Lewis looked up from his book at his spot by the window. “Everything okay?”
I nodded like one of those bobblehead dolls. “Everything’s fine.”
Max snorted. “Your voice gets all high-pitched when you lie.”
“It does not.” I winced as my tone went shrill.
Colin burst out laughing. “The only time she was worse than this was when she had to tell Dad that Cady had her first date.”
I grimaced at the reminder. Roan had not taken his baby girl growing up well. It helped that we’d have our three boys for a few more years, but Cady was getting ready to fly the nest.
Lewis’s brows lifted. “Cady isn’t getting married, is she?”
That had the twins’ gazes shooting to me.
“No, no, no. Nothing like that,” I promised. My girl was eighteen. Way too young to be thinking about that.
The sound of tires crunching on gravel had my nerves ratcheting up another few levels. My hands fisted as my palms went damp. A car door closed. Then there were footsteps outside.
He’d texted from the post office on his way home from his SAR meeting. Much to his chagrin, the community’s perception of him changed once people started seeing him with Cady. They saw the gentleness I had from that very first meeting. Now, he was constantly asked to serve on volunteer committees, sports teams, and everything in between.
The door swung open, and Roan filled the space. It didn’t matter if it had been twelve minutes or twelve years, I never tired of looking at my husband—his broad shoulders and muscled form, gorgeous face, now with a few lines from smiling and laughing, and his hair peppered with gray. But those blue eyes stayed the same.
“It came?” I whispered.
Roan closed the distance between us and handed me the envelope.
It looked like any business envelope, except the top of the return address read American Ballet Theatre. My fingers rubbed circles on the paper. “It’s thin.”
It hurt to even say the words. My girl had fallen in love with dance. She’d been enamored with it from the moment she started, but as she’d gotten older, it had become clear that not only did she love it, but she was also incredibly talented. She’d done classes, camps, and even a special summer program in New York.
The American Ballet Theatre was her dream. And I wanted my girl to have all her dreams, even if it meant losing her to the other side of the country. But this envelope? I worried it was about to dash all those hopes.
Roan squeezed my shoulder. “Let’s just see what it says before we borrow trouble. Where is she?”
“Where do you think?” I asked.
Cady processed everything through dance. The good and the bad. But it was especially her outlet during times of anxiety. When we’d told her the whole truth about John, she’d locked herself in the studio for weeks until she had a hold of the feelings she needed to talk about. She did the same when we lost Chauncey. When she’d fallen in love. When she’d suffered her first heartbreak. And knowing that she should be hearing back about her audition for the company at ABT had her pretty much dancing around the clock.
Roan’s lips twitched, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Come on,” he said, plucking the envelope from my fingers and guiding me toward the stairs. “Don’t burn down the house,” he called to the boys.
“If you chill Mom out, we’ll be angels,” Max yelled back.
Roan chuckled. “Holding you to that.”
We descended the staircase to an area Roan had built just for Cady. I couldn’t help but take in the space as we stepped into the room. One wall was entirely mirrored with a ballet bar across it. The opposite wall was all windows with a view of Cedar Ridge. It was magical, and Cady had wept when she saw it.
Just like I’d wept when he told me he’d covered the repairs on my car all those years ago and when he surprised me by buying The Brew for me. Roan loved to spoil his girls.
Classical music filtered out through speakers as Cady spun across the floor. I might never know the name of each move, but I knew that Cady made me feel with each bend, twist, and leap.
As she twirled again, she stopped right in front of us, grinning and breathing heavily. “Hey. Is it dinnertime already?”
“No,” I began. “I…I mean your dad…I mean we—”
Roan squeezed my shoulder and handed the envelope to Cady. “This was in the mail.”
She took it slowly, staring at the return address. “It’s thin,” she whispered.
Roan ducked his head so he could meet Cady’s eyes. “Tiny Dancer, no matter what’s in that envelope, you are incredible. You’ve achieved more than most people could ever dream of. But you also found what you love. What lights you up. Nothing and no one can take that away from you. You’ll shine that light wherever you end up.”