He waved a hand for her to climb in the car. “No, we can’t.”
She climbed in, smoothed the hem of her dress over her knees and then squeezed her trembling hands together. She was more nervous than she may ever have been. The article in her pocket was the reason. She truly, truly hoped he’d like it.
Jane had sat on the edge of her bed for hours last night, asking about every person at the party. Patsy had told her everything about the party, except the flower and possible rumor about her and Lane being engaged, and then about the article she needed to write for him. Jane had been excited about that, and had even read the article earlier today, saying it was as good as many of the ones in the magazines she snuck into the house.
Patsy was nervous because she’d taken to heart what he’d said about people wanting to read about themselves and others, and had used as many names as she could remember, including his. He was more popular and interesting than many of the others at the party. There wasn’t a subject he couldn’t carry on a conversation about, and he was nice, genuinely nice, to everyone. And so very handsome.
“You look lovely tonight,” he said while climbing in the car.
She was so nervous, it was as if a flock of butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach tonight. “Thank you. You look extremely handsome.”
He pulled away from the curb. “Extremely?”
Her cheeks flushed with heat, yet she didn’t change her mind. “Yes. Extremely.”
He chuckled. “Then, allow me to say that you look extravagantly lovely.”
They both laughed, and then he asked, “So, did you write an article about last night?”
Holding her breath, she nodded.
He held out his hand.
She slid her hand in her pocket. “It’s too dark for you to read it, and you’re driving.”
“I’ll pull over once we get downtown, under a streetlight.” He wiggled his fingers. “Hand it over.”
She was nervous, but not afraid. Even if he didn’t like it, he would be nice about it. He was always nice. Pulling out the paper, she laid it in his hand.
He pulled over shortly afterward, beneath a glowing light.
Patsy held her breath as he unfolded the paper and began to read.
“This is good, Libby. Really good.”
A quiver tickled her spine as he called her Libby. “If you decide to print it I... I...”
“You what?”
“Would prefer that you don’t use my name.”
He frowned. “I thought you wanted to be a reporter.”
“I do, but...” She couldn’t use her real name, and using Libby seemed to be too large of a lie. No name was better.
“But not in the society page,” he said. “You want to wait for a headline.”
That was a reason she could live with. “Yes.”
“All right, I won’t use your name.” He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “I’ll let you know the payment after it’s edited.”
“Payment?”
“Yes. The Gazette pays per word.”
“No, I mean, you are going to print it? Really print it?”
“Yes, it’s good. Raymond and Ruby’s engagement is definitely something people want to read about, and you really put your heart in this. Gave it feeling. Excitement. People like that.”
Full of excitement herself, she squealed and then spun in her seat so she could hug him. “Thank you, Lane. Thank you so much!”
She pulled back to look at him, and say thank you again, but something in his eyes made her heart stop. Or beat faster. She wasn’t exactly sure. Wasn’t exactly sure what was happening inside her at all because the craziest thought ever had crossed her mind. That of kissing him.
Releasing his shoulders, she sat back in her seat, wiggled a little closer to the door even. This was strange. It was as if every part of her body that had touched his was on fire. She’d touched him before. Danced with him more times than she could count, but hugging him just now had been very, very different.
Too very, very different.
She was still contemplating that when, after driving for some distance, he asked if she went to the ocean very often.
“No, why?”
“Victoria lives in a house that overlooks the ocean,” he answered.
“I haven’t been there in years,” she said, not able to remember the last time she’d gone to the ocean. Her mind was still trying to figure out what was happening inside her.
“Why not?”
“No reason to go,” she said.
“You don’t swim?”
“Never learned how.”
“Everyone should know how to swim.” He turned off the highway onto a gravel road that went up a hill.
“Why?”
“Because. What if you fell in?”
Considering she rarely went near any water, she shook her head. “That’s not likely.”
He topped the hill, and the golden glow of electric lights shone from every window of a large brownstone house set amid a grove of trees.
“We’re here,” he said.
“It’s hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like a lovely home,” Patsy said, peering through the windshield to make out as much as she could between the moonlight and the car’s headlights.
He parked the car behind several others. “It is a nice place.”
“We don’t have to stay long,” she said, worried because she couldn’t get the idea of kissing him out of her mind.
* * *
Lane climbed out and walked around the car. It wasn’t leaving he was worried about, it was entering the party. His phone hadn’t stopped ringing all day. Everyone wanted to know who the cute blonde was whom he was engaged to. He should have known how fast a rumor like that would spread, and grow. He opened her car door and held out a hand for her to climb out, and made the mistake of looking directly into her eyes.
It was as if she cast a spell on him whenever she looked at him through those long lashes. The desire to kiss her struck so hard it was nearly impossible to contain it. That had happened a short time ago, when she’d hugged him, and it had taken thirty minutes of driving before he could even speak.
Stepping back, needing the distance, he closed the car door. “We won’t be able to stay long. We have to catch the red line again, remember?”
She nodded. “Yes, I remember.”
Damn. He was half-afraid to even touch her, but mustered up and laid a hand on her back to guide her around the car and up the walkway.
A flapper, young, with dyed red chin-length hair, greeted them at the door. The party was in peak performance. The crowd wasn’t the same as last night, and there wasn’t any champagne, but the drinks were flowing. Music, piercing rumbles from a trumpet combined with the higher blare of a saxophone and the twinkling of piano notes, filled the air, along with gleeful shouts, the clinking of glasses and boisterous laughter.
“There will be a dance-off in five minutes.” The redheaded flapper pointed toward a set of French doors that a line of people was entering. “In that room over there.”
He wasn’t in the mood for a dance-off, but if they were on the dance floor, no one would be able to question them about being engaged.
He grabbed Libby’s hand. “Looks like we’ve arrived just in time.”
“I do believe we have.” She giggled. “Oliver.”
The way she said that nickname tripled his heartbeat. He’d forgotten so many things about what it felt like to be attracted to someone, but was readily recognizing each and every one of them.
“Lane, darling, you’re here.”
His spine stiffened at Victoria Lloyd’s high-pitched voice. More than a couple of decades older than him, Victoria had made it plain that everything her husband had had could be his. He’d made it clear that he wasn’t
interested, but she continued.
He placed a hand on Libby’s back, to guide her toward the French doors, and twisted to glance over his shoulder. “We are here, Victoria. Just in time to win a dance contest.”
There were no numbers pinned to their backs this time. As the band struck the first note, dozens of couples ran to the center of the room, and began dancing everything from the Charleston to the foxtrot. It was a free-for-all, and knowing they needed to reserve their energies, Lane started out slow, gracefully leading Libby around the parquet floor.
Dual chandeliers hung overhead, making the silver thread in her hat sparkle and shine as she twirled beneath their clutched hands and then slid back up against his chest again. Her features were so delicate—she was so delicate looking—yet she was more full of life than anyone he’d known.
“It’s a lovely party,” she said.
He couldn’t comment on the party. They hadn’t been there long enough, and he hadn’t paid enough attention to comment.
“Are you invited to a party every night?” she asked.
“Practically,” he admitted. “But I spend a lot of evenings working.”
“Doing what?”
“Investigating, writing, editing.” He twirled her beneath his arm. “Not all stories happen during the day.”
The song ended and the next one started with little more than a pause. It had a faster beat, and other couples sped around the dance floor like roadsters racing to the finish line. Keeping their pace slow and even, he said, “We’ll let them wear themselves out, save our energy for the last song.”
Without missing a step, she exclaimed, “And win!” Then performed a double graceful twirl, which had the bystanders clapping with enthusiasm.
“You have an audience,” he said.
“We have an audience.” With her face aglow, she added, “You sure are a good dancer, Oliver.”
“So are you, Libby.” His remark was rewarded by her delightful laugh that truly floated on the air and kept echoing in his ears over and over.
Four songs later, he was winded, but wasn’t about to slow down. There were only four couples left on the dance floor, and he was committed to them winning this dance contest, hands down.
One couple was barely staying upright, but the other two were still going strong. He and Libby were going to have to step it up in order to win.
As if she read his mind, Libby danced out of his arms, and crouched down, until her knees almost touched the floor. He knew what was coming, and couldn’t hold back a whistle as she started dancing the shimmy. Arms out at her sides, the sparkling silver fringes on her dress flipped and flapped and the bystanders went wild, cheering as she shook her torso, shimmying her way up again.
He followed suit, crouching down and shimmying his way up, then dancing toward her. Right before connecting, they’d separate, leap backward and crouch down again.
Her laughter was the main sound he heard.
She could dance the shimmy like no one he’d seen, and though others on the dance floor tried, they didn’t hold a candle to her. The roar of the crowd said they agreed with him.
Without a pause this time, the musicians ended one song and started another with a beat just as fast.
The one couple stumbled, then, with arms and legs flaying, they hit the floor. Recalling how that had taken them out of the last contest, Lane shouted to her, “Let’s move to the other side.”
She nodded, shimmying toward him. He spun around, and with his back to her, shimmied his way toward an open area where no one would stumble into them.
The crowd became louder than the music when, out of the blue, she jumped on his back. Laughing at her ingenuity, he hooked her behind the knees with his elbows and, with her riding piggyback style, he glided across the room like an ice skater.
She was still shaking her torso. He could see her arms out of his peripheral vision, feel her body moving and the fringes of her dress flipping in his hair.
Another couple attempted to copy them, but it didn’t work out. The minute the woman jumped on the man’s back, they somersaulted. All the way across the floor and into the crowd.
“We are going to win this, Oliver!” she shouted over his head.
“Yes, we are!”
Either the other couple had heard them, or simply decided they didn’t have a chance at winning because they stopped dancing, and after a bow, held their arms out toward him and Libby.
As the band played the final bars of the song with a grand finesse, Lane glided a full circle around the floor. The crowd’s cheering said they expected a grand finale from him and Libby, too.
He moved to the center of the floor, and then released his hold on her knees. As soon as she slid off his back, he spun around, wrapped an arm around her waist and another around her shoulders.
The crowd cheered and clapped as she hooked her arms around his neck and he dipped her low.
Her hat fell off, releasing blond tresses that brushed the floor. That, along with her sparkling eyes, deeply indented dimples and smiling lips, was more than he could resist.
Any final bits of control he may have had were gone.
He leaned over her and did exactly what he’d been fighting against doing.
Kissed her.
Chapter Seven
It may have been his own senses returning, or the thunder of the crowd that finally penetrated through the echoing of his own heart in his ears that forced Lane to end the sweetest kiss he’d ever experienced.
Regrettably.
He could have gone on kissing her for hours.
Days.
“Ladies and gents! We have the winners!” someone shouted.
She pressed a hand to her lips as he lifted her upright, and kept it there, with her eyes closed. Not sure if she’d heard the announcement, he whispered, “We won.”
Her eyelids flew open. “We won?”
He nodded.
Her smile lit up her face as she exclaimed, “We won! We won, Oliver!”
He made sure she was steady on her feet before releasing her. “Yes, we did.”
“Hallelujah and jubilee!” she shouted. “We won!”
Laughing, he bent down and picked up her hat. That, too, held regret. She was adorable with her hats on, but that long blond hair hanging loose and carefree around her face was enough to take his breath away.
Her eyes went wide and the smile left her lips as her mouth gaped open at the sight of her hat in his hand.
“Oh!” She grabbed it and quickly slapped it on her head.
With shouts of congratulations, the crowd rushed them. Lane wrapped an arm around her shoulders to keep from becoming separated as they accepted numerous compliments about their dancing.
Then, as soon as the crowd began to disperse, he steered her across the dance floor, toward the makeshift bar that had been set up along one wall.
“Let’s get a drink.”
“I need to find a powder room first,” she replied.
“You have to be dying of thirst. I know I am.”
She stopped at the edge of the dance floor. “I am, but have to put my hat back on properly.”
Her shoulders were up and she was looking down as if cowering. He lifted her chin, looked her in the eyes. “No, you don’t,” he insisted. “You look fine without it.”
Biting her bottom lip, she shook her head. “No, I don’t. I—I didn’t wash my hair this morning.”
That’s what she’d said the other night, too. He ran his fingers through the hair tumbling over her shoulder. “It doesn’t look dirty to me.”
“Well, it is. Do you know where the powder room is?”
Using his chin, he nodded toward the doorway. “Out the door and down the hall on the left.”
“Thank you. I’ll be right back.”
She hurried tow
ard the doorway and he weaved his way through the crowd to the bar. After selecting a beer for himself and a cocktail for her, he worked his way toward the hallway to meet her when she emerged from the powder room, only to be stopped by Victoria as soon as he walked through the doorway.
“Lane, darling,” she drawled. “I never imagined you’d be one to take up with a deb.”
Momentarily confused, because his eyes were down the hall, on the powder room door, bemoaning that Libby was in there hiding the tresses that had felt like pure silk between his fingers, he frowned. “What?”
“A debutante doesn’t seem like your style.” Victoria lifted her chin “Being your age, I assumed you’d prefer a more mature and experienced woman.”
Lane shook his head, not in the mood for Victoria’s innuendoes. She was an attractive woman, just not to him. And most certainly not compared with Libby.
“I am a bit surprised that William let any of his daughters out from under his thumb,” Victoria continued. “He’s kept them under lock and key since they left grammar school. And now you are engaged to one.”
The hair on Lane’s neck quivered. Slowly, he shifted to get a better look at Victoria. “What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”
“Your fiancée. William Dryer’s daughter.”
A roar rumbled in his ears. He twisted, peering again past the crowd lining the hallway and at the powder room door. It couldn’t be. Libby couldn’t be William Dryer’s daughter. That was absurd.
“Patsy, isn’t that her name? Or is it Jane? I know the oldest is Betty, but always got the younger two confused.”
He turned his gaze back to Victoria as his entire body went cold.
A wicked gleam of amusement flashed in her eyes. “I can see why you’ve kept it a secret, but not William. Marrying them off to the rich and famous is his goal. He hopes that will finally get him accepted into the upper class.”
He’d been duped. This whole time. Libby. He knew that wasn’t her name. Dryer had to be behind all this. The man had been furious when he’d left his office last month. “When have you seen Dryer’s daughters?” he asked.
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