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Like a Dance

By Delia Latham

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CHAPTER 1

AWED, AMAZED, AND UTTERLY SPEECHLESS, Teela Vincent didn’t even breathe.
She sat alone at a table for two. Half a dozen or so various-sized tables surrounded her, all occupied. The little group filled the dining room of a wonderful old bed and breakfast nestled into the lush greenness of an Arkansas hollow.
Hummingbird Hollow, to be precise. And in this moment, Teela saw how it got its name.
Outside the sliding glass doors, a trio of hummingbirds flitted and zoomed around a small feeder attached to the glass. Their vivid colors shone in the sunlight—one with a deep red throat, another sporting bright blue wings. Pure white feathers glistened and dazzled on the third hummer.
The blue one tapped at the glass. Three tiny pecks of his long beak elicited gasps and soft exclamations from the humans inside, including Teela—who’d been certain she couldn’t make a sound at all.
She smiled when a lovely Native American woman stopped to fill her water glass. Toni Littlebird owned the bed and breakfast, which she called Inn the Hollow. She’d told Teela that a grandfather of many generations past had built the structure. To make his beloved Cherokee wife feel more at home away from her people, he’d designed it to resemble a tribal meeting house. But the building took on a drastically altered appearance as later generations added on—a room here and there, in first one direction and then another. The home might never grace the cover of House Beautiful, but it possessed something far better than classic beauty—a warmth, a hominess that called to Teela’s heart and soul and made her want to stay forever.
“Meet my friends.” Toni pointed her chin toward the window. “Sapphire is my little blue love. Ruby Bright is the red-throated one. And the white beauty—the albino—that’s Diamond.”
“They’re stunning! I didn’t know it was possible to domesticate hummingbirds.”
“Stunning they are, but they are not domesticated…and certainly not pets. They’re my friends. Perhaps my closest ones. God gives us such lovely gifts, doesn’t He?” Toni moved on to the next table, pretty smile in place and water pitcher ready to pour.
Sapphire lifted and hovered above the feeder. He cocked his tiny head both ways to take in the dinner scene inside the house, then tapped the glass again—twice this time.
With all eyes turned to the window, the birds lifted as if on cue and dipped their tiny bodies to one side and then the other, in perfect synchrony. Then, having charmed and mesmerized their small audience, they darted off into the garden—beautiful wings ablaze with sunshine. As they flew, they continued the display of graceful movement. Ruby Bright hovered in place while Diamond and Sapphire circled him from above and below. The speed at which they zoomed around their friend turned their circular movement into a blur of bright red and blue.
Then the three little showoffs rose a little higher into the air, where they were joined by several other hummers. The entire group formed into…Teela gaped. Is this real? A perfect infinity symbol. The moving shape shimmered with color that reflected off tiny wings in glistening sun sparkles.
Teela gasped, and one hand flew up to rest on her heart. “Oh…!” she breathed. “It’s like a dance!”
She thought she’d uttered a mere whisper, and yet a male diner seated across the room looked up in response—and straight into her soul. Gorgeous bone structure. Deep, velvet brown eyes. Overall quite easy on the eyes. A smile lifted one corner of finely drawn lips, and he offered a slight, gentlemanly nod.
Teela caught her breath. Her cheeks warmed. She returned the nod, then tore her gaze from the stranger’s and back to the window.
But the hummingbird show had ended. The wee performers had disappeared into the gardens.
A sigh escaped. She couldn’t help it.
She’d seen hummingbirds before. She’d watched them flit around feeders, and laughed at their silly, territorial way of chasing off competition for the sweet nectar they so loved. But she’d never witnessed such an amazing display of deliberate performance.…such a beautiful, graceful dance. Almost as if it had been expertly choreographed. As a former professional dancer, she appreciated the beauty and perfection of the tiny creatures’ dance routine.
How was such a thing even possible?
“May I sit with you for a moment?”
Caught up in her thoughts, she hadn’t noticed the handsome stranger approaching her table. Now he stood beside her, soft brown eyes fixed on her face, one dark eyebrow lifted in inquiry.
“Yes, of course. Please join me.”
Her visitor took the seat across from her without looking away for even an instant.
“Thank you. I’m Booth Meadows.”
“Booth…I like that. I’m—”
“Wait. Allow me. You are Teela Vincent.”
Taken aback for a moment, she paused before offering a little dip of her chin. “I am.” She probably knew where he got that information, but she asked anyway. “And you know this because…?”
“I watched an entire season of Save A Dance for Me—and not because I’m a fan of the show. I happened on it one night while channel surfing. The first thing I saw was your gorgeous face, and I couldn’t move on to save my life. You fascinated me. I watched every episode for the rest of the season—just so I could see you dance.” He shook his head, his gaze unwavering. “But the next season, you were gone. I tried to find information online...” He chuckled and lowered his head for an instant. “Believe me, I tried. But there was nothing. You’d simply disappeared, and I thought I’d never see you again. But here you are at Hummingbird Hollow, as if you walked right out of my dreams.”
Teela caught her breath. Any other time, from any other man, that little speech would have terrified her. But Booth Meadows was no stalker. She’d always possessed a keen sense of character, or its lack, in others. Besides, her heart simply refused to believe such a thing about this man.
She managed a soft burst of laughter. “I assure you, I’m quite real, and truly flattered. Thank you for making my day in such a sweet manner.”
“Oh, trust me—I’m not a flatterer. I speak the truth or nothing at all. You are incredibly talented, Teela…and I can’t even find words to describe your beauty. I think God must’ve gotten a little mixed up and sent an angel to earth.” He cleared his throat, and his lips curved into a crooked smile. Teela gathered he wasn’t practiced at being charming. “You don’t happen to have a pair of invisible wings, do you?”
Now Teela’s laughter came a little more easily. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that a girl’s gotta have a little mystery about her…don’t you think?”
“You have more than your share of that.” Booth’s dark eyebrows drew together. His head tilted slightly to the side. “Where did you disappear to, Teela Vincent? Oh, I know! You were called back to Heaven to be fitted for new wings.” He smiled. “Or was it a halo?”
* * * *
Booth couldn’t believe his own audacity. Teela would’ve been totally justified had she ordered him away from her table…or stood and walked out of the room.
Yet there she still sat. Her smile seemed a little shy, but she didn’t look poised to fly away. On the other hand, her slightly timid smile wavered a bit at his question.
“No, I haven’t been there recently, but—” She broke off, and Booth noted the slight change of color in her cheeks when she paled.
“But someone you loved made that one-way trip.” He spoke gently, somehow knowing in his heart that he was right.
“Yes.” She drew a deep breath and lowered her gaze.
Booth said nothing, giving her a moment.
After a short beat, she lifted her chin and stiffened her shoulders, visibly taking on strength to continue.
“My best friend since childhood. I never had any siblings, but I considered Annalise a sister. We were close…really close, from kindergarten on. She was an only child too. Never knew her father, and lost her mother to cancer while we were in college. We were roommates, and then, after graduation, we rented a small house together. The two of us really were inseparable.” She pulled in a breath. “One day a couple of years ago, Annalise was sitting at a red light on her way home from work. She was a nurse…a good one who cared deeply about her patients. She always took the same route home, specifically because it never had a lot of traffic. It didn’t have much that day either…but as she sat at that signal light, a car traveling at close to a hundred miles an hour rammed her from behind. The driver was some big drug trafficker, trying to evade the police on his tail. Annalise–” Teela paused. Cleared her throat. “She died on the scene.”
“Oh, no.” Booth desperately wanted to take her hand, but feared she’d think him presumptuous. “That’s…hard. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. I was devastated, but the one hurt most by Annalise’s death was…” She raised a pair of translucent blue eyes, misty with unshed tears. “Her baby girl. Kinsley was only eight weeks old.”
Booth blanched. “That’s terrible. No one ever realizes how far the consequences of these tragedies can reach.” He shook his head, almost physically attuned to Teela’s pain. “Where is the child now?”
“Annalise had no family, and the child’s father made it clear from the start that he never wanted anything to do with either of them. We agreed early in her pregnancy that I would take the child should anything ever happen to her. All the paperwork was signed, filed, and in order.” She smiled through the tears brimming in her eyes. “Upon Annalise’s death, I became a mommy. I knew I couldn’t deal with the rigid schedule of the show and still give Kinsley the attention she deserved. So I made a choice—one I’ve never regretted. She’s my life.”
Booth sat, stunned and speechless.
This gorgeous woman didn’t have wings or a halo, but she must be an angel. She hadn’t made a trip to Heaven, but her friend had, and now Teela had a daughter. A little girl.
Booth hadn’t a chance of pursuing a relationship with her, even though he’d been half in love with Teela ever since he first saw her glide across the screen as one of the pros on a dance competition television series. When he’d looked up in response to her breathless statement mere moments ago—“It’s like a dance!”—and realized she was the woman of his dreams, his heart had missed a beat. And then another.
Off screen—up close and without the overdone cosmetics and flash of the show—Teela’s beauty was almost heartbreaking. Ethereal. Unreal. Having met her, Booth might forevermore be blind to other women.
“Hey, Booth!” His friend Cass called out from across the room. “We’re making a quick trip into Eureka Springs. Want to come?”
“I…uhm…”
Teela smiled. “It was nice chatting with you, Booth and I apologize for unloading on you like that.” She shook her head. “I don’t usually share so freely, even with people I know.”
“I’m glad you did this time.” He glanced across the room, where Cass stood with a little group of friends, including her new fiancé, Ryder. “I’d like to stay and talk, but…”
“Go with your friends. I need to get back upstairs anyway. Being away from Kinsley is so hard. I left her with my pastor’s wife, and I trust her—I really do, implicitly—but I miss my baby so much! I’ve got to call and check on her, for at least the tenth time today.” She laughed softly, and folded her napkin as she stood. “Who knows? We may meet again. Goodbye for now, Booth Meadows.”
“Until later, Teela Vincent.”
He watched her walk upstairs before joining Cass and the others.
This was best. Just a simple goodbye, before he lost any more of his heart. No matter how much he wanted to know her better, a relationship with Teela was out of the question,.
Booth couldn’t be a father, not to his own children, not to someone else’s. Not now…not ever.

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