So the Heart Can Dance (A Hidden Beauty Novel Book 2)

by Mary Crawford

  “I think it’s not only possible, but probable,” Kiera assures me. “Your man, is a born protector. He would do everything in his power to keep you safe. I think it’s safe to say he loves all of you, even the parts you don’t like about yourself.”

  “Yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” I say with a small smile. “But how can I trust myself to make the right decision?”

  “Having been there, I don’t know that anyone can decide to be in love. Love is a state of being. You just are,” Kiera says sagely.

  “What if he hurts me?” I push.

  “You mean emotionally?” Heather clarifies.

  “Yes,” I answer. “I feel stuck. I don’t want to go back to how it was before Aidan came back into my life. But I’m scared of what happens in the end.”

  “Why do you think it has to end badly?” Kiera asks with a confused expression on her face.

  “Everyone in my life leaves, eventually.” I answer bluntly.

  Heather gasps. “Tara, that’s just not true. Kiera and I have been here for years and we have no intention of leaving. I don’t know Aidan all that well, but from what I have seen, I don’t think he plans to leave, either.”

  “Your friendships mean so much to me,” I say as my eyes tear up. “I’m so grateful you guys are here. But I still feel like it wouldn’t be fair to Aidan for him to end up with me. I’m one screwed up chick.”

  I don’t think you’re all that screwed up. You’re way too hard on yourself.” Heather insists. “You’ve accomplished so much in your life.”

  “Okay, but what I know about romantic relationships you could fit on the head of a pin and still have room left over,” I state with embarrassment.

  “Oh, sweetie, do you think you’re the only one who feels that way?” Heather asks.

  “Heather has a point,” Kiera agrees. “Before I met Jeff, I didn’t even know what I was missing. I thought I had an idea, based on the love stories I could check out from the library. But I had no idea how to find or recognize the right person who could change my life. I was so young when my mom got sick and died, I never got to see my parents in love. So I missed out on a lot. I bet the same thing is true for you. But just because we’ve never seen it, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. I mean, look at William and Isabel. They’ve been married for decades and they still act like newlyweds.”

  “It’s true!” Heather adds. “Both sets of my grandparents were in love forever. My parents are still together, too.”

  “Okay, I’ll admit I may not have the healthiest perspective on interpersonal relationships, but what if Aidan would be better off without me?” I ask. “I don’t want to hold him back. I love him too much for that.”

  Kiera gives me a soft smile. “Do you hear what you just said?”

  “Of course I did!” I sputter. “I said that Aidan might be better off without me.”

  Kiera’s grin is even bigger as she says, “You did say that. But far more importantly, you said you love him.”

  I sit in stunned silence for a moment. “I did, didn’t I?”

  Heather giggles as she says, “You act surprised. Is this a newsflash for you? Do you know how Aidan feels?”

  I smile at Heather’s reaction. “Yes, as a matter of fact, it does feel like a newsflash. For a long time, I lost any ability to love men. I was barely functioning. Yet somehow, Aidan has not given up on me. He’s been able to show me that I am capable of a full range of emotions. I always assumed that I would be alone forever, but now I know I don’t have to be.”

  “That’s amazing, Tara,” Kiera responds. “I’m so glad he’s brought some normalcy into your life. I hope he loves you too.”

  I blush a little. “I think he truly does. Did you guys see last night’s episode of America’s Next Star?”

  Heather and Kiera respond simultaneously. “Yes!”

  “I taped it last night,” Kiera says. “The ending was a big shock. But I thought I saw a message for you. He looked right into the camera and then flashed the sign for I love you. There was a sign after that, but I don’t know what it was.”

  I blush even more as I admit, “That is my name sign.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Heather exclaims. “Aidan announced his love for you on national TV. How cool. I want to find a guy like that.”

  Kiera nods as she says, “That’s huge! Did you know it was coming?”

  “No, not really,” I reply. “Well, that’s not exactly true. Aidan has never been bashful about expressing how he feels about anything—good or bad. He’s been hinting that his feelings for me run really deep. But I didn’t expect him to say it publicly, with everything else that was going on.”

  “So you knew he was planning to leave the show?” Heather probes.

  “I knew it was a possibility,” I concede. “We talked through his options, but he was still conflicted about it the last time I talked to him.”

  “You know what this means, right?” Kiera asks me.

  I look at her blankly, trying to figure out where she’s going. Finally, I shrug to indicate my level of cluelessness.

  “It means he trusts you to be involved in the most difficult decisions of his life,” Kiera explains. “That's major. Guys can be weird when it comes to their careers. They often keep their fears and emotions private. Trusting you enough to talk to about it is a great sign.”

  “Do you really think so? I don’t know. I’m worried we may have connected too quickly.”

  Kiera laughs out loud. “Listen, you might not want to gauge the proper relationship pace by me. I met someone, fell in love, and became a mom in about four months. But despite being unorthodox, it seems to work for us.”

  Heather pipes in with, “I don’t profess to be any great expert, but I think love takes as long as it takes, and that’s it. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. I want to be swept off my feet by someone and have it hit me like a flash of lightning.”

  Kiera smiles at Heather. “I hope it happens that way for you too, but there’s no one right way to fall in love.” She turns to me and states, “You and Aidan have been friends for decades. It’s not like you’re strangers to each other. In fact, who knows, if your lives hadn’t gotten in the way, you might have been together years ago, and you’d have a few kids by now.”

  Her words paint a picture that’s so sad, it almost takes my breath away. What would’ve happened in my life if I had fallen for my best friend at 12 or 13 instead of chasing after older guys? What kind of person would I be now? If I was that person, would Aidan still love me? The possibilities are mind-boggling.

  Kiera notices I’ve turned pale and whispers, “Tara, I didn’t mean to make you sad. You’re always telling us, things tend to work out the way they’re supposed to. I’m just sorry you have had so many crappy things happen to you.”

  “It’s okay,” I assure her. “My brain just went to a dark place for a minute. It’s not your fault.”

  Just then, Becca wakes from her nap and starts to fuss in Kiera’s lap.

  Kiera takes her out of the front carrier and offers her to me, “Do you mind? I have to get things arranged here.”

  I shake my head and hold out my arms to take her. “I’m always happy to hold this little peanut.”

  “Hey, what about me?” Heather says, sticking her bottom lip out in an exaggerated pout. “When is it gonna be my turn?”

  “You can hold her after she eats,” I offer with a wink.

  Heather snorts and exclaims, “Gee, thanks a lot! Give me the kid with the dirty diaper while you get her when she’s nice and clean.”

  Kiera rolls her eyes at our little squabble. “Okay, children, that’s enough,” she teases. “It’s not like you guys don’t get to hang out with my kids all the time. Do you guys mind if we move to a back table? I need to nurse her and she can get kind of rambunctious. I don’t want to be flashing the whole world.”

  It still amazes me Kiera can nurse at all. Before this whole adoption adventure, I always assumed that in order
to nurse, you had to give birth to your baby. But hanging around Kiera has given me a whole new education. Through a long and involved process that included hormone shots, teeny tiny tubes and lots of patience, Kiera has induced lactation. Becca has taken to it so well that Kiera hardly gives her any formula at all now. Her dedication to her kids astounds me. If I ever have kids, I want to be the kind of mom Kiera is.

  After we moved to a back table, I hand Becca back to Kiera. It only takes a second before Becca is thoroughly settled.

  “She looks content,” I observe.

  “We both are,” Kiera says with a beaming maternal smile.

  “Were you ever scared out of your gourd? The changes came so fast in your life. How in the world did you ever cope?”

  Kiera shrugs. “We didn’t set out with any master plan. We just dealt with things as they came up, and the greater the challenge, the more we tended to pull together. If you had asked me last year if I was going to be married with two children in a matter of months, I would’ve thought you were crazy.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I respond. “My relationship with Aidan seems to have lurched from one calamity to another. First we were held at gunpoint by your crazy ex-father-in-law. Then I practically fainted. Soon after, I had a huge freak out in front of him that made me nearly catatonic. Let’s not forget it was partially my input that convinced him to give up his dream of winning the competition. I can’t figure out why he wants to be with me. I’m a walking disaster.”

  Kiera looks over at me with understanding eyes and murmurs, “I don’t know how much clearer Aidan can be. As near as I can tell, he’s shown you love in every interaction you’ve had since you were kids. I think you can trust this one. It’s okay to let your heart go.” She looks down at Becca and smiles a tearful smile. “Trust me, it’s worth the risk because you’ll never know how far love can take you until you surrender to it.”

  The emotion of the moment was almost too much to bear, as I realize that I’m being stupid about Aidan. Kiera’s right, we need to just feel what we feel.

  “So when should I tell him all this?” I ask, suddenly feeling panicked. “It’s one thing to admit to myself that I love Aidan; it’s a whole other thing to tell him about it.”

  “I think the moment will present itself and you’ll feel that it’s the perfect time to say something,” Heather suggests.

  “You guys know me, I sort of suck at expressing feelings,” I say, shaking my head. “I haven’t had much practice because I’ve been alone for so long. What if I mess this up somehow?”

  Kiera chuckles as she says, “The way Aidan protected you at our wedding, I doubt there is anything you could do to dissuade him from loving you.”

  “Maybe so,” I concede. “But I want to do this right.”

  Heather’s sighs as she says, “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you. There is no right way to love someone. Everybody figures out their own path.”

  I’m trying to cram my feet into the cramped space under the seat in front of me. I see now what a great advantage it is to fly first class. In the grand scheme of things, though, I don’t mind because I’m going to see Tara in a couple of hours. She’s so sweet. She arranged to take one of her exams early so she could pick me up at the airport. I can’t wait to see her. I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone the way I miss her. Being around her settles my restlessness and makes me feel at peace with myself. I’ve had a hard time finding a soft place to land in my life. She gives me a sense of home.

  I no longer need Tara’s song for the competition, but I feel driven to finish it. I’ve never had to struggle this hard to write music. I hear it one way in my head, but when I play it, it doesn’t seem to have the same magic. So I’ve been doing tons of rewrites trying to get the song to match my vision. That may be stupid in a way. Tara won’t be as critical of the song as I am. She will love it because I’ve written it. But I want it to be perfect. I’m not good at expressing emotion, when I’m not singing. I tend to joke and fool around a lot to cover up my feelings. The reason I’m working so hard on the song is because I want it to be one long love letter to Tara. The love letter she deserves.

  I get my lyric book from my backpack and start to work. The ambient noise in the airplane is driving me crazy. It’s a frequency my implants seem to be in tune with. The endless droning of the engine is driving me crazy. I’m tempted to turn off my implants to silence the chaos, but without Tara here, it’s a dangerous thing to do. If there’s an emergency, I might not hear what’s happening. So I clench my teeth and try to concentrate on what I’m doing.

  Finally, the pilot announces we’re approaching PDX, the biggest airport in Oregon. I’m starting to get antsy with anticipation. Getting antsy while you’re strapped into a seat is not the best combination. It seems to take us forever to taxi to the gate. I only have one small suitcase with me which I stashed in the overhead compartment. I grab it and practically sprint toward the gate.

  When I first notice Tara, she has her back toward me and she’s looking out the window to try to find my plane. I take a moment to appreciate her beauty. Her hair is free today. Usually, she wears it up in a ponytail. She is beautiful however she dresses but I particularly love her hair when she lets it down.

  Tara freezes for a moment as if she can sense someone is watching her. Warily, she turns toward me. However, once she determines it’s me, her entire expression changes to one of pure joy. She grabs her purse which is sitting at her feet and comes charging toward me. Finally, we have the moment that I thought about when I first saw her at Kiera’s wedding. It’s almost as poetic as it’s always portrayed in countless commercials and the movies. Or, it would’ve been, had a child not wondered in between us. Tara had to stop and direct the toddler back to his mother. She smiles at me shyly as she shrugs as if to say, “What are you going to do?”

  I rush toward her and we collapse in each other’s arms. I know that I’m a songwriter and I’m prone the think cheesy thoughts, but, this is about as perfect as life gets.

  Tara pulls away and holds my cheeks between her hands. She studies me like she’s trying to memorize every detail of my face. She whispers, “I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone as much as I’ve missed you. It almost feels like you were amputated from me and my soul had phantom pain.”

  She pulls my face toward hers and kisses me with more desperation and assertiveness than I’ve ever seen from her. We’re in the public concourse of a busy international airport, but my body doesn’t care. I find myself getting drawn further into the web of desire as Tara continues to plunder my mouth with a sensual kiss.

  When she finally pulls away, I take a moment to catch my breath. “Tara, if that’s the welcome back I’m going to get every time, I should leave on a regular basis. But I can’t. I’ve missed you so much, I can’t even coherently quantify what I’m feeling.”

  Tara smiles coyly as she says, “I don’t know. It seems like you’re doing a pretty good job to me.”

  She snuggles into my chest with her arms around my torso and starts to kiss me again.

  The little boy who she helped earlier is staring at us with surprising intensity. Nothing like having a child watching public displays of affection to pour ice water on your libido. I back up and look into Tara’s eyes as I try to even out my breathing. “Tara, you and I could start a forest fire with the heat we generate. But this environment is not conducive to romance. What do you say we go home?”

  “It sounds like a good plan to me,” Tara responds as she lays her head on my chest. You would think it would be easier for me to keep things under control, now that she’s not kissing me. But everything about her is erotic, to me. Her hair smells absolutely phenomenal, and its gloriously long length tickles my arm as I place it around her waist. Who would’ve thought that simple smells like ginger and coconut could be such powerful aphrodisiacs?

  Since Tara had taken back the majority of my clothes when she went home, I have only my carry-on bag,
so we don’t have to stop at the luggage carousel. As we’re walking toward my car in long-term parking, Tara stops me and asks, “How are you really?”

  “I can’t really tell you. It changes like quicksilver,” I answer. “One minute, I’m calm, cool, and collected about it and I can rationally tell myself everything will work out the way it was meant to. The next moment, I’m completely consumed by rage. Sometimes, it’s directed at 5-Star. Other times, I turn the rage on myself because I was too gullible to see what was happening.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Tara says, as she climbs in the van. “These people make a living out of conning people. They’re professionals. They didn’t want you to question what they were doing, because it hurts their bottom line. It’s as if we got relegated to the kid’s table. We prided ourselves on playing the game smart, but what we didn’t realize is—they were playing professional poker, but our game was Go Fish.”

  Tara’s comparison cracks me up, but it’s true. “Well, thank you for not being pissed off at my stupidity,” I grimace.

  “Are you not even listening to me?” Tara asks with frustration in her voice. “Why on God’s green earth would I be mad at you? I’m not mad. I’m so damn proud of you, I can barely stop smiling. Do you know how hard it is to find a guy who stands up for what he believes in?”

  I smirk a little as I respond, “Obviously, I don’t know that. But I’ll take your word for it.”

  Tara rolls her eyes at my attempt at humor. “Funny. But you’re missing my point. Jobs come and go, but if you don’t have your integrity, you have nothing. You have more integrity in your hangnail then those people have in a whole corporation.”

  Her defense of me is incredibly touching. I’m used to facing almost constant criticism of my choices. This is a refreshing change of pace.

  I reach across the console and grab her hand. “Thank you for making a hard choice seem like the only choice. I’m already feeling better about it.”