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“I assume he’s okay with it. Not that it matters.” Shanna sipped the caffeine-laden brew and let it sink into her hazy brain.
He reached for the carafe of coffee and poured a steaming mug. “A hindrance, is he? Resenting your practices?”
“No.” Not unless she was avoiding him.
“Latin men are notoriously jealous. He can’t handle your time with Kristoff and the way your partner has to touch you?”
Shanna had to laugh. “No, he knows way too much about Kristoff to be jealous.”
“So you’re just worried he’d be a general distraction?”
“He would. The other night, I was headed for a sensible dinner and an early evening to bed. Big day of practice the next morning, which is vital with the competition coming up. He came by and just assumed I’d go out for ice cream with him.”
“Ice cream. That’s a huge problem.” Her father sipped his coffee, seemingly deep in thought.
Somehow, Shanna got the impression he was laughing silently at her.
“It is! I can’t afford to blow off sleep and eat a gallon of ice cream to satisfy some romantic notion of his. And then he tells me personal stuff, about his childhood and friendships. He blurts out his views that commitment is absolute and infidelity is inexcusable. Why tell me? The whole incident is taking up my thoughts that should be directed to the competition, which is tomorrow. And last night, he kept me up half the night…”
Realizing she’d nearly spilled the details of her sex life, Shanna flushed, then continued with a safer topic. “The man is just consuming. Him just being steals my attention and leads my thoughts astray. Every trick I’ve used in the past to ward off would-be Romeos doesn’t work with him. He just doesn’t give up and won’t go away.”
“And you’re so tempted to let him into your life that it frightens you.” It wasn’t a question. He seemed to know that’s exactly how she felt.
“How…?” She grappled to find the right words. “You know?”
“Your mother had a life before we married. Did you know she was a prima ballerina?”
A prima ballerina? No clue. “I knew she flitted around the kitchen and she was graceful…”
But her mother had died years ago. In some ways, her mother was as great a mystery to her as she would be if Shanna had never met her.
“American Ballet Theater. She was set to star in the season’s Giselle. To this day, I’ll never know what she saw in a cocky weightlifter coming fresh off a gold medal high. I had to have been a complete ass. But she claimed to love me. God knows the sun rose and set on that woman, as far as I was concerned.”
Shanna frowned, sensing that she would not like what came next.
“You married her and—”
“Encouraged her to stop dancing. Made sure I got her pregnant with your brother so she had to stay beside me. I was a hugely selfish bastard where her time and energy were concerned. If I could take it back somehow and let her take her rightful place on stage…”
Mouth gaping open, Shanna stared at her father. This was the man who had driven her for years. Nothing she’d ever done was ever good enough. Second place was first loser. Quitting was the professional equivalent of a noose.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know.” He sighed heavily and sat on one of the little wooden chairs they’d had forever. “I pushed you and pushed you. I don’t think I realized until just now that I did it because I wanted to make up for what I did to your mother. She never said that she regretted her decision. But I’d catch her every so often holding her toe shoes with a wistful look on her face. I suspect she always wondered what could have been. I didn’t want you wondering, too.”
Shanna gaped, shock ricocheting through her. Her father had intentionally killed her mother’s dance dream? And regretted it like hell. For years, he’d driven Shanna, fueled her ambition. As a child, she’d wanted to follow one of her brothers into their sports, but he’d specifically signed her up for dance class after dance class. Now she knew why. But…
“You sound as if you’re encouraging me to continue with Alejandro. Why change your mind now?”
He stirred his cooling coffee. “In retrospect, I don’t think your mother really regretted her decision to leave dance and marry. After she was gone, I realized how short her life had been cut and that I’d prevented her from fulfilling her dream. I regretted standing in her way. I beat myself up a lot over it. But you know, most of my memories are of her smiling. Your mother used to have this one little grin when she was particularly happy. A little lopsided, with a dimple in her left cheek and a twinkle in her eye. When I think about that smile now, I know she was at peace with her life.” Her father paused, looked up at her. “Until this morning, I’d never seen that smile on you. But there was a moment when you got out of your car. I was watching through the window. I saw that smile on your face. I’m guessing Alejandro put it there.”
