“I’m…”
“Bethany Renwick.”
He knew my name. I was every high school girl with a crush on the big, beautiful quarterback. Every woman who adored someone so out of her league she didn’t have a chance, but I was going to enjoy every minute of this dance, every twirl and the heat from his hand against my lower back, the smile he pointed at me.
“I asked Esther,” he explained.
He asked about me. Swooning in the most traditional, need-a-chaise-to-fall-on sense was a very real possibility. All I could manage was an, “Oh,” as heat filled my cheeks and my stomach gave a slow roll.
When the music stopped, and the dance ended, he didn’t let go right away, didn’t turn and run like this was a sympathy dance or something someone had dared him to do. He held on. Looked down at me. Smiled. It was glorious. One of my top ten life moments.
Until he lifted my hand, brought it to his lips so he could press a kiss against my knuckles, then he moved back, smiled, and walked away.
Walked.
Away.
Damn it.
But when I looked up, the crowd was clapping, and I stupidly thought they were clapping because of our dance. I bowed, facing the tables, smiling like I was the belle of the ball. But they were all looking at the dais behind me where the head table had been set and the speaker’s podium divided one side from the other. I knew the format because I’d set it up, but every banquet in every town all over the world that required speeches used the same setup.
I turned and there he was, my mountain man dancer, standing at the podium. He looked out at the crowd. “Thank you all for coming here tonight.” His mouth twitched and he looked down at the podium for a few seconds. “My daughter was four when she was diagnosed with…” He paused and sniffed. This was heart wrenching because his pain was visible and audible and on display for a room full of people. “Neuroblastoma. Childhood cancer isn’t rare. Isn’t kind.”
Voices all around me murmured and whispered things like, “Tragedy,” and, “hides in the woods,” and “lost his entire family, the wife, the boy, his little girl.”
No wonder he was gruff and unruly. My heart ached for all he’d been through, and I only knew the barest of details. And oh, Lord, how badly I’d treated him.
I waited until he came off the dais after asking people to be generous, to help them raise the money for more research, more treatments, more doctors to do the work, then I walked over to the edge of the dais where he was shaking hands with a woman who looked like she wanted to crawl inside his tuxedo with him.
Didn’t that make two of us?
When he turned to look at me, he smiled. Before I could stop the words, they spilled out. “I’m an ass.”
He smiled and once again, his natural handsomeness shined through. “You’re beautiful.” The grin was almost more than I could resist, and when combined with those particular words, it was a damned miracle I didn’t drag him to the nearest table and throw him on it to have my wicked way, spectators or not.
“I’m sorry I was so horrible to you,” I blurted. I really was. I’d pushed him into the lake.
My smile was in reaction to how he was looking at me, in contrast to my apology. Smoldering was probably a better description for him. Declan was one gorgeous man, and I didn’t know how I didn’t see it before. I wasn’t usually one who needed fancy clothes and hundred-dollar haircuts to see the beauty in another person.
He leaned in, so I got a whiff of his cologne, and it intoxicated me. “Maybe we can find a way for you to make it up to me.” He pulled the corner of his lower lip between his teeth. “Dinner, maybe?”
“I eat dinner.” Any finesse I had in the situation was lost. I was a trainwreck. I shook my head, needing to get some sort of control over my brain so that it resumed cooperation with my mouth. “I mean, I would love to eat dinner.” Not better. Not even a little bit. “With you.”
And like he was Brad Pitt, he reached to brush a tendril of hair behind my ear then leaned in again and this time, kissed my cheek. “I’ll find you.”
“I won’t be hiding.” I was proud of my reply.
He moved away, out of my line of vision, and a burst of heat bloomed through me, making my body lighter as Esther took the stage. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fascinator Society would like to officially thank you for coming to join us here this evening. This year has been a tough one and we are so happy that we could find a way to all come together and raise money for such a worthy cause. The loss of children is never easy, never necessary and the Fascinator Society is dedicated to helping put an end to childhood cancer. No parent should ever have to bury their child.” She put her hands together as if ready to pray. “From our lips…”
After a moment, she looked up again and a spotlight shone on me. I looked around. Why? Why were they doing this? Then I waved. Like a dork. Like Queen of the Dorks. I needed a dorky crown.
“This event would not have been possible without the expertise and professionalism of Bethany Renwick. She put this whole thing together.” That wasn’t quite true, but I wasn’t about to correct her in front of a room full of donors to her cause. “Please, help me invite Bethany to take her place in the Fascinator Society.”
The crowd stood and clapped, and I nodded like this wasn’t the biggest surprise in my life to date.
I beamed as River, Tabi, and the other girls hooted and cheered. I’d begun to feel like I was a part of their group, but now it was official. I was a Fascinator.
The ball ended without much fanfare and wherever Declan went after our talk, I didn’t see him again. But I was mercifully busy, so I didn’t have a whole lot of time to be sad about it.
