Dancing in the Moonlight - Harlequin.com

RAEANNE THAYNE
19
veered back onto the highway, unwilling to admit defeat
by giving in so close to her destination.
Maybe she hadn’t fully considered the implications
of her stubbornness, though. It was thoughtless to show
up in the middle of the night. She was going to scare
Viviana half to death, barging in like this.
She knew her mother always kept a spare key on the
porch somewhere. Maybe she could slip in quietly without
waking her and just deal with everything in the morning.
She grabbed her duffel off the passenger seat and
began the complicated maneuver for climbing out of the
car they taught her at Walter Reed, sliding sideways in
the seat so she could put the bulk of her weight on her
right leg and not the prosthesis.
Bracing herself, she took a step, and those imaginary
shards of glass dug deeper. The pain made her vaguely
queasy but she fought it back and took another step, then
another until she reached the steps to the small front porch.
Once, she would have bounded up these half-dozen
steps, taking them two or three at a time. Now it was all
she could do to pull herself up, inch by painful inch,
grabbing hold of the railing so hard her fingers ached.
The spare key wasn’t under the cushion of either of
the rockers that had graced this porch as long as she
could remember, but she lifted one of the ceramic
planters and found it there.
As quietly as possible she unlocked the door and
closed it behind her with only a tiny snick.
Inside, the house smelled of cinnamon coffee and
corn tortillas and the faint scent of Viviana’s favorite
Windsong perfume. Once upon a time that Windsong