Kayla squinted a little and turned her head to one side and then the other. “Nope, sorry. Will, I thought we knew everyone, didn’t we?”
“I thought we did, but maybe she’s mistaken about the year she graduated.” Will played along with a smile on his face.
“Didn’t you graduate with my sister, Teresa, or was it a few years before that?” She leaned in a bit as if she was checking Amanda’s wrinkles. “You’re quite a bit older than us, aren’t you?”
“No. I was in y’all’s class,” she protested. “Amanda Carson. Everyone remembers me. I’m a lawyer now.”
“Guess not everyone. If you were in our class, you should have known us, dearie.” Kayla turned her attention to Will. “You promised me a dance. They’re playing ‘The House That Built Me.’ I love this song—it reminds me of Miss Janie’s house.”
Will wrapped an arm around Kayla’s shoulders and led her away from Amanda and her friends. When they were in the middle of the dance floor, he took her by the hand and spun her around, then brought her to his chest and started a country waltz with her in his arms.
“That was brilliant,” Will whispered for her ears only.
“Thank you.” Kayla smiled up at him.
“And funny at the same time.”
Will’s surprising dancing skill made her feel like Cinderella. “I bet she didn’t find a bit of humor in it,” Kayla said.
“Probably not, but let’s talk about you, not her.”
“What do you want to know about me?” she asked.
“Everything.”
One minute she was lost in Will’s blue eyes. The next her back stiffened and she was frozen in the middle of the floor. Fight-or-flight adrenaline rushed through her veins, and she couldn’t run because her feet wouldn’t work. Denver and a tall, thin woman who looked like she’d just walked off a model’s runway were standing not ten feet away, talking to Amanda and her cohorts.
“Ignore him and them, too.” Will tipped up her chin and looked deeply into her eyes. “They don’t matter. Pretend like we’re the only two people at this reunion.”
She did what he said, but she could see her ex in her peripheral vision. He wore expensive slacks, a button-down shirt, and loafers that most likely cost more than she had made in a month as a waitress.
She knew the minute he spotted her because his eyes went into what she called the evil mode, and he started across the floor toward her, dragging his poor woman away from Amanda and her crowd. Kayla stepped back from Will but kept her hand in his. “Hello, Denver. I wondered if you might be here this evening.”
“Well, I never expected to see you here.” His eyes started at her toes and traveled to her hair and then back again to stare into her eyes. “This is my wife, Dotty. Dotty, these are two of my classmates, Kayla and Will.”
Dotty stuck out a veined hand and shook hands with Kayla. “It’s so nice to meet you. This is a quaint little place, not at all like Atlanta, where we’re making our home.”
“My pleasure.” Kayla held her cold hand a moment longer than necessary. Up close, Kayla could see that the woman was at least twenty years older than Denver, and that was being generous. She could be sixty with veins like that, but if all those diamonds that sparkled under the lights were an indication of her wealth, then Kayla knew exactly why Denver had married her.
“There’s Bowie,” Denver said. “It was nice seeing you again, but I haven’t seen my brother since we flew into the little airport here in town. It’s sure nice to have a private plane and not have to rely on commercial flights.”
Dotty kissed him on the cheek. “He’s such a sweetheart. The little things make him happy.”
Oh, yeah, he’s a real darlin’, Kayla thought as the two of them walked away.
“That woman is old enough to be his mother,” Will whispered.
“Love must know no age limits,” she said.
“You really are funny, but would you look who Amanda flat-out kissed on the mouth?” Will glanced that way.
“Good God!” Kayla gasped. She hadn’t thought that anything could get weirder than Denver showing up with a woman twice his age, but Amanda and Bowie? A hotshot lawyer lady with Denver’s renegade brother—now, that would be something else to tell Miss Janie the next time she was lucid. “I wondered why he mentioned Bowie being here. He wasn’t even in our grade.”