“Sorry.”
“Well…” He sighed dramatically. “Then I guess I better make this dance amazing.”
“What do you—”
Tucker grabbed one of her hands as the tempo of the music suddenly kicked up. He spun her away from him, then pulled her back in, turning them both twice before spinning her again and dipping her back.
She was breathless and laughing by the time he righted her.
“Now that’s what I like to see in the girls I hang out with—flushed cheeks, big smile, trouble catching her breath.”
Kate shook her head but she had to admit that it would be very difficult, no matter how in love she was, to not be smiling and flushed around Tucker.
“I think we’re going to be very goodfriends,” she told him, with hard emphasis on the last word.
He sighed again. “At least it will be less painful since I don’t have to see you and pine for you every single day.”
She started to reply, then pressed her lips together.
Tucker noticed.
“What were you going to say?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“Yes you were.” He spun her out and then pulled her back in. “Were you going to say that you’ll miss me terribly too?’
She grinned and shook her head. “No.”
He turned her the other way, then asked, “Were you going to say that on second thought, you can’t bear the idea of being away from me for a moment?”
She laughed. “Well, now I’m a little worried that if I move here, you’re going to think it’s secretly all about you.”
“Are you telling me it wouldn’t be? Not a little anyway? Deep, deep down?” He gave her a grin and then dipped her back as the song ended.
When she was upright again, she said, “Does Sapphire Falls have a lot of dances?”
He nodded. “And parades. And festivals.”
“Okay, then maybe a teeny tiny bit of me moving here will be about getting to dance with you from time to time.”
His eyebrows rose. “Will be? That sounds like you have a plan.”
Oops, she’d kind of slipped on that. She still wasn’t sure how to bring it up with Levi. Maybe she shouldn’t on this trip. Maybe they needed more time.
But she was going to be jobless tomorrow when her boss read her letter of resignation and homeless at the end of the month when her lease was up.
Still, she couldn’t quite shake the niggling in the back of her mind that something seemed off with Levi and Sapphire Falls. She’d assumed he loved this town, but he was driving a truck instead of his Jag, there were snakes, and he was not impressed with the breakfast offerings. Maybe some of the shine was wearing off.
But those were small things.
No place was perfect.
“Are there really snakes here?” she asked Tucker.
Clearly the question seemed out of the blue, but he shook his head. “Um, kind of. I mean, a few. But hardly any. Harmless garter snakes. Maybe a bull snake once in a while—but they’re great for pest control. And you have to go a little west of here to get any poisonous ones.”
“How far west?”