His promise shivered down her spine, and she had to remind herself that they were talking about a business proposition. Nothing more. Rye Harmon would never be anything more to her. He couldn’t be. Their past and their future made anything else impossible.
Chapter Three
T
hree days later, Kat was back in the studio office, sorting through a stack of papers. Rye was working in the bathroom, replacing the insides of the running toilets. The occasional clank of metal against porcelain created an offbeat music for Kat’s work.
She’d been productive all morning long. That was after seeing Jenny off to school, ignoring the child’s demands for sugar on her corn flakes, an extra sparkling ribbon for her hair and a stuffed animal to keep her company throughout the day. Kat had a plan—to bring order to Jenny’s life—and she was going to stick with it. If it took Jenny another day or week or month to get on board, it was just going to take that long.
Not that Kat had any intention of still being in Eden Falls in a month.
That morning, Susan had driven her to the studio. When her mother had put the car in Park and taken off her own seat belt, Kat had practically squawked. “You have to get back to Daddy!”
“I can stay away for an hour,” Susan had said. “Let me help you here.”
“I’m fine! Seriously. There’s hardly anything left for me to do.” Susan had looked doubtful, until Kat added, “I just want to have a quiet morning. Maybe do a few exercises. You know, I need to keep in shape.” Kat was desperate to keep her mother from seeing the devastation inside the studio. “Please, Mama. The whole reason I’m here in Eden Falls is so that you can rest. Take advantage of me while you can. Relax a little. Go back home and make yourself a cup of that peach tea you like so much.”
“I
did
want to get your father sitting up for the rest of the morning. He’s feeling so much stronger now that he’s getting his sleep.”
“Perfect!” Kat had said, letting some of her real pleasure color the word. If her father was recovering, then it was worth all the little struggles to get Jenny in line. “Go home. I’ll call Amanda to pick me up when I’m done here.”
Susan had smiled then. “My little general,” she said, patting Kat’s hand fondly. “You’ve got a plan for everything, don’t you?”
Planning. That was Kat’s strong suit. Over the weekend, she had written up a list of everything that had to be done at the studio, from computer repair to roofing. She had placed her initials beside each item that she was taking charge of, and she’d dashed off Rye’s initials next to his responsibilities. A few items—like the computer—needed to be outsourced, but she would take care of them one by one, doing her best to support the Eden Falls economy.
Goals. Strategies. Rules.
Those were the words that had brought her great success over the years. Sure, as a young girl, miles away from home in New York, she had wondered how she would ever succeed at National Ballet. But she had built her own structure, given her life solid bones—and she had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.
Okay. Not her wildest dreams. Some of her dreams were pretty wild—she saw herself dancing the tortured maiden Giselle, the girl who died when her love was spurned by the handsome Prince Albrecht. Or the playful animation of the wooden-doll-come-to-life in
Coppelia
. Or the soul-wrenching dual roles of the black and white swans in
Swan Lake
.
All in due time, Kat told herself. As soon as she was out of her hated walking boot, she would exercise like a demon. She would get herself back in top dancing form in no time, transform her body into a more efficient tool than it had been before her injury. Goals. Strategies. Rules.
She could do it. She always had before.
Just thinking about her favorite roles made her long for the National Ballet Company. She hadn’t spent more than a weekend away from her ballet friends since moving to New York ten years before. Sitting down at the desk in the office, Kat punched in Haley’s phone number. Her roommate picked up on the third ring.
“Tell me that they’re making you work like dogs, and I’m impossibly lucky to be trapped here in Small Town Hell,” Kat said without preamble.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Haley responded with a mocking tone of wide-eyed wonder. “The company has been treating us to champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. Free mani-pedis, and hot stone massages for all.”
“I hate you,” Kat said, laughing.
“How are things on the home front?”
“Well, the good news is that my father seems to be doing better.”
“I know you well enough to read
that
tone of voice. What’s the bad news?”
Where to start? Kat could say that her niece was a brat. That her sister was a lazy, irresponsible waste of an excuse for a grown woman. That the dance studio was falling down around her ears.
Or she could step back and make herself laugh at the mess she’d volunteered to put right. Squaring her shoulders, she chose the latter route. “There’s not a single coffee cart on one corner in all of Eden Falls. And they’ve never heard of an all-night drugstore.”
Haley laughed. “I’d send you a care package, but you’ll probably be gone by the time it could get there. Any sign of the prodigal daughter?”
“Rachel? Not a hint. As near as I can tell, she actually took off about three months ago.”
“Ouch. You guys really
don’t
talk to each other, do you? But didn’t your mother just tell you last week?”
“Exactly,” Kat said grimly, not bothering to recite the hundreds of reasons she didn’t keep in touch with her sister. “Mama didn’t want to worry me, or so she says.” Kat wouldn’t have worried about Rachel. Not for one single, solitary second. Getting
enraged
with her, now that was something else entirely….
“Do they have any idea where she is?”
“She sends my niece postcards. The last one arrived two weeks ago, from New Orleans. A picture of a fan dancer on the front, and postage due.”
Haley clicked her tongue. “She really is a piece of work, isn’t she?”
Kat sighed. “The thing is, I don’t even care what she does with her own life. I just hate seeing the effect it has on my parents. And Jenny, too. She’s not a bad kid, but she hasn’t had any structure in her life for so long that she doesn’t even know
how
to be good.”
“How much longer are you staying?”
That was the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, wasn’t it? “I’m not sure. At first, I thought that I could only stand a week here, at most.”
“But now?”
“Now I’m realizing that there’s more work to take care of than I thought there was. Mama’s dance studio has been a bit…ignored since Daddy got sick.”
“I thought your sister was taking care of all that.”
“I’ll give you a moment, to think about the logic of that statement.” Over the years, Kat had vented to Haley plenty of times about Rachel. “I’ve got my goals in place, though. Rye should be able to get everything pulled together in another week or so. Ten days at most.”
“Rye?” There were a hundred questions pumped into the single syllable and more than one blatantly indecent suggestion. Kat’s heart pounded harder, and she glanced toward the hallway where Rye was working.
“Don’t I wish,” Kat said, doing her best to sound bored. Haley had been intent on making Kat forget about her disastrous relationship with Adam; her roommate had even threatened to set up an online dating profile for her. Haley would be head over heels with the
idea
of Rye Harmon, even though she’d never met the guy. Trying to seem breezy and dismissive, Kat said, “Just one of the locals. A handyman.”
But that wasn’t the truth. Not exactly. Rye had driven down from Richmond that morning, to take care of the studio’s plumbing. And he wasn’t just a handyman—he was a contractor. A contractor who was taking her project quite seriously…
“Mmm,” Haley said. “Does he have any power tools?”
“Haley!” Kat squawked at the suggestive tone.
“Fine. If you’re not going to share any intimate details, then I’m going to head out for Master Class.”
A jolt of longing shot through Kat, and she glared at the paneled wall of the studio office. She had really been looking forward to the six-week Master Class session taught by one of Russia’s most prominent ballerinas. She pushed down her disappointment, though. It didn’t have anything to do with her being trapped here in Virginia. In fact, she would have felt even worse to be out of commission in New York, completely surrounded by an ideal that she couldn’t achieve.
“I want to hear all about it!” she said, and she almost sounded enthusiastic for her friend.
“Every word,” Haley vowed. They promised to talk later in the week, and Kat cradled the phone.
Her conversation with Haley had left her restless, painfully aware of everything she was missing back home. She wanted to dance. Or at least stretch out at the barre.
But there was other work to complete first. She sighed and sat at the desk, which was still overflowing with coffee-stained papers. Even if Rachel
had
maintained perfect records, they’d be impossible to locate in this blizzard. Tightening her core muscles, Kat got to work.
Two hours later, she could see clear physical evidence of her hard labor. Raising her chin, Kat clutched the last pile of sorted papers, tapping the edges against the glass surface of the newly cleaned desk. Pens stood at attention in a plastic cylinder. Paper clips were corralled in a circular dish. A stapler and a tape dispenser toed the line, ready to do service. The entire office smelled of lemon and ammonia—sharp, clean smells that spurred Kat toward accomplishing even more of her goals.
Next up: the computer. She had to find out if any of the files could be salvaged, if there was any way to access the hard drive and its list of classes, of students.
She frowned as she glanced at her watch. She could call Amanda and ask for a ride to the tiny computer shop on Main Street. But she was pretty sure Amanda was taking an accounting class over at the community college, taking advantage of her flexible teaching schedule. There was Susan, of course, but Kat wasn’t certain that she could deflect her mother again. Susan would almost definitely insist on coming into the studio, and then she’d discover the water damage, the plumbing problems, the utter chaos that Rachel had left behind.
Not to mention the bank account. Kat still dreaded stopping by the bank on Water Street, finding out just how short the studio’s account really was.
She sighed. She’d been cleaning up after her sister for twenty-four years. It never got any easier.
Well, there
was
another option for dealing with the computer. There was an able-bodied man working just down the hall. An able-bodied man with a shining silver pickup truck. Firming her resolve, Kat marched down to the bathroom.
She found Rye in the second stall, wedged into an awkward position between the toilet and the wall. He was shaking his head as she entered, and she was pretty sure that the words he was muttering would not be fit for little Jenny’s ears—or the ears of any Morehouse Dance Academy students, either. He scowled down at the water cutoff with a ferocity that should have shocked the chrome into immediate obedience.
“Oh!” Kat said in surprise. “I’ll come back later.”
Rye pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t usually sound like a sailor while I work.”
“Some jobs require strong language,” Kat said, quoting one of the stagehands at the National. “Seriously, I’ll let you get back to that. It was nothing important. I’m sorry I interrupted.”
“I’ll always welcome an interruption from you.”
There was that blush again. Rye could honestly say that he hadn’t been trying to sweet-talk Kat; he had just spoken the truth, the first thing that came to mind.
That rosy tint on her cheeks, though, made her look like she was a kid. The ice princess ballerina melted away so quickly, leaving behind the girl who had been such an eager dancer, such an enthusiastic artist. He wondered what they had taught her at that fancy high school in New York City. How had they channeled her spirit, cutting off her sense of humor, her spirit of adventure? Because the Kat Morehouse he had known had been quiet, determined, focused. But she had known how to laugh.
This Kat Morehouse looked like she had all the cares of the world balanced on her elegant shoulders. He was pleased that he had made her blush again. Maybe he could even make her smile. A smile would make the whole day worthwhile, balance out the drive down from Richmond, the day spent away from Harmon Contracting business.
“What’s up?” he asked, climbing to his feet. The flange was frozen shut. He was going to have to turn the water off at its source, then cut out the difficult piece.
She cleared her throat. It was obviously difficult for her to say whatever she was thinking. “I just wondered if you could drive me down to Main Street. I need to take in the computer, to see if they can salvage anything from the hard drive.”
Huh. Why should it be so difficult for her to ask a favor? Didn’t people help each other out, up in New York? He fished in his pocket and pulled out his key ring. “Here. Take the truck. That’ll give me a chance to talk to this thing the way I really need to.”
Kat backed away as if he were handing her a live snake. She knew he didn’t mean anything by the casual offer of the keys. He wasn’t trying to make her feel uncomfortable, abnormal. But as the fluorescent light glinted off the brass keys, all she could hear was Jenny’s querulous voice asking, “But why
can’t
Aunt Kat drive?”