Save the Last Dance (7 page)

The Past

S
TUDYING LIPID METABOLISM
and neuro-spinal pathways was an excellent antidote to any propensity to dwell on the mysterious Jared Mathers, who had seemed so interested and then managed to drop off the earth.

Which was just as well.

Kate flicked a glance at her watch and drew in a sharp breath. Between her temporary part-time job in a bovine mastitis research lab, a tight schedule of classes and long labs, there wasn’t enough time. There was never enough—and nothing mattered more than acing her exams and staying near the top of her class.

Her scholarships and plans to go on to surgical residency depended on it.

Sometime, maybe in five years, she’d be able to slow down and try for some semblance of a social life. Until then—

“Hi, there.”

Startled, she looked up and saw Jared standing at the other side of the table. A thick dusting of early-November snow clung to the deep waves in his hair and to the shoulders of his navy ski jacket.

“I…wondered if you might have time for a cup of coffee somewhere.” A self-conscious smile tipped one corner of his mouth. “I know it’s been a while…”

He had the most mesmerizing eyes. Smoky gray and sensual, yet with a glint of humor that captivated her every time. She averted her gaze. “I can’t.”

“Maybe another time?”

The temptation before her was like facing a display of her favorite caramels and milk chocolates in a candy store window—an all-too-enticing opportunity that could lead to her downfall. “Honestly, I am so swamped with classes and homework right now that I barely have time to sleep.”

He pulled out a chair and settled into it, folding his arms on the table. “I want to apologize for not showing up a few weeks ago. I’d forgotten about a family commitment, and there was no way I could back out of it. I tried calling you, but the line was busy every time.”

“I was home.” Kate shrugged. “But I don’t remember—maybe Leesa’s new cat was playing with the phone again and knocked it off the hook.”

Could that have been the case? Probably not. There was no point in being difficult, but that didn’t mean she was going to be available just because he now had some time on his hands. And she couldn’t afford to stop cramming for her test, either.

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a small brown paper sack and pushed it across the table toward her. His smile turned sheepish. “I saw this at my favorite corner store a few weeks ago while I was doing time there. It isn’t much, but it made me think of you.”

“So you did go back there.”

He lifted a shoulder. “Had to.”

She hesitated, then reached into the bag and pulled out an object wrapped in tissue paper. Inside, she found a glass figurine of a golden retriever. “It’s darling. But—”

“It’s just something small. Not a big deal. And in case you’re wondering,” he added with a tip of his head, “it isn’t a bribe to try to make amends.”

The retriever was almost a perfect rendition of her beloved Emma, who’d died last year, Kate’s dearest friend in the world. A coincidence? She felt her eyes burn.

Jared seemed to read her thoughts. “I saw the photo of you and your dog on your desk, the night we shared that pizza.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, cradling the dog in her hands. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

He glanced at her stack of textbooks and pushed away from the table. “I guess I’d better be going, so I can hit the books, too. See you around.”

He’d followed through and kept his word to a store clerk. He’d been thoughtful enough to see a little figurine and think of her. And he’d apparently kept a family commitment above a casual social commitment of his own…which she could understand. “Wait—”

At the nearby tables, students looked up and frowned at her, but she didn’t care. With the vet school on the Saint Paul campus and the law school over on the Minneapolis campus, maybe she’d never even see him again.

She caught up with him at the door to the stairway. “I…just wanted to thank you for thinking of me. And for coming all the way over here.”

“No problem.” He zipped up his jacket. “Good seeing you again.”

There was an invisible barrier between them now, and she didn’t know what to say. “I—I’ll be free after my exams tomorrow. In the evening…”

He shrugged. “I have to be with my study group. Tax law.”

“Maybe we can study together some other time.”

“Maybe.” He pulled open the door. “Look, I know you aren’t all that interested, but maybe I’ll give you a call sometime. Deal?”

She nodded, feeling the chasm widen between them. Wishing she were like Deanna and Leesa, who always seemed to have guys following them like imprinted ducklings, and who could draw new recruits with a single teasing glance. “Deal.”

He disappeared down the steps, but even after he was gone she lingered at the door.

He’d touched her in some indefinable way, and now she found herself drawn even deeper into his spell. Her entire life had been one of daring to go beyond expectations. Facing challenges. Taking risks. Except when it came to her heart.

Call me,
she whispered to herself as she turned back to the responsibilities that lay strewn across the library table.
Please.

She’d barely settled down to study when the stairway door squealed open and Jared came back in and strode across the room with a determined set to his jaw and a twinkle in his eye.

He grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. Took her hand. “Come with me now. Just five minutes.”

Dazed and feeling unaccountably giddy, she
let him lead her down the stairs, across the lobby and out into the cold night air, where immense snowflakes swirled on the chilly breeze like lacy doilies beneath the security lights. Already, the tall pines were dressed in heavy, sparkling mantles of white, and the snow on the sidewalks was ankle deep.

“It’s too beautiful not to share,” he said, drawing her into the warmth of his strong embrace. “Coming out here made me realize that you’re the only one I’d like to share this with. I’m not a quitter, Kate.”

He looked down at her for a long, heart-stopping moment, his face shadowed by the lights overhead. “And I’m not walking away from something that’s so right.”

A thrill of awareness rushed through her when he kissed her. She melted against him, feeling as if she’d always been part of him, as if she’d known him from the beginning of time. And when he pulled back, she impulsively wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him to her again.

“I think,” he said after he’d caught his breath, “that we’d be crazy not to see each other again.”

She leaned her forehead against the solid wall of his chest. “Agreed.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I—I still do have to study…and need to write a paper.”

“Good. We’ll meet here then, at the library. Maybe grab a hamburger or something before?”

She thought of the change in her purse that had to stretch until Saturday. “Um…my place, maybe? All I’ve got is mac ’n’ cheese or hot dogs, but it’s cheap and paid for.”

“Great.” He kissed the tip of her nose and released her. “Tomorrow, then.”

She watched him jog toward the campus bus stop, her heart overflowing.

It wouldn’t last. These things never did…not when he learned about her family. Especially not if he happened to meet her mom.

But for a little while, she was going to enjoy her time with this perfect, unattainable stranger.

And what could be wrong with that?

N
OVEMBER PASSED
in a whirl of study dates. Meeting over coffee or pizza or yet another box of generic macaroni with neon orange cheese. Just being with Jared warmed her clear down to her toes, and hearing his voice on the phone sent shivers skittering down her spine.

Heavy snow had come hard, fast and early, turning the side streets near the university into rutted
pioneer trails that were nearly impassable in her ancient pickup, even with sandbags stacked over the rear axles, and kept the campus buses limited to only the major streets more often than not.

Now, with Thanksgiving break just a day away, Kate looked out the kitchen window of her apartment at the bleak snowscape and shivered as yet another blast of icy air whistled through the window frame. Already, the sky was darkening, and with another four inches starting to fall, the street outside was nearly deserted.

She turned back to Jared. “I appreciate the invitation to have Thanksgiving dinner with your family. Honestly, I do. But I need to stay here. I’ve got that parasitology paper due, and an exam on equine musculature Monday.”

“It’s not that far, and we’d come back in the evening. Wayzata’s an hour, tops. There won’t be any rush hour traffic on a holiday, and even with the snow—”

“I just can’t.” The weight on her heart made it seem harder to breathe. Why hadn’t she fessed up already? Told him the truth? Waiting had only made the issue loom larger, compounding her guilt and her sense of shame.

It would look all the worse when she finally got up her nerve to tell him.

He leaned back in his chair, studying her, his expression losing its warmth. “I don’t get it.”

She’d been falling deeper and deeper in love. An impossible relationship, because once she was honest with him, it would all be over. “I…haven’t exactly told you everything. About my family.”

“Easy guess. Single mom. Not exactly wealthy, right? A pretty tough childhood?” He raised his hands, palm up, his voice tinged with reproach. “None of that matters. I’m kind of disappointed that you think I’m that shallow.”

“But—”

He rocked forward in his chair, slanted a glance at the darkening twilight and grabbed his backpack from the floor as he rose. “Look, I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Say, eleven o’clock. We can go out to my mom’s for dinner, and I’ll have you back here by seven.” He pulled on his heavy jacket, swung his backpack over one shoulder and gave her a one-armed hug and a kiss. “It won’t seem like a holiday if you can’t be with me.”

She stood in the open doorway of the apartment and waved to him when he reached the stairway at the end of the hall.

Chicken,
she muttered to herself.
You are so gutless. You could have told him.

Still, she now had one more day. A chance to see
his home and to meet his mother and younger sister. A chance to make some more memories. A chance to spend the whole day with him. And how perfect was that? She wanted to make every minute count.

T
HE
T
WIN
C
ITIES
were beautiful year-round to a girl from the far northwestern plains of Minnesota near the Dakotas.

At every turn, lakes were tucked like jewels in unexpected places, and during the warmer weather, the endless parks and tree-shaded streets beckoned to hikers and dog-walkers and families pushing strollers.

Now, as she sat beside Jared on their way out to Wayzata, the snow-frosted pines reminded Kate of her grandmother’s snow globe, and the city lakes abounded with skating rinks and children dressed in bright colors skimming across the ice.

But when they reached Wayzata and started to drive around the lake, her joy faded into a serious case of nerves.

Tidy suburban homes had long since given way to attractive lakeshore properties, followed by one gated estate after another.

Stone walls and dense stands of pine hid most of the homes, but here and there she glimpsed multiple chimneys signifying a palatial house, or
caught a peek of a stone dwelling that could’ve been a British castle for all of its many turrets and massive scale.

“Tell me that we’ve got a long way to go to your mother’s home,” Kate whispered, staring at an ostentatious set of iron gates and pillars marking the driveway of yet another expensive property.

Jared glanced at her as he hit a remote button on his visor that made the gates swing open, then flipped on the turn signal.

“Here?” She swallowed hard. “You live
here?
”

He shrugged. “My family does. Nervous?”

“Um…a little.”

“Don’t be. It’s just a house.” He turned into a long lane flanked with white fencing that wound up a hill, past stands of pine and a forest of winter-bare oaks. At the top of the hill, the lane opened into a wide, circular drive that arced under the portico of a two-story redbrick home easily the size of her small-town high school.

Her mouth dropped open and she quickly snapped it shut, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “You…grew up here?” she managed to ask.

“From tenth grade on.” He lifted a shoulder. “My father inherited it from my grandmother.”

“I-it’s beautiful.” She stepped out of his car and turned around to find that the hill offered an im
pressive view of Lake Minnetonka. “You must love this place.”

“It’s nice, I guess, but it’s expensive for my mother to maintain. You wouldn’t believe how the real estate taxes, care of the grounds and heating bills add up.”

She managed a polite nod, well aware that he was diplomatically minimizing the astounding family wealth that had to be behind a home like this, just to make her more comfortable. Jared didn’t flaunt his family’s money—he drove an older Mustang and mostly dressed like any other college guy.

But now she knew his Rolex was real, and if they’d just landed on Mars, she couldn’t have felt more out of place than she did arriving at his home.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” he said, taking her hand when she lingered by the car. “It’s cold out here, and I promise you that my mom doesn’t bite.”

“I’m sure she’s lovely.” Kate followed him up the broad front steps to the double doors, each set with mullioned windows. “Will this just be…um…the immediate family?”

“Just my sister, mom and us. My uncle Dexter and his family are with his wife’s relatives in Chicago. You can call my mother by her first name, by the way. Sylvia.”