Free Save the Last Dance by Roxanne Rustand Page A

time.”
    “Maybe.” He pulled open the door. “Look, I know you aren’t all that interested, but maybe I’ll give you a call sometime. Deal?”
    She nodded, feeling the chasm widen between them. Wishing she were like Deanna and Leesa, who always seemed to have guys following them like imprinted ducklings, and who could draw new recruits with a single teasing glance. “Deal.”
    He disappeared down the steps, but even after he was gone she lingered at the door.
    He’d touched her in some indefinable way, and now she found herself drawn even deeper into his spell. Her entire life had been one of daring to go beyond expectations. Facing challenges. Taking risks. Except when it came to her heart.
    Call me, she whispered to herself as she turned back to the responsibilities that lay strewn across the library table. Please.
    She’d barely settled down to study when the stairway door squealed open and Jared came back in and strode across the room with a determined set to his jaw and a twinkle in his eye.
    He grabbed her jacket from the back of her chair. Took her hand. “Come with me now. Just five minutes.”
    Dazed and feeling unaccountably giddy, shelet him lead her down the stairs, across the lobby and out into the cold night air, where immense snowflakes swirled on the chilly breeze like lacy doilies beneath the security lights. Already, the tall pines were dressed in heavy, sparkling mantles of white, and the snow on the sidewalks was ankle deep.
    “It’s too beautiful not to share,” he said, drawing her into the warmth of his strong embrace. “Coming out here made me realize that you’re the only one I’d like to share this with. I’m not a quitter, Kate.”
    He looked down at her for a long, heart-stopping moment, his face shadowed by the lights overhead. “And I’m not walking away from something that’s so right.”
    A thrill of awareness rushed through her when he kissed her. She melted against him, feeling as if she’d always been part of him, as if she’d known him from the beginning of time. And when he pulled back, she impulsively wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him to her again.
    “I think,” he said after he’d caught his breath, “that we’d be crazy not to see each other again.”
    She leaned her forehead against the solid wall of his chest. “Agreed.”
    “Tomorrow?”
    “I—I still do have to study…and need to write a paper.”
    “Good. We’ll meet here then, at the library. Maybe grab a hamburger or something before?”
    She thought of the change in her purse that had to stretch until Saturday. “Um…my place, maybe? All I’ve got is mac ’n’ cheese or hot dogs, but it’s cheap and paid for.”
    “Great.” He kissed the tip of her nose and released her. “Tomorrow, then.”
    She watched him jog toward the campus bus stop, her heart overflowing.
    It wouldn’t last. These things never did…not when he learned about her family. Especially not if he happened to meet her mom.
    But for a little while, she was going to enjoy her time with this perfect, unattainable stranger.
    And what could be wrong with that?
     
    N OVEMBER PASSED in a whirl of study dates. Meeting over coffee or pizza or yet another box of generic macaroni with neon orange cheese. Just being with Jared warmed her clear down to her toes, and hearing his voice on the phone sent shivers skittering down her spine.
    Heavy snow had come hard, fast and early, turning the side streets near the university into ruttedpioneer trails that were nearly impassable in her ancient pickup, even with sandbags stacked over the rear axles, and kept the campus buses limited to only the major streets more often than not.
    Now, with Thanksgiving break just a day away, Kate looked out the kitchen window of her apartment at the bleak snowscape and shivered as yet another blast of icy air whistled through the window frame. Already, the sky was darkening, and with another four inches starting to fall, the street outside