Dancing in the Dark

  Dancing In The Dark

  Cheryl St.John

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  Please note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  Copyright © 2019 by Cheryl Ludwigs.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Cover & interior design by Cat & Doxie Author Services

  Created with Vellum

  Dedicated to the memory of Barb Hunt,

  who was an enthusiastic part of this series project from the very beginning.

  You and your characters live on in Spencer and in our hearts.

  She'd wanted to dance, get married and have babies...all she had left was dance.

  He had everything a man could want--except her forgiveness...

  There had been no roadmap for life apart

  Kendra Price had never wanted to be rich, but she’d wanted to be comfortable, which she was. She’d never wanted to be famous, but to live her passion to the fullest and dance, which she did. She’d wanted to marry Dusty, have babies and live happily ever after. It would never happen.

  Dusty Cavanaugh has loved Kendra Price since she walked into the school cafeteria and captured a dozen boyish hearts with the sweep of her stormy gray-green gaze and the lift of her chin. College, marriage, and children had been the plan. But then Dusty made a mistake. He’d had his own baby. Without her.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Dear Reader

  Aspen Gold Series

  About the Author

  Saint or Sinner

  Land of Dreams

  Rain Shadow

  Joes’s WIfe

  A Husband By Any Other Name

  All About The Bundt

  Chapter 1

  Steam rose from the jasmine-scented water in her clawfoot tub while Kendra hung her clothing on hooks, spread the fluffy mat and set a hand towel and her phone on the stainless steel stand.

  She slid down into the water, stopping at her neck, so she didn’t have to fix her hair again. She might want to drive into Spencer for groceries later. The relaxing warmth felt wonderful after her drive up the mountain. Closing her eyes, she imagined the first people she’d see and how long it would take for news of her arrival to spread. It wouldn’t take long for her mother or her sister to learn she was in town. News traveled fast among the regulars.

  She rarely gave herself over to thinking about growing up here, but she’d never severed ties either. Each summer something drew her back. This house that her Aunt Sophie had left to her. The community. Certainly not her mother or sister. Maybe she was just being obstinate and refusing to be run off. Maybe she was a sucker for punishment.

  Her bath had cooled, so she turned on warm water, and it trickled from the vintage faucet. Absently she held one foot under the stream, then the other. She rested her big toe on the side, admiring her red polish, then let the water run over it, playfully attempting to stop the stream with her toe, and getting squirted in the face for her foolishness. “Oh!”

  She attempted to sit and reached for the hand towel, but her toe didn’t budge.

  Startled now, Kendra sat forward awkwardly and turned off the water to survey the situation. She had to bend up her knee to get a look because her toe was stuck in place. She gave a tug, and pain shot through the joint. She pulled again, harder this time, but more slowly. Her toe remained securely stuck in the faucet.

  Panic set in immediately. What was she going to do? Tugging hurt too much to force it loose, and an injury to her foot would be a setback to her career. She rinsed herself off and pulled the rubber plug to let the water drain. No use turning herself into a prune.

  This was a fine how-do-you-do as her Aunt Sophie would have said. Sophie would have had a good laugh over this one. Minutes ticked by. Finally Kendra admitted to herself she was going to have to call for help. Who did she know? No matter how desperate the situation, she wouldn’t call on her poisonous mother or her hateful sister for help. Eying the towels on the chrome rack—so near and yet so far—she pulled the hand towel toward her and dried as best she could, then reached for her phone. Neither of them would have been any help anyway. She needed someone who could get her out of this dilemma, no matter how humiliating.

  She had hired Glen Randall to take care of the monthly maintenance and evaluate the condition of the property after each rental. He had checked everything out before her return, so he knew she was in Spencer. She had no choice—it was going to have to be a man. She scrolled for his number and touched the green call arrow. The phone rang and her stomach fluttered.

  “Glen here,” he answered, out of breath.

  “Glen, it’s Kendra Price,” she said. “I’m afraid I’m in an embarrassing predicament, and I need you to come out right away.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine—”

  “Kendra, I’m at Burnham Memorial right now. My wife’s having a baby this afternoon.”

  “Oh! Well, congratulations.”

  “Thanks. Tell you what. I have a friend I can call. We help each other out when we have emergencies. He won’t mind. I’ll give him a shout right now.”

  “Okay.” She supposed one man finding her naked with goosebumps and stuck in her tub was the same as the next. “Okay, tell him there’s a key under the gnome on the back patio.”

  “You’re not there?”

  “I’m here, but—I’m stuck in the bathroom.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  “And ask him to hurry please.”

  “Will do.”

  She hung up and laid down her phone. Of all the stupid things she could have done. Why this? She gazed longingly at her robe on the hook across the room and imagined a chunky plumber in overalls showing up to find her like this. Now there’d be a new twist to the spreading news of her arrival. Did you hear that other Price girl got stuck in her bathtub out there at her lake house?

  She picked up her phone again and opened her Facebook app. She’d occupy herself scrolling through her newsfeed. Memes of kittens and pictures of dancers didn’t make her feel any more competent or less foolish, but it temporarily took her mind off the impending gossip. How long was it going to take Glen’s friend to get here? A little bored and a lot impatient, she touched her camera icon and took a picture of her foot with her big toe stuck in the faucet. She looked at the image, almost deleted it, and then decided
it might make a good story one day. Back to social media.

  “Handyman!” Twenty-five minutes later a loud knock and the shout startled her. “Hello?”

  Kendra laid down her phone and held the skimpy towel in front of her breasts, not hiding much. “I’m in the bathroom! Down the hallway and to the right!”

  Boots sounded on the wood floor. “Glen Randall called me,” came the shockingly familiar voice from outside the bathroom door. “Said you needed help with something?”

  No. No, her mind was jumping to outrageous predicaments—more outrageous than this one. “Yes, I’m in here. Stuck in the tub unfortunately. As soon as you come in, will you please take the robe from the hook on the wall and toss it to me?”

  The doorknob turned and the door swung open. “You need a robe?”

  This was a predicament all right. Her heart lurched in her chest. She managed to push out a syllable. “Yes.”

  Six-foot-something of broad-shouldered sandy-haired male in a black T-shirt, slim-fitting jeans and workboots filled the opening. The flimsy towel shrunk even more. He had a good look before catching himself and diverting his attention.

  More than embarrassment flooded her. Anger. Humiliation. She hadn’t expected to have a man walk into her bathroom today, but the last person on the entire planet she’d expected to see was Dusty Cavanaugh.

  The years had delivered his boyish handsomeness into dangerous maturity. She’d always envied his bronze complexion. The guy glowed after a day in the sun, while she blistered. His fair hair contrasted with his tanned skin, the ends becomingly lighter. It was short now, neatly styled, but she remembered it long and sun-bleached. “Dusty?”

  “Kendra,” he replied. His aquamarine blue gaze dropped to the hand towel she clutched at her breasts—and then as though remembering what she’d asked, he took a step and reached to grab her robe from its hook. “This pink thing?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  The bathroom was at least ten by ten. Dusty had to take three steps to hand her the robe. Politely he turned away while she fumbled with the covering and the towel. “I heard you’d inherited this place from your aunt.”

  “Half anyway,” she said.

  “So it’s half yours?”

  She got her robe sufficiently wrapped around herself. “No, I bought out Erica’s share.”

  “I wondered about that.”

  “I made sure she didn’t know the buyer was me.”

  “You rent it out, right? I didn’t expect to see you.”

  “I just arrived. I’m teaching at the Holling Campus again this summer. You can turn around now.”

  His turned and his attention went to her toe, stuck in the faucet. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen this before.”

  “I thought you were the operations manager or something at the Lodge.”

  “Chief engineer. All my people were busy when Glen called, so I came myself. How did you manage to do this?”

  “I put my toe in and it stuck. Can you get it free?”

  He knelt and leaned over the side of the tub to inspect her foot. “Does it hurt?”

  “Only when I try to pull it out.”

  “We’ll get it out. I’ll try a couple of things. I’m going out to my truck. Be right back.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  He raised one eyebrow in response and turned away.

  Dusty opened the back of his Dodge Ram and unlocked the tool chest. For the past five—nearly six years Kendra had avoided him, except for the occasional hello. And she had every reason to keep her distance. He didn’t blame her one bit. He was still angry with himself over what had happened between them. But he couldn’t go back in time and change it. He didn’t know if he would even if he could.

  Seeing the way she looked at him carved away another piece of his soul. Never did a day pass that he didn’t think of her. Never a night arrived that he didn’t close his eyes as his head touched the pillow and relive the disappointment on her face when she’d learned the truth. She hadn’t deserved to have her heart broken.

  He placed items he needed in his metal toolbox and carried it inside, taking a more detailed look. He’d spent plenty of time at Sophie’s house as a boy, remembered it well. It looked like a different place with overstuffed colorful furniture, glowing wood pieces and refinished wood floors. An enormous colorful painting of a dancer in a bell-shaped skirt hung over the familar mantle. He headed back to the bathroom with its original black and white tile. That enormous clawfoot tub was new.

  “Let’s try this first.” He popped the lid from a jar of petroleum jelly, swiped a glob with his index finger, and rubbed it around her toe and the faucet opening. He took her toe between his thumb and forefinger and attempted to gently turn it one way and then the other.

  It held fast.

  Kendra gave her toe an extra tug and then yelped.

  “Don’t do that. We’ll get it without hurting you.”

  She went still.

  He glanced at her face, devoid of makeup, her wild copper hair caught in a knot with strands falling around her neck and ears. Her skin was flushed, her wide eyes divulging her mistrust. The sight of her did crazy things to his heart and his head. He’d known her since he was ten years old, and she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever set eyes on. The best thing that had ever happened to him. One of the best things anyway. He’d loved her with his whole being, wanted to make her his wife, start and end every day beside her. Her embarrassment and humiliation wounded him. Shamed him.

  We’ll get it without hurting you. Thoughtless words. He’d already hurt her immeasurably. Deeply. Permanently. He couldn’t fix the past or take it back. “Kendra—.”

  “What’s your next idea?”

  He dropped his gaze to the pulse at her throat, where she clutched the fluffy pink robe together. She’d always shined in pink, red and orange, shades other redheads would shy away from. Not Kendra. She made a statement with her clothing choices. She was unique. Magnificent. Had been from the first time she walked into the school cafeteria and earned a dozen boyish hearts with the sweep of her stormy gray-green gaze and the lift of her delicate chin. I know who I am, and I don’t give a crap who you are.

  But she’d let down her guard and trusted him. Loved him. Given him her heart. He’d thrown that trust back in her face and stepped on it. And he hadn’t been able to make it up to her. “Say goodbye to that antique faucet.”

  “I like this faucet.”

  “Which do you like more?”

  She looked at him.

  He gestured with a forefinger. “The toe or the faucet?”

  She gave a resigned sigh. “Do what you have to do.”

  He picked up the hacksaw and glanced at her pale leg. The robe didn’t cover nearly enough. Her shapely calf was visible all the way to her knee, and thankfully she’d tucked the towel underneath her, so he didn’t have to avoid letting his gaze wander that direction. He experienced that thought all the way to painful pleasure and back.

  Jumping up, he grabbed another towel from a rack, unfolded it and draped it over her legs, leaving only her foot showing. “Might be some metal shavings,” he said by way of an explanation.

  He grasped the faucet with his left hand and drew the saw across with his right.

  “You won’t cut into my toe,” she said.

  He continued to saw back and forth. He was familiar with her toes. “Unless this one has grown longer than the other, I’ve left plenty of leeway.”

  “What if we still can’t get my toe out even after you’ve cut that off?”

  “Then we can get you to the hospital, which we couldn’t do with a whole bathtub attached.”

  “I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

  “I’m doing my best here, Kendra.”

  “I know.” It probably pained her to acknowledge his effort.

  “Just try to relax.” He sawed. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, but his skin grew damp. He sensed her focus on his hands, observing the
motions of his arm and shoulder. When he got up today, this was the last thing he’d planned to be doing, and she was the last person he’d expected to see. He glanced at her. Her stormy gaze skittered up to his. “My sister works at the ER at Burnham Memorial,” he said to make conversation.

  “I heard. Brooke, right?”

  He went back to his task. “Uh huh. She took FEMA courses and learned FAA regulations. That girl put in hundreds of flight hours in order to get all her certifications for the Life Flight Team. She’s done so many training hours and earned so many certifications, I can’t keep up.”

  “You must be really proud of her.”

  They hadn’t had a conversation this long—or this civil in years. The sound of her voice clawed another slice in his heart. “I am. Her most recent certification was so she can do solo flights with neonatal patients.”

  “Good for her.”

  There was so much more he wanted to share with her. Questions he wanted to ask. He wanted to know what she’d been doing, what her life was like in Denver. He missed her so much it was physically, painfully debilitating sometimes. He had to take a deep breath and relax his muscles. Being this close to her was like being near an electrical force.

  He didn’t have a right to expect anything, not even civility. So he sawed. Whenever he saw her mother, Lacey, he asked about Kendra as unobtrusively as possible. She talked about her like she and her daughter were great friends, but he suspected she hadn’t seen much more of Kendra these past years than he had. He knew how Kendra felt about her mother, and the woman was still a piece of work. Bartended at the Wild Card, like she had since they’d been kids, partied as though she was a twenty-something, always had a man staying with her. Nothing had changed. “Almost finished.”