Tomorrow, I’d show up again. And the next day after that. And every day it took to make this town stop betting against me. Because somewhere between a chalkboard sketch and a borrowed dance, I’d started wanting more than courts and clean permits. I wanted Rowan to trust me. I wanted Rowan, period—and I was starting to fall.
CHAPTER 6
ROWAN
Saturday night at The Knotty Tap meant a full house. Raffle buckets lined the bar, pitchers of beer sweated onto cardboard coasters, and a quilt already had half a roll of tickets stuffed into its jar. Music from the stage rolled through the rafters, too loud for easy conversation but not loud enough to hide the undercurrent of laughter, gossip, and applause.
I told myself I’d stay ten minutes. Buy tickets, be seen, and leave. The rules of civic participation were simple. But then I spotted Dane carrying a keg through the side door like it weighed less than a sack of flour, his smile easy under the string lights, and ten minutes didn’t seem like nearly long enough.
He wasn’t showing off. He tapped the keg, clapped a man on the back, then squatted to say something to a little girl clutching a raffle ticket like treasure. He was alive in a way I didn’t know how to handle.
“Rowan!” Sabrina swooped in, radiant in an apron dusted with flour. “Bless you for coming. Twenty tickets?”
“Thirty,” I said before I could stop myself. She beamed, tore strips, and was off again, already charming the next table.
I edged along the wall, content to observe. My job brain catalogued occupancy load and exit width. My other brain—the one I wasn’t sure I wanted to acknowledge—tracked Dane as he moved through the room like sunlight spilling across the floor.
Near the dartboard, Gillian stood with a colorful scarf looped in her hair, chatting animatedly with a cluster of shop owners. Her laugh carried over the music, bright and effortless. I wished I could be more like her, but I had stopped trusting people with my feelings a long time ago. First, when my parents blew our house apart in a messy divorce, then later when a man built me up and let me fall. Planning beat promises. Every single time.
Dane found me by the wall.
“You look like you’re checking fire code,” he said, leaning close enough for his voice to slip through the music.
“I’m timing the raffle,” I said. “Different metric, same principle.”
“Help me with a metric.” His grin tugged sideways. “How many steps from here to the dance floor?”
“Fourteen.” I could tell just by looking.
“Perfect. That’s how far you’re coming with me.”
“I can’t.” My voice was flat.
“Two minutes,” he coaxed. “For the Founders’ Festival.”
Before I could answer, Harvey shuffled up, his cane tapping in rhythm to the music. “Box step, Ms. March. I promised myself one practice tonight. Don’t let me down.”
They were conspiring against me. Dane’s hand closed warm around mine and pulled me into the current of the crowd.
The band shifted into a slow three-count, the same steady rhythm I’d felt in the studio the other night. My feet resisted, but my body remembered. Forward one, collect two, side three. Back one, collect two, side three. Dane’s palm at the small of my back steadied me, and when I dared to glance up, he wasn’t smiling wide for the crowd. He was watching me. Only me.
“You’re better than you think.” His voice was soft and low.
“I’m not here to be graded.”
“I know,” he said. “You’re here to win.”
Something loosened in my chest, dangerous and sweet. He spun me into a turn. I stumbled, caught myself against his shoulder, and felt the solid warmth of him through his flannel. His arm tightened just enough to hold me steady.
“You think too loud,” he murmured.
“I always think loud.”
“I like it.”
Heat climbed my face. I looked up, intending to tell him to stop, but the music caught me mid-breath. For three full counts, I forgot to argue. For three full counts, I let him lead.
The song ended to easy applause, and my pulse refused to settle.
