“Coincidence. I’ve got business. Selling my father’s firm. And looking for a town house.”
“Selling your father’s … Oh, God. I heard about your dad. I’m so sorry.” He’d passed away two years ago, and she’d meant to write Nate.
“Thanks,” he said as if it were nothing, but then his jaw tensed.
Shannon wouldn’t have noticed if she hadn’t been staring so rudely. “Did something happen to your house in Gramercy?”
“My mom sold it. She’s living in Tel Aviv now. Got remarried. She’s working at the university there.”
“That’s quite a few major changes.”
“Not really. You Fitzgeralds are amazingly stable, that’s all. What, it’s only you and Brady still living in that huge brownstone?”
“And the parents.”
“Uh, sorry to interrupt,” Danny said. “I’m going to see if I can get Megan to dance with me.” He poked Nate in the chest. “You can tell the Princess here all about your adventures. And the good news.”
Shannon watched her brother dive into the heart of the crowd.
“So they still call you ‘Princess’?”
She looked back at Nate with a sigh. “I’ve given up trying to make them stop. They’re horrible, all of them. I can’t imagine why you still like Danny.”
Nate touched the back of her arm, and it jolted her like a static charge. “Every one of your brothers would throw themselves on a sword for you.”
“When?” she asked.
He laughed, and it was so much deeper than when he’d been eighteen. She looked at him again. “How’s your sister?”
“Married. With a kid. A little girl. They live in Montauk.”
“Good for her.”
Nate looked at the dance floor, his hand still on her arm. “You want to give it a go?”
She hadn’t danced yet, and since the set was now modern music instead of traditional Irish dance, she smiled. “I’d love to.” Nodding at a beer mug on the closest table, she said, “Your table?”
He slipped her purse from her fingers and put it next to the mug. “It is now.” Then he led her to a corner where they had some chance of not getting an elbow in the ribs.
Shannon liked the song, although she never gave it a thought outside of weddings or elevators, but the beat was good, and she was feeling fine. Happy. She’d recruited Ariel, been completely surprised by Nate and no one had asked her to sing or do any step dancing. It had been part of her repertoire as a young girl, but she’d let it go when she entered high school. Sadly, the family hadn’t.
She moved to the music, got her rhythm then smiled at Nate. Ten seconds later, it was all she could do not to burst out laughing.
He was awful. The kind of awful that had to be genetic because no one would choose to dance that way. None of his limbs seemed connected to any of his other limbs, and what was he doing with his head?
She squeaked as she held her smile in place, and he was grinning right back at her as if he owned the whole dance floor.
Danny and Megan swung close by and Danny, her complete ass of a brother, slugged Nate in the shoulder, laughing so hard he had to stop everything else. “You are the saddest excuse for a white guy I have ever seen on a dance floor. Jesus, Nate, you look like someone stuck a firecracker up your ass.”
Nate grinned at Danny and kept on doing … whatever it was he was doing. “I am my own man in every way,” he said—no, shouted—then he spun around in an oval. “You don’t recognize true artistic expression, you heathen. Be gone.” He flapped his hand, although it was pretty much what he was doing already.
She laughed. But not because he was a total dork. Because he embraced being a dork. Her hand, she noticed, was over her heart, and despite the music and the utter chaos around her, all she could think was that Nate hadn’t just grown into a really good-looking man, he’d also become completely adorable.
The music stopped, but only for a second, and the next song was faster, wilder, and she let go. By God, she let herself dance as if she were in her bedroom, as if no one were watching. Like Nate.
His laughter hit her as she spun around, and she couldn’t help returning it. They’d earned themselves a nice slice of dance floor, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so free. The song ended too soon, and the two of them fell together to gasp in some much-needed breath.
“That was fantastic,” he said.
“It was.”
“Not a lot of women appreciate my unique style.”
“They’re fools and cretins.”
“Ah, Shannon. You’re too kind.”
“Oh, I’m not. I’m really, really not.”
Another song started, but this one was a slow tune, a romantic number that made her wonder if she should beg off, or …
He slipped his arms around her waist and started moving. Nothing fabulous, but also nothing uniquely styled. She found it easy to put her hands on his shoulders, to let her heartbeat slow.
“Adventures, huh?”
He shook his head a little. Met her gaze. “Of a sort.”
“Danny mentioned you’d gone to help out after the Indonesian tsunami.”
Nate nodded. “I did. I had skills, they needed help.”
“And now?”
“They still need it. A lot of people do. I work for an organization that sends me where I can do some good.”
Someone bumped her from behind, pushing her against Nate’s body from knee to chest. Her first instinct was to put space between them, but there was also something else going on that wasn’t the crowd and certainly wasn’t dancing. There was no way not to look at him, and he was watching her as if they were alone in the room. He’d felt the tension, that was clear. A frisson went through her, and he felt that, too.
Another bump, but this one parted them the way she hadn’t been able to.
He swallowed, glanced around at the crowd, then back at her. “I could use a drink after all that self-expression. Do you mind? Our table’s open. I can get us drinks.”
Thank goodness. She had no idea what the hell was up with those last few moments and she needed some space to get her breath back. “Great. White wine for me, please.”
“Rebel.”
She grinned. “That’s me.”
He walked her to the table
