He’d watched her earlier, when she’d danced, and she’d expected him to approach her, ask her to dance.
But he hadn’t.
A slow smile built on her lips as she rose to her feet.
She’d just have to ask him.
That was part of the fun about being a flapper. They embraced life with gusto. They weren’t shy, nor did they worry about what others thought. They tossed the conventional standards of female behavior out the window and embraced life with newfound freedom.
The same freedom she and her sisters embraced during their nights out on the town. They had all come to love the liberty their nightlife gave them. It was the exact opposite from the stifling life they lived during the day. Every day.
Skirting around the line of people waiting to have numbers pinned on their backs, she saw him stand up. Her heart thudded, and she wasn’t exactly sure why, until he turned, as if he was going to walk away from his table before she arrived.
She cut through another line of people between him and her and stepped in front of him, stopping his escape, if that was what he’d had in mind.
“You aren’t thinking about taking a hike, are you?” she asked while batting her mascara-covered lashes at him. That was a trick Jane had read about in one of the magazines she’d snuck into the house, and it always made men smile.
He didn’t smile. Instead, he tugged the brim of his flat brown leather hat up a touch. “I was.”
She peered up at him harder, and the moment she caught sight of the eyes his hat had been shadowing, her heart stopped. Right then and there. At the exact same time her entire body started to tremble. “It’s you!” she gasped. The very man who’d—who’d—who was the reason she’d set down another rule for her and her sisters. No kissing. Absolutely none!
“And it’s you,” he said. “Imagine that.”
Imagine! She didn’t have to imagine! She knew! Those blue eyes were too unique to forget. Pale blue, like the sky first thing in the morning, and darkly rimmed with black lashes. She’d never seen another set like them and knew she never would, either.
Her heart started to pound and she was nearly gasping for air. It was him. The man who’d kissed her on the beach, right where anyone could have seen, and then walked away as if nothing had happened.
Anger, a level she’d never hit before, struck hard. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“Right here!” someone shouted. “We have the final couple! Lacy and her Reuben!”
Betty recognized Jane’s voice and twisted as her sister grasped the back of her dress to pin a number to her back. “We aren’t entering the dance-off.”
“Yes, you are!” Jane said.
Betty twisted, trying to keep Jane from pinning on the number. “No, we—”
“Yes, we are,” the blue-eyed man said, grabbing her hand.
“You two are number three,” Jane said, moving to pin a piece of paper on his back.
“I’m not dancing with you,” Betty said, trying to pull away.
“Yes. You. Are.” His voice was deep, low, and under his breath.
Betty’s insides quivered at the seriousness of his tone.
“Clear the floor!” someone shouted. “Give the dancers room!”
Jane slapped his back. “Hit the floor, Reuben!”
“Come on, Lacy.” He drew her toward the dance floor.
“My name’s not Lacy,” she said, gritting her teeth.
“And mine’s not Reuben.”
Of course his name wasn’t Reuben, that was just slang for a stranger in town. His plain blue shirt, black suspenders, and tan pants made him look like he wasn’t a man-about-town. She and her sisters never used their real names while on the town. They used whatever name took their fancy. Jane had called her Lacy because of her lace-trimmed dress.
They stepped onto the dance floor and he spun around, facing her. With a grin that revealed he had nice and straight, white teeth, which made him even more handsome, he planted his free hand on the small of her back.
She tried to move, get away, but between his hold and the people crowding the dance floor around them, she had nowhere to go.
“Dig any clams lately?” he asked.
She pinched her lips together, refusing to answer. Too bad she couldn’t refuse the memories from flooding forward.
While in Seattle three years ago, she’d been digging clams, and had wandered out too far. Before she’d realized what was happening, the tide had been rolling in. She’d panicked, having never experienced how quickly the water was rising and had climbed up on some rocks, but the waves had soon covered the rocks. Out of nowhere, he’d shown up and carried her to shore. Then he’d kissed her! More than once! Until she hadn’t been able to breathe, or think, or move, and then...then he’d walked away! Like nothing had happened.
A bandit. That was what he was, and she was not going to dance with him. Mad all over again, she turned to run away.
He spun her neatly back round again.
“Nice try, Lacy, but you’re dancing with me.”
“No, I’m not,” she hissed. “I was hoping to never see you again!”
“Then you need to find different company.”
“What?” That made no sense. None whatsoever.
The piano man struck the keys, and they were suddenly moving across the floor. Her and this...this kissing bandit!
His movements were smooth, flowed perfectly with the music, even as she held herself stiffly.
“No wonder you didn’t want to enter the dance-off,” he said. “You don’t know how to dance.”
“I do, too!”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I just don’t want to dance with you!”
“Too late. We’re couple number three and we are dancing,” he said, his hands going to her waist and lifting her up. “Until you get us disqualified.”
Another flash of anger rose up inside her. She couldn’t get them disqualified, that could cause a scene, and that went
