‘Here, step on my shoes,’ he directed.
Dana did as she was told and he swirled her around the floor as she clung to his legs and laughed. She looked up at him with those big blue eyes and Charlie was utterly captivated.
Carrie came out and discovered them dancing and laughing together and felt her pulse slow, the music fade away and her vision telescope. They could have been father and daughter. Wasn’t that what fathers did with their daughters? Let them stand on their feet and dance with them? That’s what her father had done. Damn Rupert, damn him for denying Dana such simple pleasures. Such precious memories.
‘Mummy! I’m dancing with Charlie.’
Charlie stumbled slightly when he realised they were being watched by Carrie. Their gazes locked and he could see the yearning in Carrie’s gaze.
‘So you are, darling,’ Carrie said, finding her voice.
‘Your turn to dance with Charlie,’ Dana pronounced, breaking away and running over to clutch at her mother’s hand and drag her towards Charlie.
‘Oh…I…No, darling. I’m sure Charlie doesn’t want to dance with Mummy.’ Carrie resisted the pull on her hand.
Like hell Charlie doesn’t.
‘Oh, please, Mummy. Please, please.’
‘Sweetheart, you know Mummy’s not a very good dancer,’ Carrie said.
‘He’ll let you stand on his feet, won’t you, Charlie?’
Carrie gave a nervous laugh. ‘Darling, I’m too heavy for Charlie, I’ll break his toes.’
Charlie thought how great her weight had felt against him the other night. Pushed against him. Rubbing against him. He felt a rise of naked heat. A surge of potent desire. ‘Nonsense,’ he said, grabbing Carrie’s hand and twirling her towards him as ‘Rock Around the Clock’ blared out.
Carrie spun crazily and landed against Charlie’s hard body for one cataclysmic second before he pushed her out again, spinning her away from him. He spun her around and twisted and jived, their hands linked, her heart hammering madly. Dana sat on the lounge and clapped excitedly. One of the teenagers wolf-whistled. By the time the music stopped and Elvis was crooning ‘Love Me Tender’, Carrie’s entire world was spinning.
‘Me, oh, me.’ Dana jumped up excitedly. ‘Let’s all dance together.’
Carrie nodded as Charlie released her and took Dana’s hand. She looked down to see her daughter had also commandeered Charlie’s hand.
‘Mummy, this is the song from the wedding last week.’
Carrie shook her head, trying to clear her hazy thought processes. Her cells still rocking around the clock. ‘Oh, yes, it was the wedding waltz.’
‘Waltz with me, Mummy, like you did with Grandpa at the wedding.’
Carrie smiled down at her beguiling little girl, finding her as hard to resist as ever. Even the suture line gave her a certain appeal. She hauled Dana up onto her hip.
‘Charlie, too,’ Dana said, hooking an arm around Charlie’s neck and drawing them into an intimate circle.
Carrie daren’t look at him as Charlie’s arm slid around her back. She could hear his breathing and was excruciatingly conscious of the sheer male presence of him. From his spicy aftershave to his reassuring bulk.
This was wrong. It was too intimate. Not in the way it had been on Friday night. But intimate in the way a family was intimate. And it felt so good for something so wrong. This was a family of two. It was pointless thinking otherwise. Or getting Dana too caught up in it. But it was so nice she found it hard to step away, despite the dictates of her very sensible brain.
The song came to an end and Charlie stepped away abruptly. For a crazy second there he had felt more like part of a family then he had during his entire childhood. Dana had moved Carrie and himself into dangerous territory with the memory of their passion still so vivid.
Carrie looked up at his sudden withdrawal. She was again reminded of his quick-as-a-flash departure the other night. Why did a man who was so good with kids run a mile from them? Obviously being nice to a child and wanting one were two different things.
‘We’d better go,’ she said quietly, not wanting to face rejection again, not with Dana involved, too. She kissed the top of her daughter’s head. ‘Say good bye to Charlie, sweetheart.’
Dana waggled her fingers at him. ‘Bye, Charlie. Can I come and dance to your dukebox again?’
Charlie laughed and flicked one of her bunches. ‘Any time, Sleeping Beauty.’
Charlie stood in the middle of the lounge area, watching them walk away ignoring the heavy feeling in the vicinity of his heart. Maybe there was something to this commitment thing after all?