Josie Day Is Coming Home (26 page)

Not that their die-hard skepticism stopped her. Undaunted,
she outfitted herself in one dowdy getup after another. She carried a briefcase
and baked cookies for the members of the Better Business Bureau—who seemed to
grudgingly appreciate the gesture, if not the charbroiled results. She talked
her heart out, tacked up flyers until her fingers ached, and tirelessly stumped
for her dance school.

Her natural charm should have been enough. But if it wasn’t,
Luke figured she had good odds of wearing down the naysayers through sheer
stubbornness alone.

Overall, life was good. Josie didn’t ask him about the
future again, and he didn’t volunteer the information. Why look a gift horse in
the mouth? Instead, they simply spent their days together. They worked, they
talked, they kissed. They ate cheeseburgers at Frank’s, raced along the pine
forest back roads on his motorcycle, laughed over TJ’s cheesy kung-fu movie
picks from the local video store.

Luke, despite knowing he shouldn’t, fell even harder for
Josie. And the next time she danced, both he and TJ watched.

She was unbelievable. Lithe, limber, and dazzling in her
precision. He’d never realized how much sheer athletic work went into dancing,
but Josie made it look effortless. When she danced, she relaxed…and she came
alive. As impossible as it seemed, Luke thought he’d never seen her look
happier than while whirling in a series of complicated steps.

“Okay. That was my standard audition routine,” she
announced, flushed and eager, when the first song ended. “This next bit is
something I made up just for fun.”

While they watched, she performed again. She arched her
back, she flung her arms in the air, she executed the trickiest moves with a
smile. Somehow, even though Josie wore nothing but plain track pants and a tank
top, she sparkled. Luke could almost see the spotlights and sequins and
glitter. Or maybe that was just the natural glow all around her.

“Woo-hoo!” TJ yelled, applauding enthusiastically.
He stuck his fingers in his mouth for a piercing wolf whistle. “Go, Josie!
Go, Josie!”

“Cut it out.” Luke gave him a shove. “I’m not
doing ‘the wave’ with you.”

“Buzzkill.”

But Josie only smiled wider, her body radiant with
hard-earned sweat. She twirled to the other end of the ballroom to show them
another move. Despite his grumblings to TJ, Luke couldn’t tear his gaze away.
He thought she was magnificent.

Someone else did, too. Toward the end of that week, Josie
earned her first student: her niece, Hannah.

Luke never would’ve credited Josie’s starchy sister, Jenna,
with enough gumption to enroll her daughter in the town’s most notorious new
dance school. Especially since doing so meant openly defying her posse of PTSO
moms. But apparently rebel stubbornness genes ran in the family, because Jenna
arrived at Blue Moon with baby Emily on one hip and Hannah’s hand in hers. She
announced that dance class was in session.

“Go ahead, honey.” She nudged her daughter
forward, then met Luke’s open surprise with a defiant tilt of her chin.
“Hey,
somebody’s
got to start the stampede to this dance
school.”

“Damned straight,” Luke agreed, approving.

Her loyalty touched him. It got to Josie, too, because she
turned all weepy. Ten minutes of apology-filled hugging and blubbering passed
(“No,
I’m
sorry!”) before both women pulled themselves
together enough to get on with things. In the meantime, Luke and TJ were left
to deal with Jenna’s befuddled offspring.

Luke wasn’t happy with the arrangement. For one thing, it
potentially involved diaper changing. But by the time Jenna scooped a babbling,
drooling Emily from his arms again, Luke had decided babies weren’t so bad
after all. There was a lot to be said for a person who smiled that much.
Especially when that person was toothless.

The lessons were on.

At five years old, Hannah was shy and a little pudgy. Her
arms and legs flopped. Her brown bangs hung in her eyes. But even Luke—who
didn’t know squat about kids—had to admit the girl was adorable. She bumbled
into the ballroom, gawking at the crystal chandeliers overhead, wearing shorts
and a T-shirt and a pair of padded knee socks.

“They’re her soccer socks,” he heard Jenna explain
in an aside to Josie. “Hannah wanted some padding between her and the
floor in case she fell down.” She leaned nearer, out of her daughter’s
earshot. “She’s convinced she’ll fall. I’m afraid soccer hasn’t done much
to improve her coordination.”

“That’s okay,” Josie said, shimmying toward
Hannah. She wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders and gave her a sunny
smile. “We’ll have fun, won’t we, kiddo?”

They seemed to. Especially judging by the expression on
Hannah’s face when she emerged a half hour later, winded and disheveled—but
ecstatic.

“Mom! Mom! I learned that new dance move! You know, the
one I saw on TV!”

Jenna looked puzzled. “Which dance move?”

“The one in Britney’s video!” Hannah said.
“Look!”

“One-two-three-four!” Josie said, cueing her.

Hannah performed a wobbly but decent series of steps while
Josie kept time, the moves culminating in a hip thrust at the end—and a pouty
over-the-shoulder look. It was vintage pint-sized sexpot, complete with a hair
toss.

Jenna stared, openmouthed. “Uhhh…”

“Good, right, Mom?” Hannah asked breathlessly. She
couldn’t have looked more thrilled with herself.

“It’s terrific. You nailed it!” Josie enthused.
She gouged her elbows in Luke and TJ’s ribs to either side of her. “Look,
these guys are speechless! Wasn’t it terrific, you two?”

“Awesome!” TJ said.

“Very dance-y,” Luke added. Ouch.

“Thank you, thank you!” Hannah jumped up and down.
She seemed oblivious to her mother’s continued—stunned—silence. She twirled in
place, her cheeks shining.

“Show your mom your other dance,” Josie
encouraged.

“Okay!”

Hannah spun off to the center of the room. She assumed some
sort of ready position, held her arms in a pose over her head, then took
several tiptoed steps. She twirled again.

“It’s a movement from
Swan Lake
. Classical,”
Josie explained. She beamed at her niece. “I like to start with something
fun to catch a student’s interest—in this case, the Britney move—then move on
to something more traditional.”

“Do it again! Do it again!” TJ yelled, enthralled.

They all gawked at him.

“Hey, I like ballet. Shoot me.”

With more encouragement, Hannah repeated the dance. Her
movements—as obviously beginner as they were—actually held some sort of grace.
It was a miracle, Luke thought. Like the Jets winning a playoff.

“Bravo!” came a voice from behind them.
“Excellent!”

They all turned. Applauding, Nancy Day strode toward them in
a yellow suit, high heels clacking, sunlight glinting from her jewelry. She
must have let herself in, a ballsy move that didn’t surprise Luke. What did
surprise him was the expression on her face. For the first time ever, she
looked downright kind…and a little contrite.

“Grandma! Look! Look what I can do!” Hannah
yelled.

Against all Luke’s expectations, the girl didn’t show off
her Britney moves. Instead, she repeated the
Swan Lake
dance. He glanced
at Josie, eyebrows raised, but she only shot him a pleased, knowing smile.

“Every girl has a little ballerina in her.”

He guessed so. Because now Hannah pirouetted all through the
ballroom, hands overhead in an approximation of every cartoon ballerina he’d
ever seen. Unlike Tom & Jerry, she looked pretty adept, even with those
soccer socks on. He was impressed.

“That’s wonderful, Hannah,” Nancy Day called.
“Good job!”

She glanced at Josie. Then frowned. “Don’t give me that
look, Josie. I knew all along you’d make a fine dance teacher.”

“Why, because I’m so bossy?”

“No.” A smile played around Nancy’s mouth.
“Because you’re so talented. Now let’s see what you three have done to
this place, shall we?”

She assumed the lead in a tour of the renovated mansion,
covering the ground floor and then following the repaired staircase to the
second floor. In every room, Nancy oooh-ed and aaah-ed over the changes Josie
and Luke and TJ had made. She commented on the bathrooms’ honeycomb tile, on
the gleaming mullioned windows, on the refurbished floorboards and wallpaper
and paint and every other detail under the sun.

“Structurally, this place looks like a million
bucks,” Nancy announced when they entered the kitchen. She leaned against the
countertop beside Luke. “But aesthetically it’s missing something. Some
sense of…hominess, I guess.”

“That’s because I haven’t put my personal stamp on it
yet,” Josie told her. “Having this much space—for the first time in
my life—is pretty overwhelming to deal with.”

“We decided to keep it neutral,” Luke agreed.
“That way it’ll be easier to—”

Abruptly, he cut himself short.

Easier to sell the place later
. It had been right on
the tip of his tongue. Damn it. What was the matter with him? A person would
think he
wanted
his secret out in the open. All this family
togetherness—and all those Hallmark moments with Hannah and Emily—must have
worn down his usual wariness.

“—easier to rent out some of the rooms in the east
wing,” Josie finished for him, not looking up as she fiddled with the
microwave. “Right, Luke?”

She slapped a nuked hot dog on a fluffy bun and slid it
across the table to Hannah. The girl chowed down.

“You want to rent some of the rooms?” Nancy asked,
seeming more interested by the minute.

“Yes,” Josie said, still bustling around. She
filled the coffeemaker’s basket with Arabica beans, then added water and turned
on the unit. “I mean, let’s face it. This place is too big for me, and
I’ll probably need an income to tide me over until my dance school takes
off.” At that, she smiled gratefully at her sister. “My savings
aren’t going to last forever, and the renovation fund Tallulah gave me is just
about tapped out.”

She opened the refrigerator and withdrew a bottle of ketchup
for Hannah. The conversation turned to talk of Jenna’s upcoming salsa dancing
night—a surprise she’d planned for David now that Josie’s lessons with her were
finished.

Luke still couldn’t believe he’d participated in them as the
requisite David stand-in. He’d felt as if he’d been drafted into a boy
band—minus the gelled hair and animatronic moves—but Josie had insisted he’d
done well. Her thank-you kiss had almost made him believe it.

Amid the murmurs, Nancy gave Luke an appraising look.

“Your ‘neutral’ decorating would make this place a
cinch to pitch to buyers,” she remarked in an undertone. “Sure you
don’t want to list it? I’ll bet it would rake in a bundle.”

“Save the sales talk.” He frowned at her,
irritated at having nearly blurted out his plans for Blue Moon—and, upon hearing
Nancy’s offer, feeling pissed off on Josie’s behalf. It would only hurt her
feelings to know her mother was shilling for sales. “I thought you were
here to see Josie.”

“I’m here to see what you three have done here.
Professional Realtor’s interest.” She said the words loudly, surveying the
room with a regal tilt to her chin. To Luke alone, she added, “Cut me some
slack, you big galoot. A mother’s got to have her excuses. If Josie thought I
was visiting her on purpose she’d hide in a closet, and you know it.”

He couldn’t help but grin. In the past, Josie had done
exactly that in an attempt to evade her family. Having met them, he understood
why. But now, for some weird reason, he found himself warming up to Nancy. He
was beginning to believe her flashy suits hid a tender heart.

He tuned back into the conversation.

“As soon as we get the mirrors and the ballet barre and
the sound system,” Josie was saying, “we’ll be all set to launch the
dance school.”

Damn. That again. The enthusiasm in her voice was plain as
she went on discussing her dance school plans. Charitably, no one mentioned
that she still needed a lot more students, too.

“I can manage without some of the equipment for a
while,” she continued, waving her arm blithely, “but—wait, all that
stuff is on back-order, right, Luke?”

Pretending not to hear, he grabbed several mugs and headed
to the gurgling coffeemaker. He felt like a jerk the whole time. Damn it. How
had he gotten into this mess?

Josie shrugged, cheerfully overlooking his silence.
“I’m not worried,” she told the others. “It’ll all come together
somehow, I just know it. It’s only a matter of time.”

Luke hoped so.

“Well, the ballroom’s well on its way, and the rest of
the place looks completely shipshape,” Jenna volunteered, visibly impressed
as she surveyed the changes. “It looks like you’ll be ready for your
opening day.”

“Good thing, too,” Nancy said. “That means
all those dance school advertisements your dad cooked up through Donovan’s
Corner SuperCable won’t go to waste. They’ve been airing for a solid
week.”

Everyone stilled. Josie’s mouth dropped open.

“Of course, they’re mostly on in the middle of the
night,” Nancy continued merrily, oblivious to the astonishment in the
room, “when rates are cheaper. So you might wind up with a dance school
full of insomniacs.” She rubbed the countertop. “Oooh, is this
granite? Granite has great resale value.”

More staring.

Jenna recovered first. “Forget the countertops, Mom!
Dad’s been advertising Josie’s dance school?”

Carelessly, Nancy nodded. “Yes, to recruit students.
He’s buddies with the guy who books ad space, so he called in a few favors. You
mean none of you have seen the ads?”

“We put our TV in storage,” Jenna said, shooting a
pointed look at her hot dog-munching daughter. “After
certain people
took it upon themselves to start watching MTV.”