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“It’s only fifteen days till Christmas, and Miss Hawkins says tomorrow it’ll be fourteen and that’s just two weeks.”
“I guess that means one from fifteen is fourteen.”
“Yeah?” Jack’s eyes went wide. “Okay. So it’s Christmas in two weeks, and Grandma says that time flies, so it’s practically Christmas now.”
“Practically.” Brody stopped the truck in front of the old three-story farmhouse. Eventually he’d have the whole thing rehabbed. Maybe by the time he was eligible for social security.
“So okay, if it’s almost practically Christmas, can I have a present?”
“Hmm.” Brody pursed his lips, wrinkled his brow and appeared to give this due consideration. “You know, Jacks, that was good. That was a really good one. No.”
“Aw.”
“Aw,” Brody echoed in the same sorrowful tone. Then he laughed and snatched his son off the seat. “But if you give me a hug, I’ll make O’Connell’s Amazing Magic Pizza for dinner.”
“Okay!” Jack wrapped his arms around his father’s neck.
And Brody was home.
Chapter Two
“Nervous?” Spencer Kimball watched his daughter pour a cup of coffee. She looked flawless, he thought. Her mass of curling hair was tied neatly into a tail that streamed down her back. Her stone-gray jacket and trousers were trim and tailored in an understated chic he sometimes thought she’d been born with. Her face—Lord, she looked like her mother—was composed.
Yes, she looked flawless, and lovely. And grown up. Why was it so hard to see his babies grown?
“Why should I be nervous? More coffee?”
“Yeah, thanks. It’s D-Day,” he added when she topped off his cup. “Deed Day. In a couple hours, you’ll be a property owner, with all the joys and frustrations that entails.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” She sat to nibble on the half bagel she’d toasted for breakfast. “I’ve thought it all through very carefully.”
“You always do.”
“Mmm. I know it’s a risk using so much of my savings, and a good portion of my trust fund in this investment. But I’m financially sound and I know I can handle the projected expenses over the next five years.”
He nodded, watching her face. “You have your mother’s business sense.”
“I like to think so. I also like to think I’ll have your skill for teaching. After all, I’m an artist, who comes from two people who are artists. And the little bit of teaching I did in New York gave me a taste for it.” She picked up the cream, added a little more to her coffee. “I’m establishing my business in my hometown, where I have solid contacts with the community.”
“Absolutely true.”
She set the bagel aside and picked up her coffee. “The Kimball name is respected here, and my name is respected in dance circles. I’ve studied dance for twenty years, sweated and ached my way through thousands of hours of instructions. I should have learned more than how to execute a clean tour jeté.”
“Without question.”
She sighed. There was no fooling her father. He knew her inside and out. He was all that was solid, she thought, all that was steady. “Okay. You know how you get butterflies in your stomach?”
“Yeah.”
“Mine are frogs. Big, fat, hopping frogs. I wasn’t this nervous before my first professional solo.”
“Because you never doubted your talent. This is new ground, honey.” He laid a hand over hers. “You’re entitled to the frogs. Fact is, I’d worry about you if you didn’t have the jumps.”
“You’re also worried I’m making a big mistake.”
“No, not a mistake.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I’ve got some concerns—and a father’s entitled to the jumps, too—that in a few months you might miss performing. Miss the company and the life you built. Part of me wishes you’d waited a bit longer before making such a big commitment. And the other part’s just happy to have you home again.”
“Well, tell your frogs to settle down. Once I make a commitment, I keep it.”
“I know.”
That was one of the things that concerned him, but he wasn’t going to say that.
She picked up her bagel again, grinning a little. She knew just how to distract him. “So, tell me about the plans to remodel the kitchen.”
He winced, his handsome face looking pained. “I’m not getting into it.” As he glanced around the room he raked a hand through his hair so the gold and silver of it tangled. “Your mother’s got this bug over a full redo here. New this, new that, and Brody O’Connell’s aiding and abetting. What’s wrong with the kitchen?”
“Maybe it has something to do with the fact it hasn’t been remodeled in twenty-odd years?”
“So what’s your point?” Spencer gestured with his coffee cup. “It’s great. It’s perfectly comfortable. But then he had to go and show her sample books.”
Her lips twitched at the betrayal in her father’s voice, but she spoke with sober sympathy. “The dog.”
“And they’re talking about bow and bay windows. We’ve got a window.” He gestured to the one over the sink. “It’s fine. You can look through it all you want. I tell you, that boy has seduced my wife with promises of solid surface countertops and oak trim.”
“Oak trim, hmm. Very sexy.” Laughing, she propped an elbow on the table. “Tell me about O’Connell.”
“He does good work. But that doesn’t mean he should come tear up my kitchen.”
“Has he lived in the area long?”
“Grew up not far from here. His father’s Ace Plumbing. Brody left when he was about twenty. Went down to D.C. Worked construction.”
All right, Kate thought. She’d have to pry if that was all she could shake loose. “I heard he has a little boy.”
“Yeah, Jack. A real pistol. Brody’s wife died several years ago. Cancer of some kind, I think. My impression is he wanted to raise his son closer to family. Been back about a year, I guess. He’s established a nice business, with a reputation for quality work. He’ll do a good job for you.”
“If I decide to hire him.”
She wondered what he looked like in a tool belt, then reminded herself that was not only not the kind of question a woman should ask her doting father, but also one that had nothing to do with establishing a business relationship.
But she bet he looked just fine.
It was done. The frogs in her stomach were still pretty lively, but she was now the owner of a big, beautiful, dilapidated building in the pretty college town of Shepherdstown, West Virginia.
A building that was a short walk from the house where she’d grown up, from her mother’s toy shop, from the university where her father taught.
She was surrounded by family, friends and neighbors.
Oh God.
Everyone knew her—and everyone would be watching to see if she pulled it off, stuck it out, or fell flat on her face. Why hadn’t she opened her school in Utah or New Mexico or someplace she was anonymous, somewhere with no expectations hovering over her?
And that, she reminded herself, was just stupid. She was establishing her school here because it was home. Home, Kate thought, was exactly where she wanted to be.
There would be no falling, flat or otherwise, Kate promised herself as she parked her car. She would succeed because she would personally oversee every detail. She would take each upcoming step the way she’d taken all the others that had led here. Carefully, meticulously. And she would work like a Trojan to see it through.
She wouldn’t disappoint her parents.
The important thing was that the property was now hers—and the bank’s—and that those next steps could be taken.
She walked up the steps—her steps—crossed the short, slightly sagging porch and unlocked the door to her future.
It smelled of dust and cobwebs.
That would change. Oh, yes, she told herself as she set her bag and keys aside. That would begin to change very soon. In short order, the air would smell of sawdust and fresh paint and the sweat of a working crew.
She just had to hire the crew.
She started to cross the floor, just to hear her footsteps echo, and saw the little portable stereo in the center of the room. Baffled, she hurried to it, picked up the card set on top of the machine and grinned at her mother’s handwriting.
She ripped open the envelope and took out the card fronted with a lovely painting of a ballerina at the barre.
Congratulations, Katie!
Here’s a small housewarming gift so you’ll always have music.
Love, Mom, Dad and Brandon
“Oh, you guys. You just never let me down.” A little teary-eyed, she crouched and turned the stereo on.
It was one of her father’s compositions, and one of her favorites. She remembered how thrilled, and how proud she had been, when she had danced to it the first time on stage in New York.
Kimball dancing to Kimball, she thought, and shrugged out of her coat, kicked off her shoes.
Slow at first—a long extension. The muscles tremble, but hold, and hold. A bend at the knee to change the line. Turning, beat by beat.
Lower. A gentle series of pirouettes, fluid rather than sharp.
She moved around the dingy room, sliding into the well-remembered steps. Music swelled into the space, into her mind, into her body.
Building now, from romance toward passion. Arabesque, quick, light triple pirouette and into ballottes.
The joy of it rushed into her. The confining band flew out of her hair. Grande jeté. And again. Again. Feel like you could fly forever. Look like you can.
End it with flair, with joy, in a fast rush of fouetté turns. Then set! Snap like a statue, one arm up, one back.
“I guess I’m supposed to throw roses, but I don’t have any on me.”
Her breath was already coming fast, and she nearly lost it completely as the statement shoved her out of dance mode. She pressed a hand to her speeding heart, and panting lightly, stared at Brody.
He stood just inside the door, hands in his pockets and a toolbox at his feet.
“You can owe me,” she managed to say. “I like red ones. God, you scared the life out of me.”
“Sorry. Your door wasn’t locked, and you didn’t hear me knock.” Or wouldn’t have, he decided, if he’d thought to knock.
But when he’d seen her through the window, he hadn’t thought at all. He’d just walked in, dazzled. A woman who looked like that, who moved like that, was bound to dazzle a man. He imagined she knew it.
“It’s all right.” She turned and walked over to turn down the music. “I was initiating the place. Though the dance looks better with the costumes and lights. So.” She pushed at her tumbled hair, willing her speeding heart to settle. “What can I do for you, Mr. O’Connell?”
He walked toward her, stopping to pick up her hair band. “You lost this during a spin.”
“Thanks.” She tucked it into her pocket.
He wished she’d pulled her hair back into it. He didn’t care for his reaction to the way she looked just now, flushed and tousled and…available. “I get the feeling you weren’t expecting me.”
“No, but I don’t mind the unexpected.” Especially, she thought, when it comes with fabulous green eyes and a sexy little scowl.
“Your mother asked me to come by, take a look at the place.”
“Ah. You’re another housewarming present.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing.” She angled her head. Dancers, she mused, knew as much about body language as a psychiatrist. His was stiff, just a little defensive. And he was certainly careful to keep a good, safe distance between them. “Do I make you nervous, O’Connell, or just annoy you?”
“I don’t know you well enough to be nervous or annoyed.”
“Want to?”
His belly muscles quivered. “Look, Ms. Kimball—”
“All right, don’t get huffy.” She waved him off. A pity, she thought. She preferred being direct, and he, obviously, didn’t. “I find you attractive, and I got the impression you were interested, initially. My mistake.”
“You make a habit of coming on to strange men in your mother’s toy store?”
She blinked, a quick flicker of temper and hurt. Then she shrugged. “Oh, well. Ouch.”
“Sorry.” Disgusted with himself, he held up both hands. “Way out of line. Maybe you do annoy me after all. Not your fault. I’m out of practice when it comes to…aggressive women. Let’s just say I’m not in the market for any entanglements right now.”
“This is a blow—I’d already picked the band for the wedding, but I expect I’ll recover.”
His lips curved. “Oh, well. Ouch.”
He had a great smile when he used it, Kate thought. It was a damn shame he was so stingy with it where she was concerned. “Now that we have all that out of the way. What do you think?” She spread her arms to encompass the room.
Since here he was on solid ground, Brody relaxed. “It’s a great old place. Lots of atmosphere and potential. Solid foundation. Built to last.”
