Dancing on a Moonbeam (Bedford Falls Book 1)

Dancing on a Moonbeam

Bedford Falls

The Complete Book 1

Kate Perry

Dancing on a Moonbeam

Bedford Falls

Book One ~ Anthology

Part 1…

Eleanor Westwood-Fehr gave up being a prima ballerina for dreams of love. Big mistake—one she won't make again.
 

Determined, she won't let anything stop her from opening a dance studio. Not her doubts. Not her teenage daughter. And certainly not her new mysterious neighbor, no matter how enticing he might be…

Part 2…

Eleanor Westwood strikes a deal with her neighbor: if Max withdraws the complaint that stopped renovation on her dance studio, she'll help him with his movie score.

Being a muse shouldn't be hard, right? For Eleanor there's too much at stake to fail. She just never realized that rousing Max's imagination means rousing his passion too—for the music, and for Eleanor herself.

Part 3…

Eleanor Westwood and her neighbor Max have a deal to help each other—one they sealed with more than a kiss.

Which is a problem, because what was supposed to be a simple deal becomes so much more as Eleanor lets Max dance his way into her heart. It should be win-win, except Eleanor isn't sure she can ever be triumphant in love...

© 2016 Kathia Zolfaghari

Cover Graphic © Kathia Zolfaghari

ISBN:
978-1-944560-12-6 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Dancing on a Moonbeam

Part 1

Thank you.

Yes, you.

Because you cheer me along as I voice my heartaches and my triumphs.

Because you walk alongside me as I begin my new journey.

Because you send me love and support.

I'm blessed to have you in my life, and there's not a day that I'm not grateful for you.

Chapter 1

She stared at her name on the papers in front of her: Eleanor Westwood. It was official. She was no longer Eleanor Fehr. Just in time for their eighteenth wedding anniversary in a couple weeks.

Good riddance—to Charles and their empty marriage. So long, old boring self.

She waited for some sort of emotion to rise up, but all she felt was empty. Maybe it wasn't so surprising, given how much emotion she'd expended over the last year.

She supposed if she were feeling anything, it'd be relief: relief that the entire ordeal—the marriage and the divorce—was finally over. As lacking as Charles had been as a husband, he'd been a hundred times worse in the dissolution of it.

The front door opened, and she heard her best friend Robbie and his big feet clunk in. She'd given up years ago trying to get him to take off his muddy boots before entering. "Elle? Where are you?"

"In the kitchen," she said with relief. Some things were constant, and Robbie was one of them. They'd been friends since kindergarten. He'd been replanting a flower that the school bully had pulled up, and she'd decided to help him.
 

Now he was one of the most acclaimed landscape architects in Westchester County. He was also one of the most eligible bachelors in town. She liked to tease him about being tall, dark, and rich.
 

He entered, wearing plaid, his usual goofy smile, and a sharp gaze that noticed all the details.
 

She knew what he saw: her, tired but resolute. An official stack of papers with a pen waiting next to it. Two Waterford champagne flutes, given to her for her wedding. One of Charles's coveted bottles of 1998 Dom Perignon.

Robbie pointed to the papers. "Is that what I think it is?"
 

"Yes." She picked up the pen. "Are you ready to witness my declaration of independence?"

"Damn skippy, I am." He picked up the bottle and unwrapped the top. "Ready when you are."

She flipped open the packet to the first spot her lawyer had marked with a yellow sticky arrow. Taking a deep breath, she scrawled her reclaimed maiden name.

The
pop
of the champagne bottle made her jump.
 

Whooping, Robbie picked up a glass as he studied the label. "We're celebrating high on the hog. I like it."

"I filched the bottle from Charles's special stash."

"Good. He should contribute to the cause. He owes you way more than a bottle of champagne."

Some things, though, weren't reimbursable. She watched the stream of pale gold bubbles fill the glasses and then lifted one.

"What's our toast?" Robbie asked, his drink poised.

No words came to her.
Cheers
wasn't enough, and
Congratulations to me
wasn't right.
 

Shouldn't she feel jubilant? She tried to unravel her tightly bound chest to figure out what was going on inside, but underneath there was nothing but emptiness, and that scared her.

Except Charles had taken so much from her—her youth and her dreams. She wasn't going to let him steal this from her too.

So she said, "Fuck Charles, and fuck his mother."

Robbie laughed. "To being free of the fucker."

She clanked her glass against his, hard enough that for a second she thought it'd cracked.

She frowned at the crystal. So what if it broke? She always hated the Waterford anyway. It was a gift from his mother and it was pretentious, just like Charles. She downed the rest of its contents, walked over to the fireplace, and chucked it into the hearth.

It shattered with a lovely peal that sounded like angels cheering her on.

She turned to Robbie, smiling in earnest for the first time in longer than she could remember. "That was fun."

He held his glass up to look at it. Then he shrugged, chugged it, and walked to the hearth. His exploded with an angelic chorus too. Facing her, he grinned. "Anything else you want to break?"

She looked around the kitchen. "I don't think so. I purged him from the house after he moved out last year."
 

"Too bad. You know how I like to get dirty." Crossing his arms, he leaned against the hearth. "What are you going to do the rest of today?"

"Drink this champagne." She took the bottle from the table and tipped it up to her mouth. It went down lukewarm and acrid, kind of like how Charles had been.

"That's a plan, I guess." He nodded supportively. "But then what? It's the first day of the rest of your life. You should do something exciting."

She snorted. "I should, but I have no idea what that is."

"Go to Paris to see Eliza and her new baby."
 

Her heart melted. She'd love to see her new nephew. Her sister Eliza had moved to Paris two Christmases ago and married the man who'd been her best friend growing up. They'd just had their first baby, a boy they named Martin after their grandmother Martha, who'd passed away last year. He was two months old now and the most adorable little person she'd ever seen.

But it wasn't possible. She shook her head regretfully. "I can't up and leave for Paris. Lily has another month and a half of school."

"The brat can live on her own. She's sixteen. At her age, you were commuting into Manhattan for work."

That was true, and the thought made her wilt. Whenever she thought about those times, she felt a piercing loss in her chest. All these years, she'd told herself that she hadn't minded giving up ballet to start a family. Only since she and Charles had split up—when she was alone, in the middle of the night—she admitted to herself that she had regrets.

She never regretted Lily.
Ever
. Not even when Lily was a brat, as Robbie called her. Even if it was all the time, lately.

Lily's behavior was because of the divorce. Eleanor knew her daughter was only acting out because her family had broken apart.
 

If only she knew how to fix it.

"Well?"

She shook her head and refocused on Robbie. "What?"

"How are you going to celebrate this momentous occasion?" He perked up. "I know! Let's egg Brunhilde's house."
 

Charles's mother, Barbara, lived in the next hamlet over and had never been their favorite. She was entitled and mean-spirited, doubly so since Eleanor had asked her precious son for a divorce. "Have I mentioned how perfect that nickname for her is?"

"It only took you twenty years to admit it." Robbie narrowed his gaze. "But you can't distract me. Back to your celebration. Maybe you should put on a party dress and go dancing."

"In Bedford Falls?" She arched her brow.
 

"Take the train into Manhattan. The brat will be okay on her own for one night." He started toward the front door. "Or I can come over to babysit her, and if that's not proof of my love for you, I don't know what is."

Eleanor winced. "You know she's sixteen, right? Her outrage would know no bounds if you threatened to babysit her."

"I'd treat her like an adult if she acted like one." He stopped at the front door. "I wasn't kidding about going out. Didn't you have red dancing shoes? You always feel better after you've been dancing."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone dancing. She cradled the champagne bottle to her body. A few years ago, at Charles's office holiday party, she'd started to dance with one of his partners and Charles had dragged her away, snapping at her that she was embarrassing him. It'd been a verbal slap to the face. She hadn't danced since.
 

Robbie tugged her hair, but his expression was serious. "You need to go back to your roots, Elle."

She automatically looked down at her feet.
 

"Exactly," he said. "You always loved to dance. You haven't been the same person since you stopped."
 

"I'm too old for ballet."
 

He snorted. "Since when?"
 

"Since I turned forty-one." Although it wasn't her age as much as it was that she hadn't danced in so long. Her body didn't do the things it used to do, and she wouldn't be caught dead in a leotard these days.
 

"Come on." Robbie grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stairs.