LITMIR.BIZ

      Moving slowly and gracefully, Darcy swayed to the music.

      Her hips rolling, Darcy’s arms traced patterns in the air. The exotic music, the sparkle of sequins and shimmer of silk—even the faint incense scent of the air around him—worked a spell on Mike. He felt as if he’d plummeted through a trapdoor from his everyday life to this erotic new world.

      Darcy twirled a veil around her, hiding behind it, then revealing the curve of her hip, the smooth paleness of her bare back, the gentle roundness of her belly, the swell of cleavage above the sequined bra top.

      Mike’s heart pounded and he had trouble breathing, but he made no attempt to turn away.

      Dear Reader,

      Three and a half years ago I took a belly dancing class. I was looking for some form of exercise that would be fun. The class was fun, all right. So fun I’ve been dancing ever since.

      Though the characters in this book have no connection to the women I’ve met through my dancing classes, it was a lot of fun to write a story that combines my love of dancing, family and romance.

      Life is full of little miracles, and organ transplant is certainly one of those. If you’d like to know more about organ and tissue donation, visit www.organdonor.gov.

      I hope you’ll enjoy Darcy and Mike’s story. I always enjoy hearing from my readers. You can e-mail me at [email protected] or through my website www.cindimyers.com.

       Cindi Myers

      About the Author

      CINDI MYERS is the author of more than three dozen novels and a member of an amateur belly dancing troupe, the Mountain Kahai Dancers. She thinks writing and dancing have a lot in common, since both require creativity and a certain amount of chutzpa. She writes and dances in the mountains of Colorado, where she lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs.

      Dance with

      the Doctor

      Cindi Myers

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Sheila and the Mountain Kahai Dancers—

      especially the Thursday night bunch.

       CHAPTER ONE

      WHAT WAS I thinking? Darcy O’Connor fought down butterflies as she looked out over the dance studio filled with eight preteen girls who’d signed up for the Belly Dancing for Girlz class. The normally tranquil room had been transformed into a scene of chaos. Dressed in everything from blue jeans and T-shirts to ballet leotards, the girls, ranging in age from nine to eleven, took turns preening and posing in the full-length mirrors lining one wall, draping themselves in the various scarves and costumes that hung around the rest of the room, all talking at once.

      Darcy had taught dozens, even hundreds, of women to dance in her four years as a belly dance instructor, but she’d never attempted a class just for girls. When she’d come up with the idea, she’d thought of it as a good way to make children part of her life, but now she wondered if she was really ready for this.

      “My aunt Candace took a pole dancing class last summer. Is this anything like that?”

      “We saw belly dancers at the Renaissance Festival. My dad stuck a dollar in one of the dancer’s bras and my mom got mad.”

      “I want to dance like Shakira. How long will it take you to teach me to do that?”

      “Girls, girls!” Darcy held up her hands. “I’ll answer your questions as we go along, but right now let’s get started. First, let’s line up in rows. Everybody stand where you can see yourself in the mirror.”

      She moved one of the taller girls, Debby, into the back row, and called forward the smallest of her new students, a delicate child with large brown eyes and a mass of dark brown hair. “Sweetie, you come up here on the front row. What’s your name, again?”

      “Taylor,” the girl said eagerly. She grinned up at Darcy.

      “Taylor, you stand next to me. Hannah, you come up on my other side.” Darcy surveyed the neat double line of girls in the mirror and felt more in control of the situation. “That’s better. Now we can start.” She pressed the play button on the remote for the stereo and the first notes of a pop number filled the room. “The first thing we’re going to learn is to move our hips from side to side, while the upper part of our bodies stays still.”

      “My brother says I can’t learn to shake my hips because I don’t have hips yet,” one of the girls, Zoe, volunteered.

      “You do too have hips,” Kira protested. “Everybody has hips.”

      “Brothers are just that way,” Debby said. “Once mine told me—”

      “Now let’s try making a circle with our hips,” Darcy said, recalling the girls’ attention.

      “What’s this move called?” Liz asked.

      “Is it okay if my circle is more of an oval?” Taylor asked.

      Darcy smiled to herself. Yes, this class was going to be a challenge, but maybe a challenge was exactly what she needed. “All right, girls. See if you can do this next move. I want everyone to be quiet and listen to the music. Think about how the music makes you feel.”

      The soaring notes of an Egyptian mizmar filled the air, accompanied by a pounding drumbeat. The music vibrated up through the soles of Darcy’s bare feet, soothing her like the caress of a friend. She hoped the girls felt it, too. She wanted to pass on to them more than the mere mechanics of movement.

      She caught Taylor’s eye in the mirror and was rewarded with a smile that made Darcy’s heart skip a beat. There was so much joy and innocence in that smile—so like the smile of her son. A smile she ached to see.

      She pushed the sad thought away and struck a dramatic pose as the last notes of the song hung in the air, holding still until someone in the back of the class giggled. Then all the girls dissolved into laughter. Darcy joined them, reaching out to pull Hannah and Taylor close. She’d missed the sound of children’s laughter since she’d lost Riley two years ago.

      “That was fun.” Taylor looked up at her, still smiling. “You’re really pretty,” the girl said. “Did it hurt when they pierced your nose?”

      Darcy laughed. “A little.”

      Taylor wrinkled her own button nose. “I hate needles.”

      The fierceness in the child’s voice both surprised and charmed Darcy. She patted Taylor’s back. “There will be no needles in this class. I promise.”

      “Are we going to learn to dance with swords?” Kira pointed to the pair of curved scimitars that hung over the mirrors at the front of the room. Darcy danced with a sword as part of her professional routine sometimes, but the thought of these girls anywhere near those sharp blades made her blanch.

      “You’re going to learn a special routine,” she said. “We’ll spend the next eight weeks learning it and you’ll perform it for your parents and friends at my student show in April.”

      “Will we get to wear costumes?”

      “Real belly dancing costumes?”

      “I want a pink costume!”

      “Can we have bells on them and everything?”

      So much for thinking she was in control, Darcy thought, as the girls crowded around her. But she no longer felt nervous or panicky among them. She clapped her hands. “We’ll talk about costumes more next week. For now, let’s dance some more.”

      For the rest of the class they

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