Chapter 11: The Second Dance

Nathan led Victoria onto the floor while the song was still beginning.

He remembered the first dance clearly: the borrowed confidence, the fear that he might step on her foot, the discovery of her last name afterward. This time he knew exactly who stood before him. He also knew she was watching his feet.

“You’re doing it again,” he said.

“I’m making sure you keep time.”

“I learned.”

“We’ll see.”

They moved past the nearest table. Nathan caught sight of Emma beside his mother. Emma raised both thumbs, then quickly lowered them when she realized he had seen.

Victoria followed his glance and laughed. “She planned this.”

“She planned for us to talk. The band helped.”

“She’s persistent.”

“She gets it from Laura.”

Nathan had spoken Laura’s name to Victoria before. Saying it while they danced felt easy. Victoria did not look away or search for a response.

“I wish I’d met her,” she said.

“You would have argued.”

“About what?”

“Something useful. Probably whether Emma should be allowed to fix my tie.”

Victoria smiled. “Laura would have won.”

“She usually did.”

When the song ended, they returned to Emma and Nathan’s mother. Eleanor joined them a few minutes later. She greeted Nathan warmly, then asked Emma about the jewelry box. Emma opened it and began explaining the clasp.

The two mothers listened with equal seriousness. Nathan and Victoria stood close enough that their hands brushed. Nobody at the table seemed surprised.

In the weeks after the dinner, Victoria began visiting the workshop again. The first Saturday, she arrived in boots Emma approved of and spent an hour helping sand pieces for a school display. Nathan made lunch. Emma claimed she had to finish homework upstairs, though she left her bedroom door open.

Victoria did not try to fill Laura’s place. Nathan never asked her to. She and Emma built their own habits: trips to the library when Nathan worked late, arguments over which pancakes were properly cooked, and an ongoing contest to make the straighter cut from scrap walnut.

There were difficult days too.

A photograph from the reopening dinner appeared online. When a supplier joked that Nathan could now ask his “hotel connection” for a better price, Nathan told him plainly that the work contract and his relationship were separate. He ended the call unsettled, then called Victoria that evening as he had promised.

“I’m angry about what he said,” he told her. “I don’t need you to fix it. I wanted you to know why I’m quiet.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

They talked while he cleaned the shop. By the end of the call, the supplier’s remark mattered less than the fact that Nathan had not carried it home in silence.

Victoria had her own habits to change. During a demanding stretch at work, she canceled dinner twice with little warning. The second time, Emma had already set three plates on the table. Victoria called her that night and apologized to her directly.

“I should have told you earlier that I might be late,” she said.

Emma considered this. “Dad can cook too much food again next week.”

“That sounds fair.”

The following week, Victoria arrived on time and helped clear the dishes. After Emma went upstairs, she told Nathan that she had asked her team to keep one evening each week free unless a hotel needed her for an actual emergency.

“You don’t have to promise a particular night forever,” Nathan said.

“I know. I want to make plans I can keep.”

Months later, the Mercer Street owners called Nathan back. They wanted to know whether he was available to finish the cabinet work they had paused. Nathan visited the house, checked the measurements again, and gave them a new schedule based on the jobs his team had already accepted.

Mrs. Mercer looked embarrassed as she signed the agreement. Nathan took the work because it suited the shop. Neither of them mentioned the photograph.

The ballroom project brought other inquiries, but Nathan accepted only the ones his team had time to do well. Luis took the lead on a library restoration the following spring. Mae continued working with them on buildings that needed her expertise. At the Bennett property, the removable access panel was used once during a lighting repair. The maintenance crew put it back without damaging the wood.

Nathan kept a photograph of the finished ballroom on the shop wall. Beside it hung a smaller picture of his team standing under the windows on the day of the final inspection. Emma had insisted they take that one.

Two years after the wedding, she gave Victoria a walnut box for her birthday. It was larger than her school project and fitted so precisely that the lid closed with a soft click.

Inside was a note:

You learned to sand with the grain.

Victoria laughed, then cried, to Emma’s great embarrassment. She kept the box on her desk beside the place card Nathan had returned to her.

Three years after Daniel’s wedding, another reception brought them to the Bennett Grand. Emma was fourteen now, tall enough to borrow Victoria’s shoes and opinionated enough to tell Nathan his new suit needed a different tie.

“Are you coming?” she asked as he paused near the ballroom entrance.

“In a minute.”

She followed his gaze to the walnut panels. “You still check them every time.”

“Only for damage.”

“You always find something.”

“Today I haven’t.”

Emma stood beside him. “Remember when you almost skipped Daniel’s wedding because you thought you wouldn’t belong here?”

“I remember you making me go.”

“I tied your tie. You drove yourself.”

Across the room, Victoria finished a conversation and saw them. She lifted a hand.

Nathan turned toward Emma. “You were right to send me.”

“I know. I’m usually right.”

“That part you get from your mother too.”

Emma smiled and went to greet a friend. Nathan crossed the ballroom as Victoria came toward him.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked, stopping beside the empty chair at her table.

Victoria glanced at it. “Apparently not.”

“My feet are losing an argument with these shoes.”

“Then sit down.”

He did. They watched the guests for a while. Victoria told him about a renovation meeting that had run too long; he told her Luis had secured a library commission on his own. When the band began a slow song, Victoria set down her coffee.

Nathan stood and offered his hand.

She took it before he could ask.

The panels shone around the room his team had helped restore. Emma waved at them from the edge of the floor. Nathan waved back, then turned with Victoria into the music.

They knew the steps now. When one of them missed a beat, the other waited.