A faint smile touched his lips as he inclined his head to Thomas, then Marcus. He sobered, glancing at the audience. “When I realized I’d never walk again, my mother was with me, at every point on that road. Hardest thing I ever had to accept, and I didn’t take it well. Through my pain and anger, she thought I didn’t see hers. Which makes it even more shameful that I didn’t acknowledge it far sooner than I did. But she forgave me, and never stopped loving me.”

  His face was as serious as Daralyn had ever seen it. The auditorium was silent, as if the message he was speaking was being drawn from all of their hearts and experiences.

  “But for all those incredible things my parents have done for me, there’s something else that tops all of it. A few years ago, my mom noticed something evil happening. She told my dad, and the two of them did the greatest, bravest thing anyone can do. They did something about it, and they didn’t stop at the devil’s door. They marched right in, and pulled an angel out of hell. Brought that angel into our lives, into our community. One who’s changed us all for the better.”

  Thomas’s hand was on Daralyn’s back, a gentle stroke as she quivered. Her stomach flopped uncertainly, but that heart Rory was talking about was full, aching. The look in his brown eyes told her if he’d been beside her right now, he would have been holding her hand tight. Telling her he was there and there was nothing to fear.

  “Learning what we had all missed for so long shamed us as a community,” Rory continued, “including my mother. But just like with me ending up in this chair, or her learning a bigger definition of what love is, it shed light on the most important lessons my mother and father taught me.”

  He took a steadying breath. “We’re going to screw up. We’re going to stumble. We’re going to hurt one another. We’re going to take wrong turns. There is good and bad in all of us, strengths we can embrace and weaknesses we can overcome, especially when we have people in our corner who never give up on us, who love us too damn much to ever give up on us.”

  His fierce eyes came back to hers, sending a message as strong as any command he’d ever given her. Don’t you hide from me, or this. From the truth I’m telling you.

  Which brought her back to Marguerite’s words, about how Tyler felt about her. Nothing could change how he felt about me… Our bond was something that existed no matter what forces came against it.

  Daralyn held her position with effort, her back straight and chin lifted, her hands knotted tight in her lap. The approval in her Master’s eyes went straight to her soul.

  He lifted the plaque, sent his mother an equally potent look. “So Mom, this is going on your wall. I earned it because of the type of person you are, the one you taught me to be, not just from your raising, but through the example of your life.”

  With the kind of timing Julie would say would make him a great fit for her theater, his expression eased into a smile, changing the intensity in the room. He let his attention land on Brick and his teammates, standing by the stage. “Truth? Much as I loved being carried off the field then, knowing you guys feel I’m still worth putting on your shoulders means a lot. Hope I’ll always live up to that.”

  “If you don’t, we’ll kick your ass and remind you,” Brick called out.

  Rory laughed. “Yeah. That’s what community is for, too. To take care of one another, to help, and to kick each other in the butt when we need it. To be the type of people we should be, for others and for ourselves.” He nodded to the audience, gestured with the plaque. “Thanks for that, and for this. Thanks for letting me have the chance to help support that kind of community. And now…”

  He tilted his head at Brick. “If adrenaline could do it, I’d jump off this stage like Patrick Swayze, right here and now. But if you guys wouldn’t mind getting me back to the side of the most beautiful girl in the room,”—he pinned Daralyn with his intent brown gaze—"that would be appreciated. Thank you, everyone.”

  As applause thundered through the auditorium, Rory was lifted back down to the floor. Elaine had soaked Marcus’s handkerchief, Thomas arm tight around her. Marcus rose and moved out of the way so Rory could approach her on that side, which allowed both of her sons to hold her the full five minutes she needed to pull herself back together. Once Elaine started scolding him for turning her into a weeping mess, they knew she was okay again.

  When Rory met Daralyn’s gaze over his mother’s shoulder, she couldn’t look away. Despite what he’d said about not preparing a speech, he’d obviously been thinking a great deal about what he wanted to say. And it had included her. His words had made her as wobbly as the usually stoic Elaine.

  When he returned to her side, he bent to kiss her bare shoulder. Daralyn cupped his jaw, pressed her face against the side of his head, inhaling his scent, the aftershave he’d worn. While the rest of the table saw, it felt like that moment was just them, full of things that needed no words.

  Thankfully, now that the awards ceremony was done, a light dinner was going to be served. It gave her and Elaine both time to settle, return to an even keel. Before long, the men at the table were bantering as usual and Amanda was teasing them, drawing Daralyn and Elaine in at key moments to “balance the testosterone,” as she put it.

  “Hell, he made it.” Brick interrupted the flow of casual conversation to nod toward the far end of the auditorium. It drew their attention to a man who’d appeared in the doorway. A server guided him to an empty seat at one of the tables. Daralyn’s impression at this distance was of a dark suit, a stubbled jaw, and eyes that shifted around the auditorium as if their owner wasn’t exactly sure how he’d gotten here, or where here was. He sat down at the table gingerly and ignored the plate of food put in front of him, instead obviously ordering a drink from the server.

  “Hayworth McNally.” Marty grunted. “Well, he missed your speech, but he did make it. Lesser miracles.”

  “Might be better if he’d made the speech but skipped the dancing,” Rory advised. “Get a couple drinks in him and he becomes way too proud of his pelvic thrust move.”

  Chuckles circled the table, and Elaine shook her head at them. Rory squeezed Daralyn’s hand. Fran was back on stage, drawing their attention his way. “In about twenty minutes, we’ll get this party started,” she said. “Dessert tables will stay set up, in case you want to work off dinner before indulging. It’s almost time to dance, so break out those high school moves, boys.” She executed a spin at the mic that sent the points of her dress swishing around her calves. “Get ready to dazzle us girls.”

  “Or scare the crap out of them,” Johnny hollered.

  “Just like you did in high school, Johnny,” she rebounded, setting off laughter and applause.

  More comments volleyed back and forth, but Daralyn missed most of them, because the announcement had woken her stomach butterflies. They did a full takeoff as Rory met her gaze, his lips curving in a sensual smile.

  The expression and the wink he added to it had special meaning, because when he’d officially asked her to accompany him to the reunion as his date, he’d set one condition on it.

  She had to promise to dance with him.

  Since she didn’t know how to dance, he’d made it less terrifying by asking her to practice with him at night, or at lunch breaks in the store, in the weeks leading up to the reunion.

  Their first lesson had happened on the paved square of asphalt under the oak tree behind her house. It had been a basketball court for the Hill children, though the basketball goal was long gone, replaced by a light pole to illuminate the area when needed at night.

  “You have no reason to be nervous,” he chided gently. “You aren’t going with John Travolta here. Close your eyes. Get out of your head.”

  When she complied, Rory spoke in that low way he did that captured her attention completely. "Dance for me. Close your eyes, let me see the way you dance in your head, or when you're alone. Do you ever do that? Think of a favorite song and dance to that.”

  Thinking of one of the country songs he played that she particularly liked, she began to sway. Turn. Step forward and back, sway some more. A little more tentative and far less boisterous, but similar to how Julie and Les sometimes danced on their “slumber party” nights.

  On one of the turns her hand landed in his. Her eyes opened, and he moved his chair around her, speaking a word of encouragement, showing her how to turn with him. They were doing well, and then she tripped over her own feet and stumbled to one knee.

  She saw the frustration on his face when he grabbed for her and missed, nearly overbalancing himself, and she was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry, I—”

  He shook his head, took her hand to tug her closer, examine her scraped knee. “I hate not being able to catch you when you fall. That’s all.”

  “There's more than one way of catching someone when they fall,” she said.

  His jaw flexed at what she hoped he saw in her eyes. “Okay,” he said.

  He didn’t get frustrated again, even though they had plenty of missteps during their practices, which included tripping over him or having her toes run over, but since the former occurrence usually landed her in his lap instead of on the ground, she couldn’t object.

  At the end of that first dance lesson, he finished up with a “slow dance,” her curled up in his lap while he moved the chair in easy circles, rocking back and forth to a ballad he hummed in a sexy, off-tune rumble she’d choose over the radio any day.

  When they moved their practices to the open floor space of the store aisles, he showed her more ways to use counterbalance to move together, that momentum pulling his chair into the turns and step changes. Occasionally a customer would come in and glimpse their efforts. Rory didn’t let her get nervous about it; he helped her look past her self-consciousness to register the customer’s delight at the chance to watch them.

  He was a good teacher, and she loved dancing with him. The way they could touch, slide away, come back again. The more they worked at it together, the more they seemed to anticipate one another’s movements.

  She’d watched mating birds dance like this in the air. When she was dancing with Rory, she felt like she was flying. Sometimes, seeing the deep pleasure in his eyes when they danced, she thought he felt like he was, too.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Dance with me.”

  Now she tuned in to the present. Rory spoke in her ear, so he could be heard over the music that had just started up. Seeing the glint in his brown eyes, the smile on the lips that could do so many things to her, and the true happiness in his face, made her feel the same. Whether it was alone or in the middle of a crowd, it was still just him and her. This night was turning out to be as good as it could possibly be. Her fears, though always there, couldn’t push through all of that to touch this, make it any less pleasurable for her.

  Rory shot a teasing look at Thomas. “Ready for me to show you up on the dance floor?”

  Thomas snorted. “You can give it your best shot.” He tilted his head at Elaine. “Mom, you want to help your firstborn son prove his dance supremacy? Despite the shocking miracle of my little brother discovering a silver tongue on stage, I know I’m your favorite.”

  She chuckled, but shook her head. “I’ve already promised my first dances to Miles Warner and Jeremy Stone. The two of them are determined to see which one can overload their pacemaker first. Dance with Marcus.”

  “You’re definitely toast,” Marcus said to Rory. “Because I’m a better dancer than you and your brother.”

  “That may be,” Rory said, unruffled. “But I’ve got the ace in the hole. I have her.” He squeezed Daralyn’s hand. “And though this might bruise your delicate feelings, she’s way prettier than you.”

  Marcus spread out his hands. “I’m not going to argue that one, but we’ll see about the dancing.”

  They moved to the floor. It wasn’t hard to carve out a space for themselves as people adjusted to allow Rory room for him and his partner.

  Ceelo Green’s “Bright Lights and Big City” was the perfect tempo for the different combinations of steps she and Rory had worked on. Despite that and her more optimistic thoughts at the table, the reality of so many people around them, the inevitable attention they were drawing, had her shrinking a little inside. Though she tried not to show it on the outside, Rory put pressure on her hand and pulled her down to him. Cupping her face to draw her eyes to his, he brushed his lips over her mouth.

  “You look so beautiful,” he said softly, and the heat in his eyes, his voice, told her how much he meant it. “You remember what I told you we’re going to do when we get home tonight? You think about that. Show me how you’ll move for me when your hand is between your legs.”

  At her flush, a devilish glint came to his gaze. She thought about smacking him, a startling thought, and then he grinned, as if the reaction had shown on her face.

  He shifted his grip to one familiar to her from their lessons, and waited a beat to make sure she knew what he was about to do. Her nod confirmed it. He yanked, and she executed the turn into his lap, pushing off with her leg so she gave the chair the momentum for the spin he put it in. The turn ended with her reaching out with the opposite leg, and pushing herself back out of his lap, onto her feet and spinning out once more. At the full reach of their arms, the strength in his grip was enough to let her lean outward at an angle, like grass blown from a strong breeze, her free arm outstretched. Then he did another yank, spinning her back into the wrap of his arm, her hip against his side.

  Exclamations of surprise and a burst of applause made him grin, and she found herself smiling back. He settled them into simpler steps, the ball changes, spins, turns and wheelies that were less showy, merely about enjoying the dancing together. A glimpse toward Thomas and Marcus showed they were doing the same. Despite the teasing at the table, they wouldn’t be doing anything to take the shine away from Rory tonight. Not that she thought that would have mattered to him. His attention was entirely on her, and he looked…happy.

  When his tension about the lack of stage access had disappeared, she thought she knew why. Such things could still give him a momentary hitch, but he was past it. He’d become comfortable in his skin, in who he was. What he wanted, and what mattered.

  What would it be like to reach that point? She had never believed it would be on her horizon, let alone within reaching distance. But she wanted him, wanted to be part of what made him happy, now and forever. She wanted to learn how to dance even more complicated dances with him, learn to trust his lead. Most of all, she wanted to break out of the prison that kept her from telling him everything she wanted with her own lips, her own words.

  Tonight, she believed that eventually she would. She thought of the words he’d said up on the stage. Most of them had been for his parents, but that one part had been a straight arrow, fired right to her soul.

  He was never going to give up on her. Never. She thought she could believe it, and though that belief might only hold through tonight, it was an important start, a foothold toward a more enduring belief and trust.

  As Marguerite had said, for this moment, it was enough.

  “Cake by the Ocean” by DNCE was next. Amanda, Johnny, Brick and other friends had closed in on their position. Couples broke apart so they were dancing as a group. Amanda bounced up to her and they were bumping hips, turning and moving to the rhythm. She showed Daralyn some other steps. Daralyn didn’t even mind when Rory took Amanda’s offered hand and put her into a spin.

  Daralyn did a couple steps with Johnny, though Johnny didn’t put his hands on her, merely mirroring her dance steps and shooting her a big grin. Then there was Thomas and Marcus. Elaine joined them with a new partner, and there was so much energy around them. Good energy, like the heat of the sun when her bones were cold.

  She was surrounded by a group of people, and it wasn’t frightening. All she felt was love. No anxiety, despite the noise and people. Because all of it was charged with good energy, fun and love.

  She met Rory’s eyes, saw he was making sure she was okay. Even now, on his night, with his friends, he was thinking of her.

  I love you.

  She wanted to say it to him so much it was an ache in her chest, trying to claw its way out. As the feeling rose inside her, she realized the words, that one key desire, might be the thing that could break down a wall her back had been against for so long. It had always seemed immovable, because what was on the other side of it was something to be feared. If the wall was gone, it would leave her unsupported, the bricks that had held up her reality for so long broken to rubble.

  Rory extended a hand, and she came to him, took it, held fast. She danced with him with that connection, and he never let her go. Not once.

  After the dancing, Johnny and Brick drew Rory away to spend some time reminiscing with his teammates. Daralyn had rejoined Elaine at their table, so she gave Rory a nod, a little wave, telling him she was fine. He sent her a searching look, but with her sitting by his mother, he seemed satisfied, moving away with the men.

  Elaine was trying to figure out how to get her cell camera to pan the room, so she could then call Les and show her what was going on. Daralyn concentrated on helping her, but the music had moved to a hiphop piece. The people noise was getting louder, more raucous.

  The wave of feeling from the dance floor was still with her, but she wanted to keep it that way. She knew the warning signs. She needed a few minutes where it was quiet.

  She didn’t want to interrupt Rory, so she told Elaine where she was going, and left her with Thomas to help with the phone. They all understood she had to have those retreats.

  “Go by the cafeteria area, see if they have some extra sleeves of plastic cups in the cabinets,” Elaine said. “I heard Patsy say they were running a little low, but she hasn’t had a chance to get away.”

  A task to do, to be helpful. Even better. Daralyn hurried out of the auditorium, taking a deep breath once she reached the wide hallway outside. It had a bank of windows with a view of the front parking lot, full of cars. People had washed their vehicles before showing up tonight, so the lot lights reflected off shiny hoods and windows.