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“Hi. Ready to go?” she asked without preamble.

      Seamus wondered if Rory was trying to avoid her father’s notice for some reason.

      Kurt seemed to sense it, too. “Everything all right?” he asked mildly.

      “Yes.” A tight smile. “And here?”

      Kurt nodded.

      The phone rang, and a young man behind the hotel’s old reception counter picked it up. “Sultan Mountain School,” he said. Then, “She’s here.”

      “It’s Desert.”

      Irritated, Rory walked to the phone and said, “Hello?”

      “When are you going to be able to practice? We’re planning to do our new combo with the staffs on Friday, and we still don’t have it right.”

      “I’m at work now, Desert.”

      “This is a responsibility, too.”

      Rory taught belly dance and fire-dancing at workshops approximately once a month and gave two students weekly private lessons. The troupe was a commitment she’d made, but it wasn’t a job. “I can’t talk now. I’ll see you later.”

      “Well…okay.”

      Kurt turned away from Seamus Lee and his family, saying, “Let me know if you need anything.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      THEY SAT in the living room of the Empire Street house. That is, Lauren sat at the dining room table filling out a questionnaire regarding her personal goals in connection to the Sultan Mountain School, while Seamus did the same at the coffee table. Caleb was already off with a group of kids his own age at a snowboarding class, and Belle was in the next room happily watching a video. Rory sounded out Beau on what he wanted from the school, on his interests. Seuss, the puppy, lay in his crate, head tilted to one side.

      Seamus heard Rory say to Beau, “Part of our curriculum requires involvement with the local economy. This means doing something like a job. I have one possibility that’s really the ultimate spot, you know? But I can only give it to somebody trustworthy, who respects the need for confidentiality. You have to be prepared to act like an adult. I figured because of the work your dad does, you might understand and be able to do that.”

      Seamus couldn’t stop himself from glancing in their direction. Beau was sitting on a Victorian footstool and Rory occupied the end of a fainting couch. The teenager’s gaze was focused on the floor. Janine had been blond, but only Lauren had inherited her coloring. The boys all had dark brown hair, like his, and so did Belle.

      Without looking up, Beau asked, “What is it?”

      “It’s working for a woman who makes custom skis. This is a highly competitive industry, and designs and manufacturing methods are closely held secrets. But she’s agreed to take on a Sultan Mountain School student. With your background in math and science, you might be some real help to her.”

      “Okay,” Beau said, still not lifting his head.

      Rory felt Seamus Lee’s eyes on her. She already knew he found her interesting as a woman. It was clear in the way he looked at her and in his behavior toward her. She found him attractive, as well, but that was beside the point. Seamus was a participant in the Sultan Mountain School, and she mustn’t offend him, or worse, become entangled with him. The latter would certainly cause her father to brand her unprofessional and she didn’t need that.

      She wasn’t keen for a relationship, in any event. Though she had had more success keeping boyfriends than holding a job, the men she’d been closest to inevitably had disappointed her. She was tired of men who considered skiing as much as possible to be a life goal. They seemed, well, immature. Seamus Lee, being a father, being the person he seemed to be, was probably relatively mature. He had a real life, and a significant vocation as an artist. And any success whatsoever at raising his children meant that he thought of someone other than himself at least part of the time.

      She liked this man for spending time with his children, for knowing his children.

      But his interest in her just now was inconvenient.

      And she had already begun to wonder exactly what his relationship with his children was like. In her presence, he’d revealed his ignorance of the name of his youngest daughter’s stuffed animal. To Rory, Belle had introduced her “stuffy,” as she called it, as Mouse—and she hadn’t bothered to tell her father its name at all.

      They were like a family, and not. The children seemed to tiptoe around Seamus, seemed to want to please him, and yet…well, it was a bit strange, that was all.

      In any case, she’d never experienced a truly successful parent-child relationship. Her parents’ marriage had been brief and it was still a mystery to her. And, well, her grandmother was one way and her mother had been another, and her father was different, still.

      Rory knew that her mother had been athletic, as her father was, and comfortable in the outdoors. Her grandmother said that Rory’s mother had been into everything natural. Rory thought she herself was probably more like Gran. Gran had been a lounge singer, had worked on cruise ships, had been worshipped by many men—admittedly, Rory hadn’t yet experienced that—and was a true free spirit. Rory’s mother, Kristin Nichols Gorenzi, had died after skiing into a tree. Rory’s father hadn’t been there. Another man had—her mother’s lover. Gran had told Rory this.

      Rory’s mother had been pretty, small and blond, with a bright, wide smile. Rory couldn’t even imagine what her mother had been like. But she could believe that the fact she’d died while skiing with another man had helped drive Kurt Gorenzi from his daughter’s life.

      “Why don’t I call the ski shop,” Rory said to Beau, “and if the owner’s keen, I’ll take you over tomorrow to meet her. She has one other employee. He’s college age, and he’s really nice. He actually helps my fire-dancing troupe a lot.”

      “Your what?”

      It was Seamus who’d spoken. Rory glanced up. His green eyes were long-lashed, and his sharp, elegant features and wavy long black hair reminded her of Viggo Mortensen in The Lord of the Rings.

      “Oh, my roommates and I are fire dancers. Actually, we belly dance, too. It’s both. We call it fire fusion. Our troupe is named Caldera.”

      Seamus continued to gaze at her intently, as if he were trying to see inside her. “A woman of unusual talents. How did you get into that?”

      “In college…Well, when I was in college—” another failed enterprise “—I saw a troupe perform. And then I took some classes and I was hooked. I actually preferred belly dance and fire-dancing to school.”

      The puppy cried and Beau stood up. “I’ll take him out.”

      “Thank you, son,” his father said and forced his eyes back to his questionnaire.

      Again, Rory caught it—that hungry look, this time on Beau’s face. It was a hunger for words from his father, anything resembling attention from his father.

      “What exactly do you do with fire?” Seamus asked.

      “Poi and staff twirling. Poi are balls that are attached to tethers—cords. We swing them in patterns, making them go around each other. It’s…quite difficult. But fun. Poi comes from New Zealand, originally, but I don’t think they light the poi on fire. Maybe they’re percussion instruments of some kind there? I’m not sure. Fire-dancing is practiced all over the world. The belly dance we do is called American Tribal Style, which was developed by a woman in San Francisco.”

      “Aren’t you afraid of being burned?” asked Seamus, abandoning his questionnaire entirely.

      I’m perplexed by how little attention this man is paying to his kids. What is wrong with him? Obviously, her original assessment of him as an involved father had been somewhat off the mark. She was reminded of her own father; and, consequently,

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