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“I had an excellent teacher.”
Alma had loved to dance so she taught me so we could enjoy it together.
A single laugh bubbled from her throat, but it was music to my ears. “You did, didn’t you? As I recall, you were pretty terrible before her.”
I tightened my hold on her, crushing us together so I could spin us twice before falling right back into the steady, sedate pace. “I wouldn’t say terrible.” I frowned with mock offense. “The skill was there, it just needed to be honed.”
She let out a scoff and rolled her eyes. “Please. There were no skills at all.” Humor dripped from her words. “First time we went dancing, you stepped on my feet so many times I couldn’t wear shoes for two days because of the bruises and swelling.”
My head fell back on a deep laugh. It was the kind of laugh that engaged all the muscles in my stomach, the kind that locked my arms tight. The kind of laugh I hadn’t felt like laughing in longer than I could remember. And goddamn, but it felt good to laugh like that again.
When I finally got a hold of myself and righted my head, the smile Alma was giving me slammed into my chest with the force of a wrecking ball, throwing my world off kilter.
“I wasn’t that bad.”
The playfulness that danced in her eyes was the very same way she used to look at me before I broke her heart. “Says you. I’m the one who was nearly crippled.”
“Yeah, well. I still remember that night. And I remember taking you back home and making it up to you for hours and hours.”
Her smile fell away and her body went tense in my arms. It was the exact same thing that had happened at her house after I’d nursed her back to health. One second everything was going right, then I made a comment that flipped some internal switch, and that wall shot back into place.
I hadn’t noticed the song had come to an end until Alma pulled from my arms and took a step back, her gaze darting anywhere but at me. “Uh, thanks for the dance. I should”—she threw a thumb over her shoulder—“I should get back to my girls.”
She turned on her heel and practically ran away from me. But it wouldn’t do her any good this time, because I was determined to follow after her.
20
ALMA
Shortly after my dance with Roan the other night, I’d made an excuse about still not feeling quite right and hightailed it out of the bar. To run home and hide. To lick the wounds from the past and guarantee they wouldn’t heal. If they healed I wouldn’t have anything to hold on to, so there would be no reason for not forgiving him for the past.
And I couldn’t allow that.
I’d run like a coward that night, but it hadn’t done me a damn bit of good. Because Roan was nothing if not persistent. Over the past week, he’d shown up at Whiskey Dolls every night I was performing. He’d sit in on the show, have a couple drinks, then, when I headed out to the staff parking lot at the back of the building, he’d be there, waiting against my car. He said he was making sure I made it safely, but I knew his game. He was attempting to wear me down.
He showed up at the end of rehearsals with a coffee and almond croissant from Muffin Top as a “post-workout snack” and when I was having dinner at the diner with Marin, he coincidentally had a hankering for Ralph’s chicken fried steak.
Coincidence my ass. I knew my friends had a hand in it somehow, but I didn’t have proof. I was certain they were feeding him information on my location so he could “randomly” pop up wherever I was going to be. He’d even popped up at the end of the aisle as I was pushing my cart at the grocery store, claiming he’d just popped in for a few items.
He was staying at the inn indefinitely, for Christ’s sake. What could he have possibly needed from the grocery story? They didn’t have mini fridges in any of the rooms.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, he seemed to be winning everyone in town over to his side. The bastard.
Sally was smitten with him, and the whole time we’d been at the diner, he and Ralph had shouted their conversation back and forth for everyone to hear. If he wasn’t making friends, he was telling anyone who listened how he was in town to win the love of his life back. And foolish people that they were, they’d fallen for his charm: hook, line, and sinker.
Hell, even Ms. McClintock, the ornery old lady, had fallen under his spell. And that woman wasn’t nice to anyone.
I didn’t understand it. It wasn’t like he belonged. Not really, anyway. His stay was temporary. Hope Valley wasn’t his home. It was back in Nashville, along with the career and fame he’d chosen over me. How was it that he could fool so many people so easily into thinking he was Prince Charming, coming to rescue the damsel in distress?
Even Tortellini was still pining for him!
It wasn’t fair, and it was really starting to piss me off. Which was a bad frame of mind for me to be in when I pulled up to my house after rehearsal and spotted his truck sitting in my driveway like it belonged there.
I pulled in beside it—at least he’d had the forethought to park on the side farthest from the front door—slammed on my brake, and shut my car off. “You’vegotto be kidding me,” I hissed as I glared, shooting daggers at the top-of-the-line Chevy in my driveway.
He wasn’t sitting in the driver’s seat, and he wasn’t on my porch. Which could only mean one thing.
I growled under my breath as I snatched my purse from the passenger seat and threw the door open.
