Page 52 of Save the Dance

Evelyn squeezed his forearm. “You need to talk to her. Whatever’s going on between the two of you, you can’t simply ignore her and think the problem will go away.”

“It will, though,” he insisted. “She’s headed back to New York tomorrow.” After that, maybe his heart would begin to heal. Who knew—one day he might be able to walk along Procession Avenue without imagining her standing on every corner, without seeing her in every shop. Maybe someday he’d roam about the Captain’s Cottage without sensing her presence in every room.

“Don’t look now, but she’s headed over here.”

At Evelyn’s warning, he stiffened, but Tara’s insistent, “Jason, we need to talk,” still punched him in the gut.

He wheeled on her. He thrust one arm toward the crowd that waited beyond the curtains. “I’m a little busy at the moment. Can’t it wait?”

“No. I’ve done enough of that already.” The sound of Tara’s foot striking the floorboards echoed through the backstage. “Why haven’t you returned any of my calls? I’ve left you a dozen messages.”

“Seven, actually.” He’d listened to every one of them. Her forlorn voice had torn him apart, but he couldn’t reply. Not without breaking down completely, and that was something he’d sworn he wouldn’t do. “I read your article.”

Beneath her summer tan, Tara paled. Her blue eyes watered. “I was afraid of that. I want you to know, I deleted it. That article will never appear in Weddings Today.”

Steeling himself against her tears, he shrugged. “It doesn’t matter whether you filed the report or not. You wrote it.”

“I did.” Tara hung her head. “But that was before I read the rest of Mary’s diary and learned the truth. Or realized I loved you more than anything. More than my job. More than my future at Weddings Today.”

He brushed invisible lint from his cape. “You expect me to believe that? How can I when you’ve been telling one lie after another from the moment you came here?”

Tara’s voice dropped to a dead calm. “I didn’t lie. I never lied.”

“Oh, no?” Heat built within his chest. He wanted to rail at her, to show her how badly she’d broken him. He needed her to feel his pain. “You said you were here to evaluate Heart’s Landing, when from the very beginning your real goal was to ruin the reputation of Captain Thaddeus. You knew good and well what that would do to the town, how it would destroy any chance we had of retaining our standing as America’s Top Wedding Destination.”

His words struck home, and she gasped. Though he told himself he was only giving her what she deserved, payback didn’t feel nearly as good as he’d imagined.

“It was my job, Jason.” Her fingers splayed, she pushed the air between them as if she were trying to stem the tide of his words. “Regina threatened to fire me if I didn’t give her what she wanted.”

“And that’s supposed to make it all right?” He steeled himself and forced the words from his lips. “You betrayed me, Tara. You’ve been using me this whole time. Me and everyone else you met while you were here. Congratulations. I hope that promotion was worth it.”

Judging from the tears that gleamed wetly on her cheeks, he’d made his point. But his words had been a double-edged sword that hurt him as much as they hurt her. He’d expected to feel vindicated. Instead, he only wanted to take her in his arms. He whirled away from her.

On the other side of the stage, the pageant director lifted a megaphone. “Places, everyone!”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said, moving toward center stage. “You’ve got what it takes to make a name for yourself. You played me like a fool. I didn’t even see it coming.”

“You need to leave.” Evelyn grasped Tara’s elbow. With a thin, firm line replacing her usual elfin smile, Jason’s cousin guided her to the edge of the stage.

“I’m so sorry,” Tara whispered. She reached into her purse and pulled out the leather-bound volume she’d intended to give Jason.

“What is this?” Evelyn backed away as if Tara was the wicked stepmother trying to give her a poisoned apple.

At center stage, actors and actresses took their places for the opening act. She had seconds to say what needed to be said. “It’s Mary’s diary. I’ve marked the key entries. The bottom line is, the legend is true—Thaddeus did sail through a hurricane to reach Heart’s Landing before his wife’s birthday, only he wasn’t aboard the Mary Shelby.”

While the director issued the final call, Evelyn eyed the thin volume with outright skepticism. Long seconds passed before the redhead plucked the booklet from Tara’s outstretched palm. Without another word, she stashed the diary in a duffel bag and took her place on stage.

Tara sucked in a thready breath. Captain Thaddeus had been a true hero. To help a fellow seaman, he’d given up his berth on the Mary Shelby, a move that had forced him to battle a hurricane in order to keep a promise to his wife. The passages she’d marked, along with the research she’d left in the library, would put an end—once and for all—to the whispers and doubts that had swirled around the century-old legend.

Too bad she couldn’t sway Jason’s opinion as easily. No amount of research would ever change his mind about her. No matter how strongly she’d believed in their love or how much she’d sacrificed for it, she’d heard the death knell of their relationship in his bitter accusations. She’d seen it in his blank stare. She’d hoped to fix things between them, but it wasn’t possible. She saw that now.

Breath-stealing pain sliced through her chest. She pressed a hand over her heart. She’d had a chance at love, and she’d lost it, along with everything else she valued. Her job, her career, any chance of success—she’d risked it all on love and failed.

What little pride she had left helped her keep her tears at bay during the ride to the station. Once she boarded the train and found her seat, though, she couldn’t fight her tears any longer. Turning her back on the rest of the car, she pressed her forehead against the window and gave in to the heartbreak.

Chapter Eighteen

The first stars of the evening twinkled in the sky overhead. In the deepening twilight, birds flocked to their nests in the trees along Procession Avenue. Jason caught his reflection in the window of the first shop he strode past. He’d lost weight. His clothes hung from his frame with unfashionable bagginess. Dark circles had formed under his eyes. Hmph. And people said love was a good thing. They couldn’t prove it by him. His broken heart hadn’t healed nearly as quickly as he’d thought it would. Two months had passed since he’d learned the truth about Tara, and she was still his first thought when he woke in the mornings. He couldn’t walk into a single room in the Captain’s Cottage without picturing her smiling face or reliving a joke they’d shared. As for sleeping, forget about it. She haunted his dreams. No wonder Doc Adams had warned that he was on the verge of developing an ulcer.

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