Lane’s gaze was expectant, his breathing slow. The moment was hushed, like something that mattered was about to happen.
“Let’s dance,” he said.
“Okay.” She flashed him a smile. “Let’s.”
***
The woman saying yes to a dance seemed like a completely different being from the woman Lane had been talking to a moment ago. He’d watched a riot of emotions play across her face as she went through some complicated process that evidently ended with a decision to trust him. Now she was smiling and bright-eyed as she cocked a hip and held out her hand.
“Can’t think of anything I’d rather do,” he said. Actually, he could think of a lot of things he’d rather do with Sarah, but he couldn’t do any of them in public. Dancing would have to do—for now. It was an excuse to touch her, and touching would help him figure her out. Sometimes before a ride, he’d lay a hand on a bull, feel the tension in its muscles and the blood pulsing through its veins. A skipping heart and twitching muscles told him the bull was nervous, maybe even scared. A steady heart told him it was ready for the ride. A scared animal bucked to shake you off, while a relaxed animal bucked for the joy of winning—and joy bucked better than fear.
He needed to get Sarah to trust him. Then they could get back to their game, and maybe there’d even be some… bucking.
The fiddler stepped down to cheers and backslaps, and the band swung into their next song, a limping but serviceable rendition of a George Strait ballad. Lane led Sarah to a dim corner of the dance floor and took her hand, pulling her toward him while he wrapped his good arm around her waist. He’d expected her to tense, but she melted into him like a stick of sweet butter, her curves conforming to his muscles, her head resting on his chest. He could feel her tension ebbing away as he held her and swayed, and when he looked down her eyes were closed.
A wave of tenderness swamped him and he wondered what was happening. He was an old-fashioned guy, and it was a natural impulse to want to protect women. But this was more than your standard manly protective urge. There was no threat here, no ex-boyfriend, no predatory Lothario or evil ex-husband. There was just this woman, this soft tender woman, who thought she had to be tough to survive. Who thought she had to cover up her true, generous, sweet nature in order to succeed.
He wanted to protect her from herself.
And the only way to do that was to make her feel safe. What was it she’d said about poverty? When you don’t have money, you don’t have options. He wondered when she’d learned that lesson and held her a little closer, lowering his head so his lips rested gently on her glossy hair. She smelled like peaches and flowers. He rested his cheek against her head and swayed with the music, closing his eyes as she relaxed into him.
When you trained horses, there was a point where the horse stopped fearing you and started to trust you. He’d learned to feel the subtle shift in energy as the change took place and the animal opened up its heart.
He felt that now.
When the music stopped, they stood still in the moment. Somehow, in the course of one song, everything had changed.
***
Sarah let Lane lead her through the crowd on the dance floor. They followed a serpentine path through the scattered chairs and tables, most of which were empty since the band had struck up a Chris LeDoux song that flooded the dance floor with swirling girls and stomping cowboys. When they stepped out of the bar, the lights of the rides and concession stands were out, leaving the rodeo grounds in shadow. The reflection of the moon floating in a silvery pillow of cloud was duplicated over and over in the empty windshields of parked cars.
Sarah jumped as a ghostly white blob shot out from the shadows.
“Willie.” Lane bent and picked up a dog, white and woolly. Someone had tied the hair up over its eyes with a pink bow.
“That’s your dog?” She stifled a laugh.
“Yeah.” He looked as sheepish as a too-tall cowboy with a sissy dog could possibly look. “One of the wives must’ve got hold of him. I don’t do bows.”
“No, I didn’t think you did.”
“Mind if we take him back to the trailer?”
The music