The Daddy Dance Read Free

finishing the embarrassing task before he could join in.
    “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he drawled. He reached inside the truck and passed her the seat belt, pulling it forward from its awkward position over her right shoulder.
    “You didn’t!” But, of course, he had. And if she made any more protest, he might take more time to apologize, time she did not want to waste. It was all well and good for him to take all day on a run to the train station. What else could he have to do in slow-paced Eden Falls? But she was there to help her family, and she might as well get started. She pulled the seat belt across her chest, settling it in its slot with the precision of a brain surgeon. “I’m fine. And if you don’t mind, I’m sort of in a hurry.”
    She almost winced when she realized how brusque she sounded.
    Recognizing dismissal when he heard it, Rye shut the door carefully. He shook his head as he walked around the front of his truck. Ten years had passed, but he still remembered Kat’s precise attention to detail. Kat Morehouse had been a determined girl. And she had clearly grown into a formidable woman.
    Formidable. Not exactly the type he was used to dating. Certainly not like Rachel had been, with her constant breaking of rules, pushing of boundaries. And not like the sweet, small-town girls he had dated here in Eden Falls.
    His brothers teased him, saying he’d moved to Richmond because he needed a deeper dating pool. Needed to find a real woman—all the girls in Eden Falls knew him too well.
    He hadn’t actually had time for a date in the past year—not since he’d been burned by Marissa. Marissa Turner. He swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth as he thought of the woman who had been his girlfriend for two long years. Two long years, when he had torn apart his own life plans, forfeited his fledgling business, all to support her beauty salon.
    Every time Rye mentioned making it big in Richmond, Marissa had thrown a fit. He had wanted her to be happy, and so he had circumscribed all of his dreams. It was easier, after all. Easier to stay in Eden Falls. Easier to keep doing the same handyman work he’d been doing all of his adult life. At least Marissa was happy.
    Until she got some crazy-ass chance to work on a movie out in Hollywood, doing the hair for some leading-man hunk. Marissa had flown cross-country without a single look back, not even bothering to break up with Rye by phone. And he had been left utterly alone, feeling like a fool.
    A fool who was two years behind on his business plan.
    But not anymore. With Marissa gone, Rye had finally made the leap, moving up to Richmond, finding the perfect office, hunting down a tolerable apartment. He was finally moving on with his life, and it felt damn good to make choices for himself. Not for his family. Not for his girlfriend. For him.
    At least, most of the time.
    Lisa was chatting with Kat by the time he settled into the driver’s seat. “It’s no problem, really,” his sister was saying. “Rye already came down from Richmond to get me. Things are crazy at home—Mama’s out West visiting her sister, and Daddy’s busy with the spring planting. Half my brothers and sisters sent up a distress call to get Rye home for the weekend. He’s walking dogs for our sister Jordana—she’s out of town for a wedding, so she can’t take care of her usual clients. At least he could fit taxi service in before coaching T-ball practice this afternoon, filling in for Noah.”
    Listening to Lisa’s friendly banter, Rye had to shake his head. It was no wonder he had moved all the way to Richmond to make his business work. Of course, he loved his family, loved the fact that they all looked to him to fix whatever was wrong. But here in Eden Falls, there was always a brother who needed a hand, a sister with one more errand, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends— people who pulled him away from his business.
    He’d only been living in Richmond for a month, and