smoothed the skirt of her dress, a faint flush creeping up her neck.
Dylan feared that at any moment she’d bolt. And who could blame her? You’d think these jokers had never seen a woman before. Not that he was any better. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Uh, would you like to dance?” he asked.
She dipped her head and regarded him through the veil of her lashes. “I’d like that.”
The DJ had just put on R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” Taylor moved into his arms and he rested his hands lightly at her waist, as nervous as he’d ever been back in high school. She felt good, her skin warm beneath the thin fabric of her dress. In high heels, the top of her head was even with his nose and his every breath filled his lungs with the exotic scent of her.
He had the disorienting sensation of being cast back in time to the only other dance they’d shared. They’d been in this same gym, after a football game. He couldn’t remember the song they’d danced to or whether the team had won or lost the game, but he could remember this feeling of sensory overload, of being filled up and over-flowing with the sight and smell and feel of her.
He’d wanted so much to kiss her then, but before he’d even worked up the nerve, the song had ended and she’d moved out of his arms.
“So I hear you’re moving back to Cedar Creek?”
Her voice pulled him back to the present. “Yes. I’m opening a law practice across from the courthouse.” He smiled. “But how did you know that? I’ve only been back in town a day.”
Her own smile was tight, never reaching her eyes. “You know how word gets around in a small town like this.”
Didn’t they both know that—too well? “Troy tells me you’re teaching here at the high school.”
She nodded. “Senior English. I came back three years ago, after a few years teaching in Austin.”
“Funny how you stayed in Texas while I went to California.”
She raised her eyes to meet his. “But now you’re back.”
“Yeah. Now I’m back.”
The song ended and they stopped moving; still arm in arm, they stared into each other’s eyes. He had the feeling she was searching for something, but he didn’t know what.
He thought he’d left all that high school awkwardness behind, but here it was, creeping in again. Grasping at any reason to keep her with him, he nodded toward the buffet table. “Are you hungry? Want to get something to eat?”
“Sure.”
He kept his hand at her back, guiding her through the crowd to the catered buffet. They filled their plates with canapés and cheese cubes, grabbed drinks from the bar and found an unoccupied table and sat. She unfolded a napkin across her lap and studied him. “You look good,” she said. “California must have agreed with you.”
He laughed. “Then looks are deceiving. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.” He took a sip of beer. “It’s good to be back home, where I feel like I belong.”
“Someone said you moved out to your parents’ old place.”
He nodded. “We’ve been renting it out since Mom and Dad died and it’s gotten kind of run-down. My plan is to fix it up again.”
“I heard about the accident after I moved back. I’m so sorry.”
Her voice was soft. Sad. The words more than mere formula. “Thanks.” He spoke around the tightness in his throat that always grabbed him when he thought of his parents. They’d died in a small plane crash in the Rockies when he was in his sophomore year of law school. He hadn’t been back to town since the funeral. Even before then, he’d pretty much left Cedar Creek behind, visiting only on holidays and for a few weeks in the summer. Now he’d moved back, partly because this was where he felt closest to his parents’ memory.
“You really are coming home, aren’t you?”
Her words startled him, as if she’d been reading his thoughts. She sipped her wine. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me. You always seemed so much a part of this place. Whenever I thought of you, I always pictured you here, settled down with a wife and two or three kids.”
So she’d thought of him? The knowledge warmed him. “It took me a few years, but I finally made it back. Without the wife and kids, though.”
“Alyson mentioned you were still single.” She picked a sprig of parsley from her plate and twirled it between her thumb and forefinger.
“I’ll confess I haven’t even come close to tying the knot yet,” he said. “I didn’t see any reason to hurry.”
He tipped the neck of the beer bottle toward her. “What about you?”
She shook her head. “No, I haven’t come close, either.” She glanced at him. “My friends tell me I’m too picky. I tell them I’m holding out for the right man.”
Her words sent a quiver through his stomach. Was she trying to tell him something or was he reading too much into her words? “I never would have thought you’d have ended up staying here,” he said.
She set aside the parsley, avoiding his gaze. “Why is that?”
“I don’t know. You were always so…sophisticated. Cosmopolitan.”
She laughed. “I may have thought I was sophisticated, but I’m sure I wasn’t.”
“Hey, it doesn’t take much to impress a bunch of hicks from the sticks.”
She regarded him through the lacy veil of her lashes. “And were you impressed?”
“Oh, yeah.” He pushed aside his half-filled plate. “I still am.” Seeing her again tonight had made him certain he’d made a big mistake when he’d never kissed her all those years ago. Did he dare try to make up for that now? He leaned toward her. “About what happened back in high school—”
She put her hand over his. “Wait.” She glanced around them. “Could we go somewhere else and talk? Someplace with a little more privacy?”
“Sure.” Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be alone with her.
They moved apart and he followed her toward the door. They passed Alyson Michaels, who stopped in midsentence to stare. Her voice followed them out of the room. “They certainly aren’t wasting any time….”
They stopped outside, on the walkway between the gym and the main building. A few smokers huddled against the side of the gym, swatting at the June bugs that dove at them from the overhead lights. “Where do you want to go?” Dylan asked.
She glanced around them, then nodded toward the main building. “There’s some picnic tables behind the cafeteria. Let’s go there.”
He walked beside her, putting his hand at her back to steady her as she picked her way around the side of the building and across the gravel lot toward a trio of wooden picnic tables in the shadow of a live oak. They sat side by side on a table, feet on the bench, looking back toward the gym. The faint throb of the music drifted to them.
He turned his head to study her. She still had a certain stillness about her, a calm reserve he’d admired from the first day they’d met. “You haven’t told me yet—why did you come back to Cedar Creek?”
“I think…” She stared out into space, silent for so long he thought she’d forgotten the question, then she turned to look at him. “I think I had some unfinished business here.”
He let out the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. So they were finally going to talk about that. “You mean, what happened in high school. All those wild stories.”
She nodded. “I ran away from them, but I never really left them behind.”
He