Chapter Eleven
Heat stung his cheeks. Lord have mercy, he hoped she couldn’t tell. “I hadn’t sung like that in years.”
“Well,” Colleen tucked one foot under herself and angled in his, “you should do it more often.”
Lots of things he had no business thinking ran through his mind like a video on replay. Clearing his mind and his throat, he decided shifting focus of the conversation was in order. “What were you needing in Millers Creek?”
“A dress for the fundraiser, same as Ms. Alice. Working and training, there wasn’t a whole lot of need for an almost formal cocktail dress.”
He wasn’t at all sure he knew the difference between formal and cocktail. Almost formal was totally outside his scope of understanding so he settled for a knowing smile and hoped it wasn’t the wrong response.
The road into Millers Creek widened. They had found big city life, West Texas style.
He pulled into a parking space in front of the dress shop and shut off the engine. “Errand number one.”
Inside, the dress retrieval took less time than he’d expected.
Alice’s name produced instant recognition.
The woman behind the counter disappeared into the back and returned with a carefully wrapped garment bag that she handled as if it contained the crown jewels.
Garment bag in hand, Aiden waited as Colleen looked around, pulling out a dress, studying it as if her life depended on it, and then put it back.
He had no idea what she was looking for but from what he could see, just about anything she chose would look great on her—including a flour sack.
He knew the moment she’d found what she’d been looking for.
Her eyes narrowed, her lips pressed tightly, her gaze rose from top to bottom and then, a hint of a smile on her lips, she nodded.
Ten minutes later she was out of the dressing room, the dress he hadn’t gotten to see was paid for, and the two garment bags were safely in the back of the truck.
Apparently whatever fundraiser was coming up, only Millers Creek boutiques would do for the women’s attire.
Now, the rest of the afternoon was wide open and neither of them had mentioned going back to Honeysuckle yet, which suited him fine.
Millers Creek had the particular quality of a town that took itself slightly more seriously than Honeysuckle did—more storefronts, wider sidewalks. A real city from the shopping, to the warehouses, to the apartment buildings, to the honky tonks. Not his choice of words, the sign said so.
They walked without direction, Colleen leading the way.
“In here.” Colleen pointed to a shop with a hand-lettered sign that said ANTIQUES AND OTHER THINGS.
Inside, the shop smelled like old paper and furniture wax, the kind of place that rewarded attention—every surface covered, every shelf loaded, everything arranged by a logic that was either deeply personal or entirely absent.
“Look at this.” She held up a small framed print—an old movie poster.
“Not a bad movie, but no one could ever dance down Fifth Avenue, never mind on roller skates.”
Eyes wide as an owl stared at him. “You’ve seen It’s Always Fair Weather?”
He shrugged. “What can I say, I like Gene Kelly, even if it is absurd to think traffic would stop in Manhattan for a man to dance down the middle of the street.”
“You are a man full of surprises, aren’t you? First you know opera, then show tunes, and now you know Gene Kelly.”
“My grandfather liked opera and playing bocce in the park, my grandmother loved everything Broadway, and my mom liked any film made in the fifties that involved singing, dancing, and a very happy—if impractical—ending.” His head leaned to the side.
“Most people loved Astaire or Kelly, but Mom loved Cyd Charisse. So I got to watch Brigadoon, Silk Stockings, Bandwagon, and It’s Always Fair Weather enough times to have performed the shows myself. ”
“A musical family. Makes sense.” For a second she wondered if the man could dance as well as he sang, not that it was any of her business.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
He shrugged. “You were drawn to the poster, so you must like old musicals too?”
“I do.” She bobbed her head. “Both my mother and grandmother loved old MGM musicals. I’ve probably seen them all.”
“I bet this would look great on the wall of your new therapy space.”
Though it made no sense, his thinking about how to blend her love of music to decorate her new therapy location made her heart swell.
“Look,” his arm straight, his finger waved toward the back wall, “I think I see more.”
Sure enough, stacked about twenty feet away was a whole stock of movie posters, and to his surprise, most were very reasonably priced.
The next thing he knew, they were storing four framed posters.
The first they’d found, a black and white from an Astaire, Rogers movie, the classic Donald O’Conner, Gene Kelly, and Debbie Reynolds in Singing in the Rain, and the last one had Colleen squealing like a kid who got everything on her Christmas list. “This is my absolute favorite.”
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He had to agree, great dance routines. “Did you know the choreographer for this movie was in It’s Always Fair Weather.”
“Really?” She patted the posters as if she were tucking a young child into the back seat.
“Really.” At that, his stomach reminded him that they’d gone well past the noon hour. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little hungry.”
“Good,” Colleen rubbed her hands together, “cause after all this bargain shopping, I’m starving.”
Aiden raised his arm and pointed across the street. “Want to take your chances with the world’s happiest honky tonk?”
Grinning, she shrugged. “They actually have pretty decent food there.”
“You’ve been before?”
“It’s an easy stop when shopping.” She leaned into him and lowered her voice. “The food at the diner is just awful. I think their chef is left over from the Korean war. At least his food tastes like he is.”
That had them both chuckling. Standing at the curb, he didn’t know why, but without thinking he shot his hand out to help her cross the street.
As if she needed help. But, to his delight, not only did she accept it, but she didn’t show any signs of letting go.
And wasn’t that one of the nicest things to happen to him in a very long time.
It was all she could do not to squeal like a teenager.
Not only did he take hold of her hand, but he didn’t seem to have any intention of letting go.
As his physical therapist, mixing business and pleasure with a patient was never a good idea, but right now, she simply didn’t care. She was downright giddy.
The smile tugging at the corners of her lips felt impossible to contain.
She’d held plenty of hands in the course of her work, steadied plenty of patients, offered support in all the practical, professional ways a physical therapist should.
This was not that. This was a man she found entirely too fascinating taking her hand to cross a street as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
The even more startling part was how right it felt.
The honky tonk looked like the sort of place that had seen more boots than brooms. Weathered wood front, neon beer signs in the windows, and a painted fiddle over the door that had probably looked brighter twenty years ago.
Inside, the dim lighting made it easy to forget the bright sun outside.
The air felt dramatically cooler and thick with the smell of grilled onions, beer, and sawdust. A few men occupied stools at the bar, and in the far corner a small raised platform told her that at least once in a while, a live band played.
Today, they were treated to whatever tunes came from the vintage juke box tucked into a corner.
At the moment she recognized the expected country tune encouraging listeners to dance when given the chance.
Aiden released her hand to slide into a booth.
Instantly she missed the warmth of his palm in hers.
The waitress brought menus, glasses of water and a smile that promised good food.
Within minutes, the two had placed their orders and Colleen found her surprisingly lacking anything to say to Aiden.
Normally they could chat about all sorts of things to pass the time, but today, things felt different.
She couldn’t put her finger on it but she was delighted when the waitress appeared a few moments later with plates of food on a massive tray.
First bite and she could have sworn that Aiden’s eyes almost rolled back in his head.
She did her best not to smile at the response.
“This,” he waved his fork at this dish, “is fantastic.”
“Wait till you taste their desserts. They make a blueberry bread pudding with vanilla cream sauce that will make your mouth water until next Tuesday.”
Chuckling, he nodded. “Guess I’d better leave room for bread pudding.”
The tables began to fill up as they ate.
Some folks here to eat, others seated at scattered tables around the dance floor were clearly here early for the music.
A familiar tune by Rascal Flats played overhead and she noticed Aiden’s toe tapping.
Apparently the man’s musical interests were broad enough to include popular country.
When he finished his last bite, another familiar tune played and Aiden’s focus shifted from food to the people slowly filling the dance floor, and then it came.
She’d forgotten about the free dance lessons on the weekend.
The DJ made the announcement and the sparsely filled dance floor was suddenly crowded.
From the look on Aiden’s face, he was probably thinking the same thing she was—where did all these people suddenly come from.
As the music played a little louder and the DJ gave direction to the group over the microphone, Aiden’s gaze followed the people circling around the wooden floor doing their version of the two-step. “You dance?”
“Excuse me?” She wasn’t expecting that.
“Do you like to dance?”
She paused, debating how to respond, considering if this was curiosity or an impending invitation. And if it was an impending invitation, how would his hip handle it?
“Was the question that hard?” He smiled.
“Sorry. Yes. I suppose I like to dance.”
“Looks simple enough. Shall we give it a go?”
“Your hip?”
“Might give me a hitch in my gettalong, but under the circumstances, it should blend right in.”
“All right.” Pushing to her feet, she was delighted to find her hand in his once again. She was even more delighted to discover that somehow two-stepping to music eliminated the limp much the way singing helped hide a stutter.
For the next twenty minutes they moved around the floor bumping into the occasionally wayward couple or tripping over someone with two left feet who couldn’t follow a straight line if it were painted in neon.
To her surprise, all Aiden did was laugh.
She’d expected more seriousness, even annoyance.
Instead, he took it all in stride, laughed and kept dancing.
A time or two he’d twirl her and be right there as she spun back in.
That made her smile wide. Not since college had she had so much fun two-stepping.
The music came to an end and once again he took her hand, escorting her off the floor when a surprise came over the speakers.
Not the expected country tune they were used to, but an old song from one of the pre war big bands.
She hesitated, listening, trying to place it when the DJ made another announcement.
In celebration for Randy and Julia’s fiftieth anniversary, they would play a round of requested tunes.
Another minute and it was pretty obvious who Randy and Julia were.
Probably somewhere between septuagenarian and octogenarians, the gray haired couple seemed to be fit as fiddles and quite talented.
When Randy spun his wife out and then twirled her in behind his back only to capture her on the other side and almost fling her over his shoulder, Colleen muttered, “That’s the jitterbug. ”
“They’re good.”
Colleen bobbed her head. She felt Aiden’s squeeze on her hand tighten and knew what he was going to say.
“Let’s give it a whirl.”
“I don’t dance like that. I don’t think I know anyone—besides Randy and Julia—who can dance like that.”
The way his eyes sparkled and the corner of his lips tipped north, she was sure she was about to see another side of Aiden Boglioli.