AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“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 laughed 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.
