Chapter 3
Kinley sat in her car, backed into a parking spot, staring at the entrance to the grocery store, taking in the busy activity around her. Small town USA at its finest — and her own personal hell. Only a week ago, she was in New York, post-surgery physical therapy behind her, excited to receive the all clear from her doctor releasing her back to full activity so she could reprise her role on Broadway.
But here she was, Pine Valley’s most famous nobody, back to teaching snot-nosed brats barely capable of ring-around-the-rosy, much less a simple ball change, at her sister’s dance academy. Kinley wouldn’t dance again — not the way she was meant to dance — professionally, anyway. Her injury wouldn’t sustain the rigorous abuse a dancer’s body endures — especially on Broadway where the demanding schedule could require up to eight shows a week.
Her dream had finally been realized, after a lifetime of study and practice, only to be shattered almost as quickly as it had arrived. The real knife to the gut was Kinley’s shattered love life. The production director — also her roommate, best friend, and lover — no longer had use for her the moment Broadway didn’t. A brutal industry, a brutal lesson, and Pine Valley was the snoozefest salt on the proverbial wound.
A fast life in lights was what Kinley had always desired. It was what she was made for. Sure, Pine Valley and Twinkle Toes Dance Academy didn’t bother her before New York. She actually enjoyed the children and all their awkward two-left-feet shenanigans, before Broadway happened…but that’s when it was just a stepping stone to something bigger. Something grander. Now, it was pure hell. Kinley was better than this. She was a professional dancer with her name in lights only days before. Now her name was on a pole dancing class flyer hanging in Pine Valley General.
Since her life hadn’t quite spiraled all the way to the bowels of hell, she woke up to a buzzing phone and endless text messages from her sister and friends. As it turned out, her little escapade from the previous night wasn’t so private. It was plastered all over social media. Nosey Evelyn Shirley, town busy body, armed with a loaded Facebook account called #RumorHasIt and no shame whatsoever. Evelyn managed to catch Kinley and Jace in an unflattering state of affairs outside the dance academy as they were saying their goodbyes.
It seemed her target was Molly and Seth, but Kinley and the doctor were a late-night bonus with her first post tagging the entire town.
Ex stripper heating things up with steamy windows — newest Pine Valley fireman there to put her fire out, or start it?
That had to sting. Molly was not a stripper, not even close. She was the new girl in town with a new coffee shop bookstore, Reading Grounds. This couldn’t be helping business. Molly was one of the nicest people Kinley knew.
Right under Evelyn’s stab at Molly Sexton and Seth Spangler’s escapade, was a nice little picture of the dancer and doc in a lip lock, accompanied with a less than flattering tagline of its own…
Late night shenanigans around Pine Valley, there must be something in the air… Looks like the doc is checking the dancer’s tonsils.
Just what Kinley needed. Not only was she the small-town girl who couldn’t seem to stay away and a failed dancer, she was now tagged as the town floozy by a crabby old lady.
She had a sneaking suspicion her class of tots would be short in attendance for a few days, compliments of #RumorHasIt. It wouldn’t be because she was caught kissing, but because of who she was kissing. The town’s kid doctor, the hot kid doctor, had his own fan club full of flirty, die-hard dance moms. It didn’t matter if the dance moms were married, Kinley the hot doc kisser was now their enemy. It probably didn’t help that she also taught the pole dancing class, given the circumstances.
Kinley could feel it. Curious eyes were on her while her ears rang from the chatter likely passing between patrons as she sat in her car trying to build up the courage needed to sprint through the market. She had a plan: dash for the yogurt and fresh fruit while dodging the chatty gossip brigade like the live grenade it was.
She would just have to do her grocery shopping at night, when the sidewalks rolled up for most of the town, and avoid the crowds that way. Only problem, she tried that the night before and found the store was closed and ended up in the bar. The bar ended up being much more fun than yogurt and grapes would have been, given the company — until that not-so-unfortunate sidewalk kissing scene.
Small town, everyone goes home when the sun goes down — and the stores close. Great for scandalous, late night naughty, not so great for shopping the day after said late night naughty…when you were caught. New York has twenty-four-hour markets on every corner — not Pine Valley. In fact, many shops and businesses were even closed on Sunday. How was she going to make this work, make this place home, when it was the last place she wanted to be?
One thing she did find appealing about Pine Valley was it was a tourist town. People were in and out of there, sampling its abundant wine, brew, spirits, and cheese culture, never there long enough to settle. Those who did settle, the locals, were mostly families invested in said culture.
It wasn’t exactly the place you went to fish in a pool of fresh single men. It was actually quite the opposite — the dating pool was fairly dry, and she was one hundred percent okay with that. She left her hopes and dreams on a curtain-pulled stage in New York, and she left part of her heart there too. Men were as good to her as her washed-up dancing career and bum ankle.
Jace Detweiler was certainly the exception to the lacking dating pool and he didn’t fit the part about men being anything useful to her. There was something about that man. He was different. She couldn’t say one way or another just why or how he was different, but he was.
Still shocked by her brash behavior the night before, Kinley found her thoughts wandering there yet again. One-night stands, hookups with strangers, and the like just weren’t her thing. In fact, she couldn’t imagine doing it ever again. Not just because it wasn’t her thing, but more so because she couldn’t get Jace Detweiler off her mind. Kinley could easily be tempted into another round of no-strings-attached naked tango with him. But she couldn’t do it again — wouldn’t — because it would be far too easy to make a really good bad habit out of Doctor Jace Detweiler.
A loud, clanging crash of twisting metal landed on her ears with a bang, drawing her attention to the front of the market she had been stalking longer than she cared to admit. Wonderful, a fender bender in the parking lot. She shook her head with some misplaced disgust. Who on earth could land in a head-on collision going exactly one mile per hour in a wide-open parking lot?
Two men jumped out of their respective vehicles, each with an amused smile on their faces, greeting one another with a handshake and a slap to the shoulder. They had a good laugh as they sat on the hoods of their vehicles, assessing the damage and likely shooting the shit while they were at it. Another reminder of where she was: small, simple-thinking, everyone-knows-everyone town where wrecking your car is nothing more than a quick how ya doing reunion that ended in one inviting the other’s family over for dinner and maybe get around to figuring out the whole how are we going to fix the wrecked vehicles conversation.
To make matters worse, the small crowd forming at the front of the market now included a tall, handsome doctor, straight from Reading Grounds next door, with a pink bakery box and coffee in hand. The looming decision to shop or not shop was quickly made for her. She threw her running car in gear before Jace could see her and stepped on the gas.