“Do you have to dance?” Hayes asked. “Isn’t it enough that you rock up at the studio?”
Dane shook his head. “Penn pops his head in occasionally, just to check that I’m trying. As long as I am there, Colt gets to dance.”
“And he’s so good,” Wren said. “Like, he’s seriously talented.”
“Even if he wasn’t, he just loves it so much,” Dane added.
The warmth in Wren’s stomach intensified. How many men would spend a portion of their summer vacation doing something they wouldn’t normally do so that a kid they didn’t know would have the chance to pursue his passion?
He was smart, and sexy, and kind. Up until now, “kind” had never popped up on her romance radar. It might, if she wasn’t careful, become her kryptonite. She was so close to sayingto hell with itand following him home. Then, in tune with her, his thumb drifted over her bare skin, and she shivered. Out of the corner of her eyes, she knew he was looking at her. She had no doubt he knew exactly what she was thinking.
She could just lean sideways and whisper a breathy, “Take me home,” in his ear.
“You’re a better man than I am, dude,” Hayes told him, and clinked his beer bottle against Dane’s.
Should I? Shouldn’t I?
Dane cleared his throat. “I’ve got the time, and it’s not a hardship standing at the back of the class watching Wren move.”
Ah, shit, not helping, Trafford.She looked across the room for a distraction, and her eyes snagged on Cilla, who was looking at her, eyebrows raised and a smirk on her face. The fortune teller drew an imaginary rectangle in the air and hugged herself.
Yeah, yeah, got it. The Lovers Card.
Wren looked up at the ceiling. Admittedly, wanting Dane scared her more than any mistake she’d ever made before…
And thrilled her more than anything had in years.
ChapterNine
Silas Blackwood stood just outside the entrance to the tent full of drunkenness and revelry and pinched the bridge of his nose. There were too many people here, too much noise, and good God, if this is what the living called music these days, they could keep it.
He shuddered as a couple, arms everywhere and tongues down each other’s throats, stumbled through him, looking, he was sure, for a dark place to continue their lascivious behavior. Didn’t anybody have a sense of decorum anymore?
He peeked around the canvas opening and looked across the space to where Dr. Trafford and the dancer sat far too close together. He narrowed his eyes, not seeing his left hand. Could it be… Was it…No!His fingers were scandalously close to her … um …person.
Silas whipped around and wiped his forehead. For the first time in more than one-hundred and sixty years, he wanted to rip his coat and hat off and plunge into the lake. When would these humans, specifically the doctor, stop their tomfoolery and start paying attention to what was important?
Silas’s agitation was more than prudish horror. It was something sharper, something rooted in the memories of the man he’d been.
Dr. Trafford had not returned to work.
Yes, he exercised. He’d read a biography of an Antarctic explorer. He attended those twice-weekly dance classes with alacrity and enthusiasm. He had balanced on that ridiculous floating plank on the lake, and he’d walked the same mountains Silas had as a boy—mountains that, without a rifle or a fishing line, failed to provide entertainment.
But he had not picked up a scalpel and saved anyone. Worse, he seldom thought of saving anyone. He’d forgotten the urgency.
Memories of battle crashed through Silas—the sharp crack of rifles, the thud, then boom, of mortar shells, the relentless wave of wounded men. He barely had time to eat, less to sleep, and respite had never been an option. He either went to work or men died.
He’d been addicted to it, as some men became addicted to morphine. He’d toiled until his hands shook and his head threatened to crack open. Then he’d worked some more. He stayed on the field, treating his men, and when he couldn’t do that, held their hands until they passed.
Too many generations later, he was still here in Solstice Springs, confined to this place, made restless and irritable by Dane’s lack of duty.
His female friends wanted them to have a happily ever after, for Wren to find someone who wouldn’t leave her. But what if the young doctor decided to forgo medicine altogether and devote his life to hiking, laughing, and kissing a woman? Specifically,thiswoman? What if he squandered the opportunity to return to the field, something Silas craved? Silas’s anger hardened.
Because if Dane did not return to the work, what did that say about Silas’s own devotion to the cause? Didn’t it make a mockery of the nights he refused sleep, and dishonored the men he couldn’t save?
Fear sharpened, and Silas knew it was time to intervene, to put an end to the doctor’s madness. Silas straightened his coat and adjusted the angle of his hat. Dr. Trafford would return to work. Remaining idle was no longer an option.
Silas looked around and saw a young man standing quite close to him in the doorway to the tent, his eyes on the dancer. There was naked longing on his face, confusion, and a healthy dose of fear. Silas frowned; he’d never seen him before, so why was he here, and why was he fixated on the dancer?
