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“I think I’m officially full.” Stanzi scraped her fork around the chocolate crumbs left on the plate. “But give me about an hour and we’ll see.”
Rhett finished the beer he’d been nursing and looked around. The room had emptied out considerably. The harpist was packing up her things and louder, peppier music was just revving up from somewhere else in the house. “What now?”
“The party’s downstairs.” Stanzi pointed at the floor. “Sunny renovated the lower level into this huge party area, with a bar and a place for a band or DJ.”
Just the thought would normally send Rhett to his room for the night, but this time he rose, stretched and said, “Let’s check it out.”
They pushed their way through the crowded foyer and downstairs to the party area. Like the rest of the house, the room had a lot of wood, though the walls had been done in stone. It almost looked like something out of the late 1800s, except for the DJ, in the far corner, spinning out everything from Christmas tunes to classic rock. The air smelled of pine and sugarplums, which probably came from the fresh greenery and the big bowls of punch at the bar.
They made their way over and sampled cups of the brew, which turned out to be stronger than Rhett expected. Stanzi took about half of hers, fast, and held the tiny cup in both hands. He guessed she didn’t quite enjoy crowds and noise much, either.
“By request,” the DJ’s smooth voice came over the speakers, “Anne Murray.”
A slow country song started to play—“Could I Have This Dance”—causing Rhett and Stanzi to exchange confused glances. The abrupt change in tempo had everyone scrambling to either pair up or get off the dance floor and have a drink.
Rhett eyed Stanzi, still rolling her cup around. He extended his hand.
She looked at it, blinked, then looked up at his face and blinked again.
“What? You don’t know how to waltz?”
“Wait. What?” She set her cup on the bar and fiddled with her hair. “Waltz?”
“Sure.” Rhett nodded toward the handful of couples who were starting to push around the floor. “This song is a waltz. Somebody’s favorite.” He nodded toward a couple with gray hair who were moving so well together they had to have danced a million times in each other’s arms. “Maybe them.”
“I, um... No. I don’t. I don’t dance. Do you?”
“A little.”
Stanzi twisted her lips into a wry smile. “Okay. Show me.”
Rhett took her hand and guided her to an outside corner, where they wouldn’t run into the people gliding around the floor. He settled her left hand on his shoulder and took her right hand in his left. “Come in a little closer. We can’t be that far apart to dance.”
A soft ridge of pink colored her cheeks as she stepped in, close enough Rhett caught a whiff of a bright, rosy scent, not unlike his room upstairs. “We’ll just do a simple country-western waltz, since this is a country-western song. You’re going to step back with your right foot first, just as my left goes forward. Then your left will step parallel to your right. Then your right will close with your left. It’s a little box step. Light and airy, up on the balls of your feet. Just think one-two-three, one-two-three, with the downbeat on one.”
Stanzi held tightly to his shoulder as he guided her out to the floor. She counted silently, her lips moving, as Rhett spoke the tempo. “Back, side, together...back, side, together.” At first, she stumbled and her steps were a little clunky, but after one lap around the dance floor she started to let go, her body taking over.
She looked up at him for the first time, her eyes bright and questioning, looking for approval. “Not horrible,” Rhett said, noting that she trembled slightly. He resisted the urge to draw her in, to feel that soft tremor against his own body. Not only did he not want to mess her up, he wasn’t confident how his own body would react if he held her that close. “Now try to add a rise at each count and a fall between counts. Like this.” Rhett added the rhythm of the hips and feet that gave the waltz its elegant lift.
Stanzi went back to counting beneath her breath, her sweet, flowery scent enhanced by a light sheen of sweat that warmed her body wherever Rhett touched it. He slid the hand that was on her shoulder down to her lower back, drawing her a little closer, despite the warning in his head.
“How’d you learn this?” Her voice was soft and tentative. “Your mom?”
“Yeah, Mama taught me this stuff early. You’re not the only one who had to take care of their baby sister.”
Stanzi smiled, her lips no longer counting, her body gliding more smoothly, the hand he held in his damp with sweat and squeezing tight.
Just as the song wound down, they neared the edge of the bar. Rhett slowed his steps, but wasn’t quick to let go. The hand on her lower back tightened a little, his urge to draw her against him, inhale all those scents and press her warm, damp body against his almost too much to resist.
“So, when I asked if you knew how to dance and you said ‘a little,’ you were being sarcastic.”
“You’re in trouble if they play salsa.”
She smiled, but didn’t pull away.
“May I cut in?”
The words took a beat to register. The tone, however, was quick to stab him directly to the core. The hair on the back of his neck rose.It couldn’t be.
Stanzi released him, her blue eyes big and questioning as she turned in the direction of the voice. Rhett reluctantly let her go and turned to the sound of the bold, shrill notes.
“Rhett? It is you! What are you doing here?”
There she stood, towering over Stanzi in her four-inch heels, her brunette hair waving down her back and her eyes on fire with both determination and jealousy.
Katrina.
