Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1)

I could just hear the phone calls I’d get tonight from mothers asking why I was teaching about the birds and bees instead of ballet.
“I’m going to be a blue butterfly.” I moved my arms in a slow flutter. “What color butterfly are you going to be today, Dani?”
I spent the next hour leaping, hopping, spinning, swaying, teaching ballet technique to a dozen preschoolers through creative movement and imaginary play. We were butterflies, then trees, then frogs, then horses. I even managed to slip in the correct terminology.
The preschooler’s hour ended, and after a hectic flutter of coming and going, the first-grade class began. Then came second-and-third grades, then fourth through sixth. After that, classes were grouped by ability rather than age. In the interest of simplicity, I had followed Ms. Daphne’s schedule from last year, so my last session every Monday would be the most advanced. The girls wowed me with their barre work, and before I knew it, I was hurrying to fit in one more combination. I turned up the music then ran to stand in front of the teenage girls.
“Spread out so you don’t bump into anyone when you do the tour jete to the back.” I demonstrated the correct form. My injured ankle didn’t allow professional perfection, but I could still do this. “Roll through the foot and bend your knee for a soft landing. If I hear a smack or a thud, you’re not doing it correctly.”
I danced the combination with my students, watching in the mirror and calling out corrections. “Mandy, step back-side-front on the pas de bourre. Alison, point your foot! It looks like a dead fish hanging off the end of your leg.”
A shrill ring cut through the music. I flapped a hand for my students to keep practicing and ran into the foyer to answer the studio’s landline. Leaning over the U-shaped counter that embraced the desk and a rolling chair I would probably never sit in, I snatched up the receiver. After a brief struggle with the type of curling cord I’d forgotten existed until I found the ungodly-expensive office phone with an un-losable handset, I answered. “Dance studio.”
“Miss Alexander?”
All the oxygen in the room floated up to the ceiling. It was him—Ian Buchanan, the handsome hunk I’d met downstairs. He was talking, but with the music blaring in the studio and the girls’ feet pounding on the wood floor in the lively sauté, jete, pas-de-chat combination, I could barely hear him. I put my finger in my ear to drown out the sound. “Excuse me?” Had he said, new editor?
“Excuse you?” Ian drew out the word you so it had about fifteen vowel sounds. “No, pardon me,” he roared. “I was hopin’ you could turn down the music, but I hadna realized ye taught ballet to the hard o’ hearin’.”
I took my finger out of my ear. Yes, the music was loud, and the thump-thump of the girls’ leaps vibrated through the old wood floors. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Shaw said the newspaper closes before my advanced classes begin.”
All summer long, when I’d been up here scraping and sanding, painting and polishing to get the studio ready for fall classes, the newspaper office had been locked up and deserted every day by five. But apparently, Mr. Shaw had hired an editor who liked to work late, a late-working editor who wasn’t happy about the noise.
“Good God Almighty, the noise is the least of it. The ceiling is about to come down! Are those wee ballerinas up there, or is a herd of elephants leaping about?” His accent thickened as he spoke, and the word about sounded like aboot. “If ye canna make 'em stop jumpin’, can ye at least turn down the music?”
Even pissed-off and shouting, his voice made me shiver—and not with fear. A hormonal surge made my stomach rise up against my diaphragm like a loose helium balloon, made my pores prickle with the rush of blood to my skin. I wanted to run downstairs and rub up against him like a cat in heat. I knew it was just my months of abstinence, since I’d left my friend-with-benefits back in New York. But the anticipation swirling in my belly had begun to curdle like blinky milk. My potential prince wasn’t very charming, and he wasn’t calling to ask me out. He was calling to complain.
Fortunately, nobody’s anger can stand up for long in the face of a well-trained southern belle. If I kept my cool, I could help him regain his. “Mr. Buchanan,” I said in a homemade whipped cream voice, “I’m sorry if it inconveniences you, but dancers have to jump sometimes. Mr. Shaw said it wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Well, o’ course he did.” Ian’s voice had calmed down a notch or two. “He’s a nice old fossil, and deaf as a chunk of petrified wood. But the fact is—”
“It’s after five-o’clock—”
“Lass, sheet-rock dust is falling from the ceiling. I’m surprised the building is still standing.”
I ignored whatever he was saying about the overhead light fixtures swaying down there.
“It was nice talking to you, but we’ll have to continue this conversation later. My class is waiting for me. Have a nice evening. Goodbye.”
The girls had gathered at the classroom door to eavesdrop, so I put the receiver into the cradle as gently as if it were a sleeping baby. Then I sailed past and turned the volume down.
But wait. Did I really want to reward the annoyed Scotsman downstairs for the pissy phone call that interrupted my class? No, I didn’t.
Man of my dreams, ogre of my nightmares, either way, he might as well learn his lesson now. I turned the music up a click and danced the final combination with my class, then led everyone in a curtsey and dismissed class. My students changed into their street shoes and shoved pointe shoes into their ballet bags. I stood on the landing at the top of the stairs until my last student waved from