Page 3 of Slow Waltz
“You already know how to dance.”
“Yeah, Faith too. But there wasn’t anything else interesting on the schedule.” She nodded in Silas’s direction. “Your man seems to know what he’s doing.”
His man. Rhys swallowed. “How did you—”
“The way you two look at each other. It’s obvious, honey.”
“You’re not…upset?”
“Psh. At my age, you stop caring about what other people think.” She patted him on the shoulder. “This class his idea or yours?”
“Mine. He’s…more worldly than me, I guess. He already knows how to waltz.”
“He’s older than you,” Debbie said. She kept turning Rhys around the floor. One, two, three.
“A bit.” That was a lie. More like two millennia.
She nodded. “And European. It’s in the way he carries himself.”
Rhys stepped in time with the music. This woman was perceptive. Either that or they really were as readable as a kid’s picture book. He suspected the latter.
The music swelled, and Scott walked by. “Excellent! But don’t let your posture fall.”
Rhys straightened.
Debbie had also pulled herself up to her full height, which was probably around five foot five. “You met him here?”
“Yeah.”
One, two, three.
She looked wistful for a moment. “Love at first sight?”
He chuckled. This wasn’t so bad after all. “Sounds dumb. But yes.”
“Not at all! Everyone scoffs at it, but you hear about couples all the time. Someone looks across a room andbam!There’s the person they’re going to spend the rest of their life with. And they do.” Everything in her expression was open and joyous.
“It’s happened to you,” Rhys said.
She smiled but didn’t say anything. It was only after several more revolutions that she spoke again. “You haven’t tripped once, you know. Or looked at your feet.”
He hadn’t, and they’d been practicing the entire time. His moves had become smooth and easy, the embarrassment and tension from earlier nothing but a memory. A pang of sadness squeezed his heart. Even when his mother had been alive, he’d never been able to talk to her like he had to Debbie. Life was unfair sometimes. Or wonderful, he couldn’t quite decide which.
Scott clapped again. “Well done, everyone! Time to let you go for lunch. Please try to be back by two thirty, and we’ll learn some finishing moves and variants to the dance.”
They broke apart. Debbie patted him on the arm. “You did well, young man.” Again, she winked. This time, he couldn’t help but smile. “And if he’s good to you, you keep that man.” She eyed Silas as he approached. “He looks like he’s worth the work.”
Debbie left them and joined Faith, and the two women headed in the direction of the self-serve buffet.
“I’m worth the work?” Silas’s breath grazed Rhys’s ear, smoky and rich. A spark of heat settled at the base Rhys’s spine.
“Only if you’re good to me.”
A wicked grin was Silas’s answer. “I’m very good to you.”
Rhys matched Silas’s expression. “Hungry?” He wasn’t talking about food.
“Very.”
