Rumor Has It

“I seem to remember your eye watered for a week.” Dylan grinned as the group burst into laughter. It felt so good to be back in a place where people knew him and shared his history. In California he’d always felt like a stranger, an outsider. People there commented on everything from his accent to the cowboy boots he liked to wear, but here no one thought those things were odd. Why had it taken him so long to return to this place where he belonged?

Troy launched into another story and Dylan idly searched the crowd, tallying the familiar faces. Almost everyone in their class had made it home for the reunion. Everyone except the one person he’d been most hoping to see.

A movement to his left caught his attention. He turned and for a moment stopped breathing. Taylor Reed was making her way toward him, a vision straight out his most erotic fantasies. She still had the movie-star polish that had captivated him from the first, but her girlish beauty had ripened to womanly curves that caught the eye of every man she passed. She’d let her hair grow, so that it swept her shoulders in a dark brown cascade. But the eyes were the same, big and dark and seeming to look right down into his soul.

She stopped in front of him, her gaze locked to his. “Hello, Dylan.”

He sucked in a deep breath, inhaling the spice-and-flowers scent of her perfume. “Hello, Taylor.” The shakiness in his voice startled him. He cleared his throat and tried again. “It’s good to see you.”

The tension in her shoulders eased and she smiled. A wide grin. “It’s good to see you, too.”

He was conscious of the silence around them and knew everyone was watching. That much hadn’t changed since high school. He shifted around to bring her into the group he’d been standing with and lightly touched her shoulder.

“You remember Troy Sommers, don’t you? And Ed Offray. Gib Hartsell. Al Proctor.”

“Hey, Taylor.”

“Hello.”

“Nice to see you again.”

They fell into an awkward silence, the men staring at Taylor. She reached to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, then smoothed the skirt of her dress, a faint flush creeping up her neck.

Dylan feared that at any moment she’d bolt. And who could blame her? You’d think these jokers had never seen a woman before. Not that he was any better. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Uh, would you like to dance?” he asked.

She dipped her head and regarded him through the veil of her lashes. “I’d like that.”

The DJ had just put on R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts.” Taylor moved into his arms and he rested his hands lightly at her waist, as nervous as he’d ever been back in high school. She felt good, her skin warm beneath the thin fabric of her dress. In high heels, the top of her head was even with his nose and his every breath filled his lungs with the exotic scent of her.

He had the disorienting sensation of being cast back in time to the only other dance they’d shared. They’d been in this same gym, after a football game. He couldn’t remember the song they’d danced to or whether the team had won or lost the game, but he could remember this feeling of sensory overload, of being filled up and over-flowing with the sight and smell and feel of her.

He’d wanted so much to kiss her then, but before he’d even worked up the nerve, the song had ended and she’d moved out of his arms.

“So I hear you’re moving back to Cedar Creek?”

Her voice pulled him back to the present. “Yes. I’m opening a law practice across from the courthouse.” He smiled. “But how did you know that? I’ve only been back in town a day.”

Her own smile was tight, never reaching her eyes. “You know how word gets around in a small town like this.”

Didn’t they both know that—too well? “Troy tells me you’re teaching here at the high school.”

She nodded. “Senior English. I came back three years ago, after a few years teaching in Austin.”

“Funny how you stayed in Texas while I went to California.”

She raised her eyes to meet his. “But now you’re back.”

“Yeah. Now I’m back.”

The song ended and they stopped moving; still arm in arm, they stared into each other’s eyes. He had the feeling she was searching for something, but he didn’t know what.

He thought he’d left all that high school awkwardness behind, but here it was, creeping in again. Grasping at any reason to keep her with him, he nodded toward the buffet table. “Are you hungry? Want to get something to eat?”

“Sure.”

He kept his hand at her back, guiding her through the crowd to the catered buffet. They filled their plates with canapés and cheese cubes, grabbed drinks from the bar and found an unoccupied table and sat. She unfolded a napkin across her lap and studied him. “You look good,” she said. “California must have agreed with you.”

He laughed. “Then looks are deceiving. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.” He took a sip of beer. “It’s good to be back home, where I feel like I belong.”

“Someone said you moved out to your parents’ old place.”

He nodded. “We’ve been renting it out since Mom and Dad died and it’s gotten kind of run-down. My plan is to fix it up again.”

“I heard about the accident after I moved back. I’m so sorry.”

Her voice was soft. Sad. The words more than mere formula. “Thanks.” He spoke around the tightness in his throat that always grabbed him when he thought of his parents. They’d died in a small plane crash in the Rockies when he was in his sophomore year of law school. He hadn’t been back to town since the funeral. Even before then, he’d pretty much left Cedar Creek behind, visiting only on holidays and for a few weeks in the summer. Now he’d moved back, partly because this was where he felt closest to his parents’ memory.

“You really are coming home, aren’t you?”

Her words startled him, as if she’d been reading his thoughts. She sipped her wine. “I guess that doesn’t surprise me. You always seemed so much a part of this place. Whenever I thought of you, I always pictured you here, settled down with a wife and two or three kids.”

So she’d thought of him? The knowledge warmed him. “It took me a few years, but I finally made it back. Without the wife and kids, though.”

“Alyson mentioned you were still single.” She picked a sprig of parsley from her plate and twirled it between her thumb and forefinger.

“I’ll confess I haven’t even come close to tying the knot yet,” he said. “I didn’t see any reason to hurry.”

He tipped the neck of the beer bottle toward her. “What about you?”

She shook her head. “No, I haven’t come close, either.” She glanced at him. “My friends tell me I’m too picky. I tell them I’m holding out for the right man.”

Her words sent a quiver through his stomach. Was she trying to tell him something or was he reading too much into her words? “I never would have thought you’d have ended up staying here,” he said.

She set aside the parsley, avoiding his gaze. “Why is that?”

“I don’t know. You were always so…sophisticated. Cosmopolitan.”

She laughed. “I may have thought I was sophisticated, but I’m sure I wasn’t.”

“Hey, it doesn’t take much to impress a bunch of hicks from the sticks.”

She regarded him through the lacy veil of her lashes. “And were you impressed?”

“Oh, yeah.” He pushed aside his half-filled plate. “I still am.” Seeing her again tonight had made him certain he’d made a big mistake when he’d never kissed her all those years ago. Did he dare try to make up for that now? He leaned toward her. “About what happened back in high school—”

She put her hand over his. “Wait.” She glanced around them. “Could we go somewhere else and talk? Someplace with a little more privacy?”

“Sure.” Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to be alone with her.