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“Not true,” he said as they skirted a couple coming from the opposite direction. “I’m entirely serious.”
She could never tell with him.
“And incidentally,” he said, slowing, “you are being courted.”
Lawrence stopped at the corner and nodded toward their linked arms.
“I’ll tell you a secret,” he said, lowering his voice. “I had an ulterior motive for taking your arm.”
Toni could only imagine.
“A woman is more likely to dance with a man if he touches her first, even briefly.”
“Interesting.” She glanced around. “But I don’t see a place to dance. In case you hadn’t heard, the only thing our town has to offer by way of dancing is the Jazz Hall.”
His devious smile indicated her surprise was about to be unveiled. When Lawrence glanced at the door of the abandoned Penn Community Bank, she noticed, for the first time, a soft glow from inside.
“Come.”
Letting go of her arm as he pulled open the door, Lawrence stood back, indicating she should go inside. Confused, Toni followed the soft light, her eyes widening at the sight before her.
She noticed the lanterns first, maybe twenty of them, scattered on the floor in the middle of a big open space. Then the sweet strains of music pulled her gaze to the tuxedoed violinist. He stood beside a table with a crisp white tablecloth, two chairs, and a candle centerpiece.
For a long moment, Toni stood there in shock. It was a lot to take in all at once.
He’d set this up for her. In an abandoned bank, no less. Had he bought the building from Davis, or were they trespassing?
“May I have this dance?”
She spun around, stared at Lawrence’s outstretched hand for a beat, and then allowed his warm fingers to wrap around hers as he led her to a nonexistent dance floor. All of the emotions from their first dance bubbled to the surface. But this time, she was single.
No words were necessary as she moved into his arms.
Music echoed off the walls of the mostly empty room, each note more hauntingly beautiful than the last. It seemed to permeate her very soul, and though she was positive she’d never heard the song before, it was somehow familiar. Flickers from the lanterns danced around them as Lawrence moved her across the floor. She felt as if she’d been transported to another time and place—or perhaps somewhere beyond time and place.
“I can’t say I was expecting . . . this.”
She looked up, and as usual, Lawrence’s gaze did not waver, his green eyes glittering in the warm light. When the tempo picked up slightly, he spun her in a dizzying turn that made her feel like a professional. That was when it struck her—
Lawrence was a dancer.
Not just someone who wouldn’t step on her feet at a wedding. He was good enough to win Dancing with the Stars.
She’d always wanted to date someone who danced, but until now, all of her boyfriends had needed to be dragged to the dance floor.
Breathless, quite literally, by the time the second song ended, Toni looked up at Lawrence in wonder as he stopped.
“Beautiful,” he said with a bow.
She glanced at the violinist, who was already packing up his instrument.
“He was . . . extraordinary.”
“I wasn’t talking about the music, Toni.”
Her chest swelled, warmth spreading through her body. If someone else had said that to her, she would have written it off as a line, but the look in his eyes told her he actually meant what he said.
“Excuse me.”
