Phantom Waltz

  Catching her look, he said, “Maggie, I’d like you to meet a very good friend of mine, Bethany Coulter. Bethany, my brother Rafe’s wife, Maggie.”

  Heat flagged Bethany’s cheeks as she shook hands with Ryan’s sister-in-law. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Maggie.”

  “The pleasure’s all mine.” Maggie’s eyes sparkled with warmth. “Ryan mentioned that you enjoy going to the mud pulls.”

  “Yes, very much.”

  “Me, too. Maybe the four of us can go together sometime soon.”

  Bethany glanced at Ryan. “I’ll look forward to it,” she settled for saying.

  “It’s a date, then? That’ll be fun. I’ll get Rafe’s mom to watch the kids, and we’ll make an evening of it. Do you like Mexican?”

  It took Bethany a moment to register what she meant. “I love Mexican, the hotter the better.”

  Maggie nodded decisively. “I’m going to like you. Another bean and tortilla fanatic! We found the greatest restaurant. The atmosphere there is absolutely wonderful, very relaxed and friendly.”

  “Give Maggie a generous helping of greasy tortilla chips with a huge bowl of fiery hot salsa, and she thinks the place has great ambience,” Ryan said.

  Maggie elbowed him in the ribs. “Don’t listen to him, Bethany. The truth is, he wouldn’t recognize authentic Mexican or delightful ambience if they ran up and bit him on the leg.”

  Ryan groaned and splayed a hand over his stomach.

  “Poor baby.” Maggie’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “There’s nothing sadder than seeing a big strong man quail with dread at the thought of eating an enchilada.” She grinned at Bethany. “He’ll take on a thousand-pound bull bare-handed, but a bottle of hot sauce sends him running.”

  Bethany couldn’t help but laugh. Maggie was delightful, and Bethany was completely charmed by the pair’s teasing banter. It reminded her of the way she and her brothers needled each other.

  Maggie turned and lightly touched Ryan’s shirtsleeve. “I’m off to grab my husband before the next song. He promised to dance with me.” She turned back to Bethany and extended a delicate hand. “It’s been great meeting you, Bethany. Please, make Ryan bring you out to the Rocking K for a visit soon. We’ll run off the guys and have a good old-fashioned coffee klatch.”

  “I’d enjoy that very much,” Bethany replied, and sincerely meant it. Maggie Kendrick was an easy person to like.

  As she walked away, Bethany looked questioningly at Ryan, who grinned lazily and straddled a chair facing her, his crossed arms resting loosely on its back. After staring at her until she wanted to squirm, he said, “Hi,” his voice a husky caress that seemed to wrap her in warmth. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “It’s a small world, after all, I guess.” She thought that sounded stupid and wished she’d said something else. Only what? When he looked at her like that, her brain seemed to freeze.

  He nodded, his gaze teasing hers as his mouth slanted into another slow grin. “Too small for you to avoid me. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  At the moment she had difficulty holding onto a thought.

  “Do all men make you so nervous?” he suddenly asked.

  “Nervous?”

  His gaze dropped to her hands, which were clenched and white-knuckled on her lap. “I don’t bite.” A heated gleam slipped into his eyes. “Never hard enough to hurt, anyway.” He reached out to touch a fingertip to the end of her nose. “What are you doing, sitting here all alone?”

  “They’ll be back soon. Right now, they’re all out dancing.”

  He glanced at the empty table. “This can’t be much fun.”

  “I’m fine.” She shrugged. “My dancing days are over, but that doesn’t mean everyone else can’t enjoy themselves.”

  He studied her thoughtfully. “I’ll bet you loved it.”

  “Loved what?”

  “Dancing.”

  Memories. Bethany tried never to dwell on things she could no longer do, but dancing was a tough one, especially when she found herself sitting at the edge of a dance floor. “Yes, I did love it,” she admitted. “My dad taught me to waltz when I was about seven, and from that moment on, I was hooked. Whenever we went to a function with music, I drove him and my brothers crazy, begging them to dance with me. I liked all kinds, fast or slow, it didn’t matter.”

  He turned his hands palm up and gazed solemnly at the lines etched there. When he met her gaze again, he said, “Do you miss it terribly?”

  Normally Bethany told polite lies, but she found it difficult, if not impossible, to tell him anything but the truth. “Yes, very much.” She tried for what she hoped was a bright smile. “There are a number of things I miss a lot.”

  “Does friendship have to be one of them?”

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re as tenacious as a pit bull once you sink your teeth into something?”

  “My mom’s words, almost exactly.” He let his hands dangle, his broad shoulders lifting in a shrug. “What can I say? I made you a proposition, and you haven’t given me your answer yet. Is the friendship on or not?”

  “I’m still mulling it over.”

  “While you mull, can I campaign?”

  She laughed again. “You’re impossible.”

  “Just think of all the fun we can have.”

  The twinkle in his eyes was full of promise. “Doing what?” she couldn’t resist asking.

  “The possibilities are endless.”

  “That’s a cop-out if ever I’ve heard one.”

  “Hey, if all else fails, you can teach me to paint.”

  At the suggestion, Bethany laughed until tears filled her eyes. She would almost regain her composure—almost—and then she’d look at his huge hands and start laughing again.

  “I’m offended.”

  She wiped under her eyes. “I’m sorry. Really. I’m sure you could learn. It’s just—” Her voice went thin with suppressed giggles. “Somehow you just don’t strike me as the type who’d have the patience for it.”

  Ryan grinned, thinking to himself that it would all depend on what he used as a canvas. Her flawless ivory skin would sure as hell hold his interest. He’d start by painting the petals of a daisy around her navel and move on from there.

  “Honest answer,” he said, leaning forward over the chair to hold her gaze. “Right now, this very instant, aren’t you having fun?”

  Her smile winked out, and a dark, worried look came into her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Point made. Doing nothing, we have a great time. Just think how much fun we can have if we set our minds to it.”

  “Probably a lot.”

  He nodded and pushed to his feet. “Hold that thought.”

  She was frowning bewilderedly, not to mention looking abandoned and a little lost as he walked away. Knowing he’d soon be back, Ryan smiled as he shouldered his way through the milling crowd toward the bandstand.

  Everyone in her family had returned to the table and then left to dance again when Bethany saw Ryan striding back through the crowd toward her. His silver belt buckle flashed in the dim light with every shift of his lean hips. He was so handsome that she allowed herself a brief moment of fancy, pretending he was a stranger who didn’t know about her paralysis and was heading her way to ask her to dance. Scotch that. If she was going to dream, why not go all out and dream that she could actually walk?

  He sauntered to a stop, gave her a slow, crooked grin that made her pulse skitter, and said, “May I have the next dance, Miss Coulter?”

  For just an instant, Bethany felt as if he’d punched her in the solar plexus. Didn’t he realize how much she would love to dance with him? Sometimes, if she allowed herself to think about the years of confinement that stretched ahead of her, she felt like a rat in a cage.

  “I’d love to,” she said flippantly.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  He stepped around to grasp the handles of her chair. As he set of
f for the front exit, Bethany glanced over her shoulder at him. “What are you doing?”

  He flashed her another grin and winked. “Wait and see.”

  Once in the vestibule, which served double duty as a cloakroom, he started rifling through the coats and wraps hanging on the rod along one wall.

  “Are we going outside?” she asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Did you misplace your jacket?”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, if you’re looking for mine, it’s way down at the other end.”

  He came up with a heavy black sweater, gave it a long look, and said, “A little big, but it’ll do.” He turned, advanced on Bethany, and started stuffing her arms down the sleeves. “Your coat would be too bulky for what I have in mind.”

  “But—this isn’t mine.”

  “I know,” he said as he tugged the garment up onto her shoulders.

  “Whose is it?”

  A mischievous glint entered his steel-blue eyes. “Beats the hell out of me, but we’ll have it back before she ever misses it.”

  “Ryan!” she cried as he wheeled her toward the front doors.

  “What?”

  “I can’t swipe someone’s sweater.”

  He chuckled. “You’re not swiping it.”

  “I’m not?”

  “Nope. I swiped it, you’re just wearing it.”

  “Either way! I’m not taking someone’s sweater.”

  “Yeah, you are.” He leaned over her to shove open the doors and push her outside. “Relax. What can they do, arrest us for short-term sweater theft?”

  Bethany was grateful for the sweater when the frigid night air wrapped around her. “You’re crazy. And you’ll freeze out here without a coat. Where are we going, anyway?”

  “You’ll see, and trust me, I won’t freeze. I spend so much time outdoors, I’m inured to the cold.”

  “ ‘Inured?’ Cowboys aren’t supposed to know such words.”

  “Beg pardon, ma’am. I’ll work on it. Get me a wad of chew, spit between sentences, and scratch where I shouldn’t. Goin’ to college flat ruint me.”

  “I didn’t know you attended university. What was your major?”

  “Animal husbandry and ag. Got degrees in both.” He turned left to push her along a cement walkway that circled to the back of the building. “Never did figure out why any man in his right mind would wanna play husband to a bull. Got good marks in female anatomy 101, though.”

  She laughed at that. “I’ll just bet you did.”

  “When I came home with my pigskins in hand, I could guess a woman’s measurements at a hundred yards. After all the money he’d forked out for tuition, the old man was flat impressed.”

  Bethany grinned, imagining a younger Ryan fresh out of college. With his looks, he must have been as close to lethal as a young man could get. “What school did you attend?”

  “Oregon State. Most goat ropers go there so they can strut around campus in their Stetsons and spit fancy. It’s a requirement, knowin’ how to spit, and it takes a real knack. Sly, our foreman, can nail a fly at ten feet.”

  “I was raised on a ranch, remember. I know all about you cowboys. It has been my observation that you’re all full of bull.”

  “That’s right. You have been around cowboys. I guess that means I should cut the crap?”

  “Good plan.”

  “I never took female anatomy 101. The rest is fact. I have an eye for female curves that won’t quit. You, for instance. I could buy you a wardrobe, from the skin out, and everything would fit perfectly. Any bets?”

  “Oh, puh-leeze.”

  “Women. Why is it they’re never interested in seeing a guy show off?”

  “Because we’re seldom impressed.”

  “Thirty-two, B. Twenty-one inch waist. You impressed yet?”

  He was amazingly accurate, and knowing that he’d looked at her that closely made her skin tingle. “If you like treading on thin ice, you’re doing well.”

  He chuckled and fell quiet. To their right was a parking lot. In the moonlight the cars and trucks resembled shiny-shelled beetles. Above them, the moon hung like a china supper plate against a backdrop of midnight-blue velvet sequined with stars. The cold breeze carried the essence of fir and pine, drawing Bethany’s gaze to the mountains that ringed the basin.

  She sighed. “It’s a beautiful night. Just look at that sky.”

  “Nothing quite like it, is there? I’ve heard Montana referred to as sky country. I figure those folks have never been to Oregon on a clear night.”

  He wheeled her to a covered breezeway at the rear of the grange. The back doors were propped open, and they could hear the music almost as clearly from there as from inside. The band was finishing the current number. Before they began the next song, Ryan stepped around her chair and leaned down, coming almost nose to nose with her.

  “Put your arms around my neck, sweetheart.”

  “Whatever for?”

  He grasped her wrists and lifted her arms himself. “Because,” he whispered, “we’re going to dance.”

  “Oh, no, I—”

  Before she could complete the protest, he slipped an arm around her waist and plucked her from the chair. Left with no choice, she gave a startled squeak and grabbed onto him. “Ryan!”

  “It’s all right. I swear I won’t drop you.” He shifted her against him, cupping one big hand over her posterior. “Hold tight. You hanging on?”

  For dear life. “Yes, and so are you. No funny business. I can feel that, you know.”

  “You can?” He slipped his arm from around her waist and moved his other hand down to her rump. Intertwining his fingers, he formed a seat of sorts to hold her hips snugly against his. “I thought paraplegics were totally numb from the waist down.”

  “Not me. My spinal injury is at L2 and didn’t damage all the—” She jumped and gave him a look. “What are you doing?”

  He grinned and winked. “My thumb was in a crick. You really do have feeling there.”

  She narrowed an eye. “Yes, and if you do any more wiggling, you’ll pay.”

  “No more. I promise.”

  “This will never work. I appreciate the thought. It’s very sweet, but—”

  “Shut up,” he whispered.

  The first notes of the next number drifted to them, and she realized it was the band’s rendition of Montgomery’s hit song, “I Swear.” Tears sprang to her eyes, for the instant she recognized the tune, she knew Ryan had requested it.

  “Dance with me,” he whispered.

  “I feel foolish.”

  “Who’ll see? Only me, and I’m your best bud, so I don’t count. Besides, why should you feel foolish?”

  “My legs are dangling. My feet will thump your shins.”

  “Those soft slippers won’t hurt my shins,” he assured her.

  And with that, he swept her into a waltz.

  Bethany expected it to feel awkward. As he executed the first few steps, she was rigid with tension, afraid he’d stumble and drop her, or that she was too heavy and he’d exhaust himself.

  Instead, it was glorious, and she felt as if she were floating, his strength her buoyancy. Dancing. It wasn’t really dancing, of course. She kept telling herself that. But it seemed as though it was. Dancing. Oh, God. She’d yearned to do this a hundred times over the last eight years, and now she actually was. It gave her the most incredible feeling. Free and light as a bird, caught in the arms of a tall, dark cowboy.

  Bethany straightened her arms, let her head fall back, and closed her eyes, wishing the feeling would never end. “Oh, Ryan.”

  “Good?”

  “Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You just can’t know.”

  Watching the expressions that crossed her face, Ryan thought he had a fair idea. How must it feel, he wondered, always to be trapped in that damned chair, and now, suddenly, to be swirling in the moonlight?

  Damn, she was sweet. Holding her like this was as close to heaven as he ever hop
ed to get. Bethany. A dreamy smile curved her mouth, conveying pleasure so intense he doubted she could put it into words. He imagined making her smile exactly that way while he made love to her, hearing her sigh like that when he kissed her.

  Someday …

  For now it was enough just to hold her like this in the moonlight and see her smile, to know she was happy and that in some small way, he was responsible for that.

  By the end of the second number, Ryan’s energy was starting to flag. She didn’t weigh a lot, but dancing ceaselessly while he supported an extra one hundred and ten pounds took its toll. He hated to return her to the chair, and he wished with all his heart he didn’t have to.

  Unfortunately, even good things had to end. He made it through a third dance, and then his legs started to give out on him.

  She blinked when the music ceased, and he drew to a reluctant stop. The dreamy, slightly befuddled expression in her eyes told him just how much she had enjoyed the dances and that she would cherish the memory long after the evening was over.

  “Oh, Ryan.” She bestowed a glowing smile on him, her eyes shimmering with gladness and tears. She said nothing more, but those two words conveyed so very much, far more than she probably realized, a gratitude that ran too deep for words, and a bewildered incredulity because he had done something so completely unexpected, simply to give her pleasure.

  It was her expression of incredulity that touched him the most. It had been such a small thing, really, lifting her from that chair and taking a few turns around the breezeway. He’d worked harder countless times, and with far less reward. Could there be a sweeter gift than seeing Bethany smile?

  She would never spend another evening sitting alone at a table while everyone else danced and had a good time, he promised himself. Never again.

  He gently returned her to her chair, which he was quickly coming to realize was a prison without bars. Leaning low, he thumbed a tear from beneath her eye and whispered, “Hey, what’s this? I meant for it to be fun, not make you cry.”

  “Oh, it was fun,” she said. “I just—” She shook her head and wiped her cheeks. “I’m sorry. This is silly. It’s just that I’ve wanted to dance so many times, and I didn’t think I could. That was as close to dancing as it gets. I can’t tell you how wonderful it felt.” She smiled tremulously. “Thank you, Ryan.”