Dancing in the Moonlight Read Free

a strong, good-looking man doing a little physical exertion.
    Heaven knows, she didn’t want to feel that hitch. That part of her life was over now.
    Had he been staring? She couldn’t be sure, it had been too dark, but she didn’t doubt it.
    Step right up. Come look at the freak.
    She was probably in for a lot of that in the coming weeks as she went about town. People in Pine Gulch weren’t known for their reticence or their tact. She might as well get used to being on display.
    She shook away the bitter self-pity and thoughts of Jake Dalton as she pulled up in front of the two-story frame farmhouse. She had more important things to worry about right now.
    The lights were off in the house and the ranch was quiet—but what had she expected when she didn’t tell her mother she was coming? It was after 2:00 and the only thing awake at this time of the night besides wandering physicians were the barn cats prowling the dark.
    She should have found a hotel room for the night in Idaho Falls and waited until morning to come home. If she had, right now she would have been stretched out on some impersonal bed with what was left of her leg propped on a pillow, instead of throbbing as if she’d just rolled around in a thousand shards of glass.
    She had come so close to stopping, she even started signaling to take one of the freeway exits into the city. At the last minute she had turned off her signal andveered back onto the highway, unwilling to admit defeat by giving in so close to her destination.
    Maybe she hadn’t fully considered the implications of her stubbornness, though. It was thoughtless to show up in the middle of the night. She was going to scare Viviana half to death, barging in like this.
    She knew her mother always kept a spare key on the porch somewhere. Maybe she could slip in quietly without waking her and just deal with everything in the morning.
    She grabbed her duffel off the passenger seat and began the complicated maneuver for climbing out of the car they taught her at Walter Reed, sliding sideways in the seat so she could put the bulk of her weight on her right leg and not the prosthesis.
    Bracing herself, she took a step, and those imaginary shards of glass dug deeper. The pain made her vaguely queasy but she fought it back and took another step, then another until she reached the steps to the small front porch.
    Once, she would have bounded up these half-dozen steps, taking them two or three at a time. Now it was all she could do to pull herself up, inch by painful inch, grabbing hold of the railing so hard her fingers ached.
    The spare key wasn’t under the cushion of either of the rockers that had graced this porch as long as she could remember, but she lifted one of the ceramic planters and found it there.
    As quietly as possible she unlocked the door and closed it behind her with only a tiny snick.
    Inside, the house smelled of cinnamon coffee and corn tortillas and the faint scent of Viviana’s favorite Windsong perfume. Once upon a time that Windsongwould have been joined by Abel’s Old Spice but the last trace of her father had faded years ago.
    Still, as she drew the essence of home into her lungs, she felt as if she was eleven years old again, rushing inside after school with a dozen stories to tell. She was awash in emotions at being home, in the relief and security that seemed to wrap around her here, a sweet and desperately needed comfort even with the slightly bitter edge that seemed to underlie everything in her life right now.
    She stood there for several moments, eyes closed and a hundred childhood memories washing through her like spring runoff, until she felt herself sway with exhaustion and had to reach for the handrail of the staircase that rose up from the entryway.
    She had to get off her feet. Or her foot, anyway. The prosthesis on the other leg was rubbing and grinding against her wound—she hated the word stump, though that’s what it was.
    Whatever she called it, she