go with the flow, following her partner as best she could, laughing when she got it wrong, laughing even harder when she got it right.
Maddy spun away from her elderly partner as the others were doing, and strong arms caught her around the waist.
It was Deryn.
“I thought ye refused to dance, lass?” he said, looking down at her. “What was it ye said when I asked ye earlier? “Ye’ll have to drag me kicking and screaming up there?”“
“And that’s what Craig did!” she replied indignantly. “I’ll be having words with that man when this is finished! I’m making an idiot of myself!”
“Aye, ye are,” he agreed with a grin. “But that’s the whole point, isnae it?”
He tightened his grip around her waist as they moved in time to the music. He pulled her close and they linked their raised hands as they fell into the choreographed steps.
It brought her incredibly close to him. His fingers held hers firmly and she could feel the calluses on his palms from his days of hard work on the farm. Maddy found herself staring at him, unable to look away. The sun was beginning to set and lanterns had been lit, and the light made his hair shine like molten metal. Deryn stared right back, unblinking, and there was something in his eyes that made her pulse race and her body ache.
The rest of the dancers, the rest of the revelers, the rest of the whole damned world seemed to disappear. There was only her and Deryn in this moment, moving in perfect sync with eachother. Maddy didn’t know the moves, but with Deryn she found she didn’t need to. Without conscious thought her body moved with his, all the while Deryn’s grip on her hand acting like an anchor, the pivot around which she turned.
The dance could have lasted a lifetime or only for a few seconds but long before Maddy wanted it to end, the fiddle reached a crescendo, Deryn twirled Maddy into one final spin, then as the last note spilled out into the night, he pulled her close, his arms going around her waist and holding her there.
The dancers broke into spontaneous, laughter-filled applause but she and Deryn didn’t move.
Her palms were flat against his hard chest and she could feel his heart beating beneath them, beating as hard as Maddy’s own.
Then he bent his head and kissed her.
His lips descended on hers with the force of an avalanche. It wasn’t the touch—that was as light and as smooth as a feather. It was her reaction. The sensations that crashed through her lit her body from head to toe, sending a tingle right down her spine, raising the hairs on the back of her neck, and deepening the ache in her body into one of fathomless, desperate longing.
Before she knew it, her arms were going around his neck, she was going up on tiptoes, and kissing him back. He tasted every bit as good as she’d imagined. His stubble tickled her chin, his hair rain through her fingers like silk, and his body felt hard and unyielding where it pressed against her.
She wanted him. Jeez, she wanted him more than she’d ever wanted any man.
Then a raucous cheer went up around them and the reality of where they were crashed back in. They broke apart to find the others clapping uproariously, grinning and shouting ribald comments at them both.
Craig came over and clapped them both on the shoulder hard enough to almost drive Maddy to her knees. “Well, it’s aboutbloody time!” he boomed. “We’ve been having bets on how long that would take!”
Maddy flushed. Oh hell.
Deryn’s expression turned carefully neutral, the fire in his eyes vanished, and those shutters came crashing down again.
