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“I am?” What did that mean?
“Yes. You are. You’re so much more than I thought. So much more.”
“What did you think before?” I knew it was dangerous to ask, but I couldn’t stop myself.
“I thought you were a California girl. Blond, tan, and careless.”
“Careless? Why are California girls careless? I don’t get that.” I narrowed my eyes, pretending to be mad but failing and laughing instead.
“I just meant that the girls I knew in California never seemed serious about anything but their designer purses. They had the potential to hurt me with their haphazardness and the way they shone with glitter and smelled of coconut.”
I sputtered with laughter. “You do have a way of putting things. Glitter and coconut?”
“You know what I mean. That stuff women put on their skin that makes it all shimmery?”
“Idoknow. And I’m not careless. Not at all. Sometimes I wish I was—about something, anyway. Just one thing so I’m not weighed down all the time with self-doubt and this restless feeling, like I’m waiting for my life to start. Everything has always seemed dead serious to me. I’ve been this way from the time I was a kid. Driven and ambitious and perfectly sure of my path. Until lately. The fire put me back a bit, I have to admit.”
“Of course it did. It was a terrible loss after all your hard work. To see your dream quite literally go up in flames.” He said it so simply but with such earnestness that darned if it didn’t make me feel seen and validated.
“Like you said, I’m still here,” I said. “It didn’t beat me. You’re here too, Darby. No matter what your dad did. Living your life on your own terms, giving the gift of yourself to those kids every day. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“My father called me overly sensitive,” Darby said. “Always thinking too much, he’d say. As if thinking were a bad thing. It took me a long time to realize he was wrong about that. Wrong about me.”
He wore an expression I couldn’t quite place. Uncertainty? Anticipation?
“Would you like to dance with me?”
I blinked, sure I’d heard him wrong. “Um, dance?”
“Yes, dance.” Darby smiled and nodded toward his hand. “I’m a very good dancer.”
“You are?”
He laughed. “Why the face?”
“I’ve never known a guy who likes to dance, let alone someone who’s good at it.”
“I’m old-school. I should carry a handkerchief,” Darby said. “And wear a three-piece suit.”
“You’d look good in a suit.”
“You think?” He put his hands around his neck, pantomiming a high collar. “One of those shirts that comes up to my jawline? What do you think? Could I pull it off?” He lifted his chin and sniffed, as if he were high society.
“I need to get you some contemporary fiction,” I said, teasing him. “And give you a new perspective. Modern men don’t act like you.”
“Maybe I was born in the wrong time.” The corners of his eyes crinkled. He held out his hand again. “Will you do me the honor, Miss Wattson?”
“If you insist, Mr. Devillier.” I rose to my feet.
“Have I ever told you how pretty you are?”
“I think so.” I flushed, embarrassed and pleased at the same time. “But I thought it might be the bump on the head talking.”
“No way. That’s all me.” He led me into the living room. “Put on one of those records and let’s dance.”
“What kind of dancing are we doing?”
“The slow kind.” He grinned and gestured toward the stereo. “I know you’ll pick just the right song.”
