Page 10 of Dancing on Air

“Hello?” she said, not really wanting to talk to her father.

“So you’re with him now?” her father barked.

“I… for now.”

“I should send the cops out there and haul Jerry in for kidnapping.”

Cora’s anger spiked. “Why? I came here. He didn’t even know about me until I showed up,” she said, her voice raising slightly. “Is Mom back?” Her father was quiet. “I didn’t think so. Still trying to tell everyone that she’s staying with a friend?” Again, her father didn’t answer. “I should have JT call the police on you. Until she returns, I’m staying put. Actually, I doubt I’ll ever go back. This is more a home to me than that place ever was.” She hung up.

That evening, over dinner, JT suggested she should move her things into his writing studio. There was a full bedroom on the second floor of the building that he said she could have. She would be able to use the main floor, which was currently his writing room slash gym, as a dance studio, instead of his kitchen.

After dinner, they walked out there together and she grew excited about the possibilities. She stayed out there that night with Bo.

The following day over lunch, they discussed the fire and who could have started it.

“How old were you when Dad moved in full time?” JT asked.

“It was the week of my eighth birthday,” she answered easily. “My mother had just gotten out from…” She shook her head, stopping herself. “It was nice having both parents in the house for my birthday,” she admitted. Since then, she hadn’t spent another birthday with either of them.

“Does our dad smoke?” he asked, surprising her slightly.

“No,” Cora answered. “My mother used to, but she stopped when Dad moved in.”

She spent every day in the studio dancing. The more time passed, the closer she and JT grew. It was very odd that she’d have so much in common with him. They hadn’t been raised around one another, yet she felt more comfortable around him than anyone else.

In all senses, he was her brother. In the short time they’d known one another, they had become inseparable.

Then, one day, they received the bad news that Emma had been in a car accident in Italy. JT immediately flew out.

It was so obvious to her that he loved Emma. And if he did, then Cora did too.

When JT returned with a broken but very happy Emma, she believed they would be a happy family once more.

Even though Emma was bruised and broken, she looked happy to be back with JT.

Cora didn’t know all the details of the accident. No one seemed to really know, and there were several stories going around in the media.

It didn’t matter to her. Just as long as Emma stayed on the island with them, she was happy.

Then she got the best news. Apparently, Rowan had pulled a few strings and gotten her a meeting with someone from the Broadway Art Center for that weekend.

If she got into the prestigious center, she could move to New York and start living her very own dream life.

She was so excited that she was going to be going to New York for the first time, nothing else mattered. She tried to tell herself that if she didn’t get it, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. At least she could return home, to the island, with JT and Emma.

The moment she stepped onto the street in front of the BAC, she felt a shift in her world.

This. This was where she’d wanted to be her entire life.

“Ready, kid?” Rowan asked her.

She smiled up at her soon to be brother-in-law and nodded.

“Ready.” She lifted her chin and marched through the front doors. This time, her mother wouldn’t be there to interrupt her performance. Today she was going to give it everything she had, and if it wasn’t good enough for the BAC, well, then, they weren’t good enough for her.

Chapter Three

Wyatt Maxwell Sharpe, or Max to everyone except his family, came from a long line of dancers. You wouldn’t know it to look at him now, since he’d spent the last four years wearing fatigues and combat boots instead of tights and dance shoes.