The Hero - Robyn Carr Page 0,42

room for romance, especially with a woman hiding a weird and mysterious past.

Someone approached her—one of the Coast Guard guests, he believed. He gave her a half bow that made her laugh, held out a hand and took her out in front of the bandstand to dance. There was a little more laughter, some barefoot twirling. He found himself smiling, glad she was having a good time. He couldn’t believe there was anything creepy or sinister about her—she seemed so transparent, except maybe for that part of her life she was fleeing. For no logical reason whatsoever, he was glad her flight had brought her here, because he believed this to be a safe place and populated with the kind of men who had the strength to protect her and her little girl, if that became necessary.

He shifted his gaze to Cooper, who was making the rounds, dancing with the women in his family and with friends from town. Sarah was being passed around pretty liberally as well—lots of cutting in going on out there. Then there was Gina and Mac, the newlyweds, locked together in a sweet, close sway...until they were disrupted by Mac’s aunt Lou and her steady, Joe, and partners were exchanged. But that didn’t last long—they were back together for the next song.

He looked for Austin, who hadn’t moved in quite a while. He was still sitting with the teenagers, Landon, Eve, Ashley James and a young man by the name of Frank. When Spencer had decided to come to this town, he had no idea it would include kids like Landon. He was an expert on high school kids, especially athletes, and Landon and his friends were A-list, no question—smart, healthy, responsible and very patient with ten-year-old Austin. Landon was bunking with Spencer and Austin while Cooper’s parents borrowed the RV as their guestroom and he was a perfect houseguest.

Spencer wandered over to the outdoor bar for another beer and, while standing there, he talked with a number of folks from town. Yeah, this was a town excited about football season and it made sense. Their high school teams did well and were worth bragging about. People wanted to warn him about competing teams and ask him if he had some secret weapon. They wanted to go over details of performance in previous years and talk about their stars. Finally he was dragged out to dance by Ray Anne and, with beer in hand, he spun her around a little bit.

“Wow,” she said, “you can even dance!”

“I’ve chaperoned a ton of high school dances,” he explained.

She tapped his beer bottle with a long, pink, manicured finger. “No beer at those dances, I bet.”

“Not where I could see it,” he answered with a laugh.

“Hard to believe times have changed so little since I was in school. It’s been a couple of years.”

“Has it now?” he asked, playing dumb.

Dance over, he found himself standing around with Coach Rayburough, Cliff and Mac. The talk was football, of course. And his eyes kept drifting to Devon—she either danced or visited with women friends or sat on the blanket. It wasn’t late, but inevitably the party dwindled—people started leaving.

Spencer was tackled around the legs by his son. Austin looked up at him and said, “Can I go home on the Razor?”

“Who’s driving?” Spencer asked, joking.

“Ha, ha. You know.”

He looked around and saw Landon was saying his goodbyes, shaking Cooper’s hand, giving his sister a kiss on the cheek. Then Landon was striding toward Spencer. “Eve and I are going to head out. We’ll take Austin home in the Razor, if it’s okay with you. If it’s not, I’ll walk him and Eve will drive the Razor. Or we could leave it for you.”

“As long as he has his seat belt on and you go slow,” Spencer said. “Don’t hit any wedding guests. That’s bad luck.”

“For sure.” Landon laughed.

“We’ll swing by and grab Eve and Ashley on the way home,” Mac said. He glanced at his watch. “Half hour or so?”

“Come on, Mac, it’s Saturday night!”

“You gonna bring ’em home?” Mac asked.

“Yeah, later! After Spencer gets home.” Then he looked at Spencer and said, “There’s no hurry on that....”

They were walking off in the direction of the far side of the beach, Austin with four teens. And then the saxophone player spoke into the microphone and said, “We’ll give you a couple more, then this old band is packing it up....”

Spencer handed Mac his beer bottle and said, “Excuse me.” He