Her appetite faded, and she pushed away her plate. “Charlie suggested I ask some of the parents for copies of any recordings they have. So I’ll be able to see those. Then there are costumes and steps and music.” She stopped. “We should change the subject or I’ll get shrill again. Neither of us wants that.”
He swallowed. “It’s a lot.”
She poked at her salad. “Like I said, we can talk about something else.” She looked at him. “So, how did you meet my brother?”
“Rafe?”
“He’s the one you do business with. I’m assuming you met Shane and Clay through him.”
Dante leaned back in his chair. “You don’t know?”
“We’re not that close.” She’d left for Juilliard when she was seventeen and hadn’t had a whole lot of contact with her family ever since. She’d seen them more since her football accident than she had in the past eight years.
“Even to your mom?” he asked.
She sighed. “Let me guess. You and your mom are close and you call at least twice a week. For what it’s worth, I really admire that.” From an emotional distance, she thought. No way she could relate to it.
Dante picked up his wine. “My mother died a long time ago.”
“Oh.” Evie felt herself flush. “I’m sorry.”
“Like I said, it was a long time ago.” He leaned toward her. “Rafe and I met while we were both in college. We were working construction.”
She remembered that her brother had taken summer jobs to supplement his scholarships. After finding out about Dante’s mother, she wasn’t going to do any more assuming.
“You went into the family business?” she asked.
He chuckled. “No, I was paying the bills. I found out I was a lot more popular with girls in college when I could afford to take them on dates. I was a scholarship student, too.”
“Intelligent and good-looking,” she teased. “So why are you still single?”
“I like the chase, but I’m not so big on the catch.”
“A man who avoids commitments.” She knew the type. With those broad shoulders and blue eyes, he would have no trouble getting a woman to notice him. The money and success wouldn’t hurt, either. “Do they line up at a set time, or is it more like concert lotteries? You pass out numbers and then call them randomly?”
“Impressive,” he told her. “Mocking me and my dates at the same time.”
“I was gently teasing. There’s a difference.”
“You’re right.” He studied her over his wineglass. “What about you? No fancy Mr. King of the Dance coming to rescue you from the backwater that is Fool’s Gold?”
“I’m between kings right now. And, at the risk of sounding like Jane Austen, content to be so. Miss Monica is welcome to her gentleman friend. I’m more focused on the upcoming performance.” Not to mention avoiding her family as much as possible.
“Did you see all the Thanksgiving decorations around town?” he asked.
“The turkey population is well represented.”
“Christmas is going to be worse,” he grumbled.
“Candy canes on every mailbox.”
“Wreaths on every door.” He looked at her. “It’s going to be like living in a snow globe.”
“Tell me about it.” She sipped her wine. “Do you know this town doesn’t have a grocery store that stays open twenty-four hours a day? What’s up with that? What if someone needs something at two in the morning?”
“Like aspirin after listening to clog dancers for an hour?”
“You’ll adore them when you see them perform.”
“Maybe.” He frowned. “Hey, why aren’t you a big fan of Christmas? With your family, I would think loving the season would be a given. I’ll bet your mom made Christmas special for you.”
Evie put down her wine and pressed a hand to her stomach. Sudden churning made her uncomfortable.
No doubt Dante saw May as a warm, caring parent. The kind of woman who would bake cookies and sew Christmas stockings. Maybe she had once—Evie’s brothers each had a carefully embroidered stocking. But Evie’s was store-bought and not personalized. There hadn’t been many traditions for her. She’d always found Christmas kind of lonely and wasn’t looking forward to an entire town showing her all the ways she didn’t fit in.
“I suppose I’ve gotten out of the habit of the holidays,” she said, hedging. She barely knew Dante. There was no reason to go into the gory details of her past with the man.
“Then we’ll have to stay strong together,” he told her. “There’s only the two of us against all of them.”
She laughed. “Grinches together?”
“Absolutely.” He pointed at her nearly untouched plate. “Okay, you’re either going to have to eat more or explain to the chef why you didn’t like his very excellent lasagna.”
“I wouldn’t want that.”
An hour later, they’d finished most of the wine. Dante had explained more about the Shanghai project and she’d told funny stories about her days touring with a third-rate ballet company. He insisted on packing up the leftovers for her to take home and then escorted her across their shared driveway and to her front door. Once there, he waited until she’d put her key in the lock and pushed open the door.
“If you need anything, pound on the wall,” he told her. “Ah, the one between us. If you pound on the other one, you’ll confuse the neighbors and get a bad reputation in the development.”
“I wouldn’t want that.” She held up the bag of food. “Thanks for this.”
“You’re skinny. Eat more.” With that, he bent down and lightly kissed her cheek. “’Night, Evie.”
“’Night.”
She watched him walk back to his place and step inside. Then she stepped into her house and shut the door. She stood in the dark for a second, the feel of his kiss lingering on her cheek.
She’d had fun tonight. Talking, sharing a meal with a friend. Dante was easy to talk to. Charming. He was the kind of man who made a woman think about more than kissing. Even someone who knew how dangerous that could be.
“My brother’s business partner and a player,” she said as she turned on the light in the entryway. There were a thousand reasons not to play the what-if game with Dante Jefferson. She was smart enough to remember every one of them.
* * *
“YOU KNOW THIS ISN’T normal, right,” Dante said as he stood on the porch of the house and stared out at the elephant. “Ranches are supposed to have things like horses and goats. What were you thinking?”
Rafe shook his head. “It wasn’t me.”
Dante continued to study the elephant. “What is she wearing?”
“A blanket. It gets cold here. She goes into a heated barn at night, but she likes to be out during the day. Mom had the blanket made for her.”
Dante thought longingly of his life back in San Francisco. Season tickets to the Giants