Dance Away with Me - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,2

flew across the narrow creek bridge, effortlessly skipping over the missing planks, her steps so light the structure barely moved. “Ian!” The fairy creature’s long blond hair floated behind her from beneath a big red umbrella. A gauzy, ankle-length cotton gown better suited to July than early February swirled around her calves. She was tall and lithe, except for the mound of her pregnancy.

“Ian, stop yelling at her,” the ethereal creature said. “I could hear you from the schoolhouse.”

So that’s where he’d come from—the renovated, white wooden schoolhouse on the ridge above the cabin. In January, when Tess had first moved here, she’d trudged up the trail to see what was there. When she’d looked through the windows, she could tell the place had been turned into a residence, but no one appeared to be living there. Until now.

“Don’t pay any attention to him.” The sprite was a blue-eyed Disney fairy, maybe in her thirties like Tess. Just past prime fairyhood. She breezed through the undergrowth bordering the cabin, oblivious to the wet grass brushing her calves. “He’s always like this when he’s having trouble with a painting.”

A painting. Not painting in general. The mountain man must be an artist. A temperamental one.

The fairy laughed, a laugh that didn’t quite make its way to those storybook blue eyes. Something about her seemed familiar, although Tess knew they’d never met. “He’s more bark than bite,” the fairy said, “although, he’s been known to do that, too.” She held out a slim, warm hand from beneath the red umbrella. “I’m Bianca.”

“Tess Hartsong.”

“Your hands are freezing,” the woman said. “They feel good. I’ve been so hot.”

Tess’s professional midwife’s eye took over. Bianca was short of breath, the way many women were as they neared their third trimester. Maybe around seven months. She was carrying high and to the front. Her complexion was pale, but not washed out enough to be worrisome.

“Ian, you’ve done enough damage,” the sprite said. “Go home.”

He was holding Tess’s Bluetooth speaker as if he intended to walk off with it. But he gifted her with another growl and set it down hard on the picnic bench. “Don’t make me come down here again.”

“Ian!”

Ignoring the sprite, he strode across the narrow bridge, his steps rattling the wet, wooden planks so ferociously Tess expected the whole thing to crash into Poorhouse Creek.

“Don’t mind him,” Bianca said. “He’s being a prick.”

Next to the stormy mountain man, the sprite underneath the red umbrella was a dewy rainbow, and Tess twisted the lock on her internal Pandora’s box, the place where she stored her emotions when she needed to get through the day. “It was my fault,” she confessed. “I didn’t know anyone was living up there.”

“We moved in three days ago. Not my choice, but my husband thought the mountain air would be good for me. At least that’s what he said.” Bianca handed Tess the umbrella and whipped her gauzy cotton gown over her head. She was naked underneath except for a tiny champagne-colored thong. “Oh, god, I’ve been wanting to do that all morning. It’s like I have a furnace running inside me.”

The rain had become a light drizzle, and Bianca gazed into the dripping trees. She was thin, with slender thighs and light blue veins tracing small, porcelain breasts. Comfortable in her nudity, she stretched, going up on the toes of her sandals and letting her long hair cascade down her back in a silky waterfall. “It’s so peaceful here. But boring.” She glanced toward the cabin. “Do you have coffee? Ian freaks out if I even look at a coffee mug, and I have another two months.”

Tess had come to these Tennessee mountains to get away from people, but the novelty of talking with someone who didn’t view her as a tragic widow drew her in. Besides, she didn’t have anything better to do other than stomp her feet or stare out the window. “Sure.” She gathered up the ballet flat she’d kicked off. “Fair warning. It’s still a mess.”

Bianca shrugged and closed the umbrella. “Organized people freak me out.”

Tess managed one of those smiles she feigned to convince everyone she was fine. “No worries about that.”

Back in the old days, it had been different. She’d been organized. She’d believed in structure, logic, predictability. In the old days, she’d believed in following the rules. If you did your homework, stopped at stop signs, paid your taxes, everything would be fine.

The cabin’s rough-hewn log exterior was solid, but ugly. Moss