As he drove he reached out and rested a hand on her thigh. She liked the weight of it and the warmth, both made her feel safe and she rested her hand on top of his, hooking her thumb around his.
The last few days she had been so focused on learning about her relationship with Ryder and what had torn them apart, then learning about Ryder’s past, and slowly finding their way back to one another that thoughts of her abduction had been pushed to the backburner. Abigail doubted that could last long, but it was nice to think about something else, even if not all of those thoughts had been pleasant.
Now she felt like she was starting to get her life back, she had a long way to go to get back to normal, but at least she was moving forward instead of being trapped in the same place for so long.
Lost in thought, when she realized the car had stopped driving and looked out the window to see where they were, she gasped.
“The dance studio,” she said, turning to look at Ryder. Had he brought her back here to try to get her to remember the night she had been taken?
“Nope,” he said, reading the question in her eyes. “I brought you here to dance.”
“To dance?”
“You love dancing, it’s how you express yourself, how you deal with your emotions. I thought this might be what you needed right now.”
Fumbling with her seatbelt, Abigail scrambled across the center console and into Ryder’s lap. “This is wonderful, perfect,” she gushed, “I mean, I’m a little nervous that some bad memories might come back, but you’re here, and that makes me not so scared, and it’s been so long since I danced, this is just what I need right now.” She planted a kiss on Ryder’s mouth and then hugged him hard.
Ryder’s shoulders loosened, and she knew he’d been worried that bringing her here would be a mistake. “I parked around the back so you wouldn’t have to go through the parking lot.”
“I’m not worried about it,” she assured him. “Is Veronica here?”
“No, I thought it might be best not to overwhelm you all at once since this is the first time you’ve been out since you came home. But …” he reached around her to pull out something from the glove compartment. “This is your new phone, we transferred all your old data across so you have all your contacts and apps and everything. I’m sure V would love to hear from you when you’re ready.”
Tears filled her eyes and she brushed them away. “You think of everything, you’re so good to me.”
“I love you, baby,” he said. Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her deeply, and she rethought her not ready for sex stance.
Breaking the kiss, Ryder opened the car door and climbed out, still holding onto her, then set her on her feet. Hand in hand they slipped into the building through the back door. Abigail braced herself for bad memories to come rushing back but all she felt was the same peace she always did when she was in a dance studio.
“For you,” Ryder said, holding out a pink sparkly gift bag.
“A gift? You’ve done enough for me.”
“Open it,” was all he said.
She took the bag and opened it to find a pair of pink tights and a pink leotard with a skirt. She loved her leotards with skirts and loved the way the skirt flared and twirled when she was doing turns. At the bottom of the bag was a pair of ballet slippers. “You didn’t have to do that, I have leotards at my place.”
“I wanted you to have something new,” Ryder said. The love shining from his eyes filled up her soul which had had a hole drilled in it when he left her, and the light had been slowly dripping out of her life ever since. In that one look her soul was patched and refilled and she threw herself at him.
“I love you so much, Ryder.”
“I love you too, Abby, more than you can ever know. Dance for me, sweetheart.” Ryder set her on her feet and nudged her toward the studio.
Abigail walked into the room she had spent so many years in. A lot of students had come and gone in that time, most hadn’t pursued dancing as a career but a few had gone on to dance professionally.
Slipping off her sweats, she changed into her dance clothes unable to wipe the smile off her face as she put on her pointe shoes and walked into the middle of the room.
It had been a long time since she’d danced and she was still recovering from being sick. The first few turns she tried she wobbled and nearly lost her balance.
Before she could get frustrated she saw Ryder watching her, the smile on his face made her want to dance beautifully for him, thank him for everything he’d done for her.
Focusing, she tried again, and before she knew it, she was spinning just like she had been doing since she was a little girl.
When she set both feet on the ground again she found herself scooped up into Ryder’s arms, his mouth descending on hers.
“I love watching you dance,” he said against her lips.
“It’s what I was born to do.”
He looked down at her, expression both wary and curious. “Why did you come back from New York, Abby? You were talented enough to make it as a professional dancer. Why did you give that up?”
When she’d been sixteen she was offered a partial scholarship to a ballet school in New York. Her parents hadn’t wanted her to go, hadn’t thought that dancing was a legitimate profession and had told her that if she went she would be on her own, responsible for paying her own bills.
Abigail had gladly accepted those conditions.
She’d gone, gotten a job at a convenience store working the late shift after her classes and schoolwork were done for the day, shared an apartment with several other girls, and had the time of her life.
Until it all came crashing down around her.
“You know what happened, I didn’t make the cut,” she said softly, unable to meet his gaze.
“I know that’s what you said, I just don’t think that’s all there is to it.”
She didn’t want to tell him, but he had opened up to her, shared his darkest secrets and if they were having a third go at this relationship then this time they should go in with no secrets. “You know my parents didn’t want me to go, they wouldn’t support me so I had to get a job. I worked nights at a convenience store, one night some kid high on something came in to rob the place. I panicked, was too slow getting him the cash from the register, so he hit me, knocked me unconscious, I had a concussion and unfortunately there was permanent damage that left me with balance issues that ruined my career.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Ryder’s arms tightened around her and he clutched her close against his chest. “I’m so sorry.”
“It is what it is,” she said nonchalantly. It had hurt a lot at the time but she’d been seventeen then and was twenty-six now, meaning she’d had nine years to come to terms with it. “Sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way we want it to, but that doesn’t mean we have to be unhappy. I love teaching children to dance, and now I have you back in my life, and I can honestly say that I don’t care that I won’t ever be a professional ballerina because I have everything that I could ever want right here.”
It was true.
She might have mourned the loss of her career at one point, but now she was dreaming of opening her own studio, and being held in the arms of the man she loved made her heart overflow with happiness.