him of someone. The beautiful princess, who so desperately needed the reluctant ogre’s help, reminded him of someone, too.
He had refilled her wineglass several times, and when the final song, “A Night for Us,” came on, it made her bold.
“Dance with me,” she whispered. “There’s nothing in the living room. The wax is dry. It makes for a perfect dance floor.”
“I’m not much of a dancer.” He had to stop this nonsense before he created a problem worse than the one she was running from.
“I love to dance,” she said.
“Did you dance with him? With your fiancé?”
She smiled, a touch wryly. “No. He hated dancing. I don’t think we ever danced together. Once, I bought tickets to a ball. They were very expensive. He said he would go, but then he was conveniently ill that night.”
Jefferson contemplated that. If you loved a woman and you knew she liked something, was it not part of what you had signed up for—to put yourself out a bit?
“What did you love about him?” he asked. He wished he could take the words back. Why did he want to know?
She sighed and took the last sip of her wine. “Looking back on it now? It’s more like I selected a candidate than fell in love.”
“Selected a candidate?”
“I wanted the things I lost when my father abandoned our family. I wanted to feel secure and safe. Now, I’m not so sure what that has to do with love.”
Jefferson felt a shiver along his spine. Why would she know more about love now than she had then?
“It seems to me,” she said softly, “maybe love is a leap into the unknown rather than retreat into the known.”
This was not going well, Jefferson thought. He was sitting out on his deck on a star-studded night, discussing love with a beautiful, beautiful woman.
The well-known female vocalist’s voice soared out over the lake. It seemed to mingle with the stars and the warmth of the summer breeze.
“‘We have come through every valley, we have come through every plight,
“‘Let me take your hand and show you the magic of the night...’”
Jefferson did the worst possible thing. He needed to avoid this discussion. At the same time he felt a deep, masculine desire to show her he was a better man than Harry.
In his haste to do both, he held out his hand to her. He said to her, his voice a hoarse whisper, “Let’s dance.”
He realized, too late, he had just taken that great leap into the unknown.
ANGIE DID THE worst possible thing. Even though she had instigated this, even though she knew Jefferson had asked her to dance because he felt sorry for her that Harry had been such a boob on the subject, even though she knew it was moving them toward uncharted territory, she put her hand in Jefferson’s.
She let him lead her into the house. With the doors of the living room folded open to the night, they swayed together to the hopelessly romantic music. She gazed upon the face she had become so fond of and contemplated what she had revealed, not just to Jefferson, but to herself, about the nature of her and Harry’s relationship.
She hadn’t loved Harry. She had picked him as the most likely to give her the life she had wanted ever since her father had walked out the door with hardly a glance back.
She knew that now. She had not known it then.
She thought about why she knew it now when she had not known it then. Because now she had eaten ice cream during a storm. Now she had chased a man with a spider, the air ringing with their laughter. Now, she had stood under a waterfall. And squealed as a slippery fish had landed in their boat. Now she had watched Wreck and Me under the stars.
Now, she was dancing in an empty room with no one watching.
She stared up at Jefferson and drank in the face that had become so familiar to her. She felt the heat of his body and the strength of it where it was pressed into her.
It occurred to Angie exactly why she knew now that she had not fallen in love with Harry when she had not known it before, even when he left her.
She stopped dancing.
Jefferson stopped dancing.
“Would you like to come to a real dance with me?” he asked. “The town is having a fund-raiser in Hailey’s memory.”
She knew it would be craziness to say yes.
“It’s going to be very hard for me to go alone.”
Which made it impossible to say no.
“It’s called A Black Tie Affair.”
There was her excuse. She did not have a single thing to wear to a function called A Black Tie Affair.
She started to say it and then snapped her mouth shut.
That was the Angie she had been, before. Before she had driven down that long and winding road and knocked on the door that had led her to this man. To Jefferson.
That was the Angie who had been afraid of everything. Even before she had been stalked she had played it safe, tried to arrange a life that would make her feel comfortable and secure.
Playing it safe, she realized, had not gotten her one single thing that she wanted. The exact opposite was probably true.
“I’d love to go to the dance with you,” she said.
“It’s on Saturday.”
“What day is it today?”
“I have to think about it,” he said wryly. “I’ve lost track of time. Tuesday. Today’s Tuesday.”
She broke away from him. “That’s only four days away. And the photographer from the magazine is coming on Monday. I have a great deal to do.”
Not being swayed by the bemusement in his eyes, she fled from Jefferson and went up the stairs to her room.
She knew she should say no to going to the dance, but she could not. She sat down and did a sketch, and stared at it.
It was even more beautiful than the wedding dress she had designed. It had a strap over one shoulder, the other shoulder bare. The upper portion of the dress, bodice to waist, was fitted. And then it flared out in a cloud of whimsy. She had only a few days.
It occurred to her she really did only have a few days. It had been their agreement that she would leave after the photographer came. Her job here would be done. Her time here.
But she felt as she had
