Page 44 of Save the Last Dance (Take the Backroads #1)

More than ready to think about anything besides Mack and the fact that he was leaving town tomorrow—maybe even tonight—Nina nodded. “Of course. I’m hoping we’ll get to see more of each other now that I’m staying in Heartache.”

Ally evened up the hems of the cloth on either side of the table. “You left town when you were eighteen, right? Wasn’t that a really good thing for you? You opened a business, left the small town stuff behind…I mean, it was fun, right?”

Caught off guard and wanting to say the right things, Nina took a moment. Gathered her thoughts. She set the lid back on the carafe while a new band warmed up on a stage across the hall.

“I left under very unhappy circumstances.” She swallowed hard, being honest. “It was actually very painful even though I’d always wanted to leave. Looking back, I wish—more than anything—I’d stayed long enough to work out my problems here. Then, I could have moved on with a clear conscience.”

Ally gave up all pretense of helping, taking a seat on a folding chair against the wall beneath a pass-through window to the kitchen. Her yellow skirt puffed out with the movement.

“I hate it here, even though today has actually been really great.” Ally glanced around the dance hall, her eye lingering on the lights overhead. “But I’m crazy about Ethan and he doesn’t want to leave. Plus that girl who helped me with the straw maze, Rachel…she could use a friend nearby.”

“I know things are hard at home, Ally.” Nina’s heart broke for the girl.

“I was seriously overlooked by my parents and it just…sucked. But your parents love you and I don’t think they have any idea how much their lives are spilling over into yours right now.

Plus, you’ll never get this time back. You could still have the most magical senior year ever with Ethan.

And you have a new friend who could turn out to be as important for you as you’ve been for her.

” Nina shook her head. “I would not walk away from things now, just when Heartache is going to start being really good to Ally Finley.”

“That would be interesting to see.” A smile curled one corner of Ally’s lips. “I guess I can stick it out through graduation.”

Nina rushed to hug her. “Yes. Please do that.”

Ally squeezed her back. “Ethan is pretty great incentive. But I’m also glad that my grandmother seems better.”

“She’s a wise woman,” Nina admitted. “And I’m sure she’d have a very frank opinion about you leaving town.”

Ally burst out laughing. “You think?”

“And now, I’m in town.” Nina gave Ally’s fingers a quick squeeze before she moved back to the carafe and set it on the table. “You can help me figure out what kind of restaurant would do well here, and I’ll make sure I’m around if you need to…maybe…vent.”

“I know nothing about restaurants.” Ally got to her feet and started taking clean cups from the food service window to set out on the table around the carafe. “That’s more Uncle Mack’s department, right? Wouldn’t you rather have my help figuring out how we can get Uncle Mack to stay in town?”

Nina nearly lost her grip on a stack of cups. She juggled them just in time, but not without a lot of clattering as she imagined sharing a business with Mack. But they’d never have or a business—or anything— together.

“Sorry.” Ally took a few of them from her. “Guess I inherited a little too much of Gram’s frankness.”

“No. I mean, it’s fine if you did.” Nina set down the rest of the dishes. “I ought to realize by now that I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve.”

“We’ll keep working on him,” Ally assured her. “I can tell he’s really crazy about you.”

Nina nodded, which seemed to satisfy Ally before she hurried off to hold the door for Ethan as he wrestled with a load of firewood for the huge hearth at one end of the dining hall.

But Nina knew that being crazy about each other just wasn’t enough, no matter how desperately she wanted it to be. She just hoped she could hold herself together when the music started for the last dance of the night. When she’d have to say goodbye.

Mack watched Nina work the room, enjoying the simple pleasure of seeing her laugh and smile as she passed out cups of mulled cider and accepted suggestions for the kind of business she should open in Heartache.

He wasn’t close enough to hear whatever she was discussing now with a local Realtor, but the conversation looked more serious than the last few she’d had.

The band ended a song and the dancers applauded. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m going to turn the MC duties over to our interim mayor who will announce your Harvest Festival king and queen!”

Nina’s gaze met his for a split second before the mayor—a guy who’d been the head of debate club a few years before Mack graduated—took the stage.

Was Nina remembering the year she and Mack had been king and queen?

He’d been so proud to have her on his arm.

So happy to spend the whole night with her and escape his family life.

Now, she wanted a family with him and he was too scared to try.

Had he ever deserved her?

“Ally is a shoe-in for this.” The voice at his ear was as familiar as it was unexpected.

“Mom?” Seeing her there, his tall, imposing mother prematurely aged by strong and sometimes experimental medications, reminded him of how much she’d been through.

He hurried to take her arm. “You should find a good spot to sit where you’ll be more comfortable.”

“No. I want to be able to see when my grandbaby gets that crown of husks on her head.” She leaned her cheek against Mack’s arm. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I thought she’d win. She’s worked as hard as any young person for this festival.”

Mack’s eyes went to Nina again—they were glued to her tonight, it seemed—and noticed she’d taken a seat to the side of the stage next to Ally, Ethan and Rachel, who had gotten out of the hospital that day with a cast and crutches.

Rachel held Ally’s hand on one side and Ethan’s hand on the other.

While Mack watched, she joined their hands together as the interim mayor finally made his way to the stage.

“I’ll make this short and sweet, my friends and fellow residents,” Zach Chance said into the microphone. “I know you want to dance the night away more than you want to hear me carry on.”

The guy held up a hand and a spotlight followed his gesture. Right toward Mack and his mother, then Scott and Bethany .

“First, I’d like to thank the Finley family for their continued contribution to this event, and the Harvest Festival planning committee who works tirelessly to ensure each year is a bigger success than the last.”

The crowd applauded and a few people near Mack clapped him on the shoulder and thanked him. He’d always imagined that Scott would run for mayor next year and take over announcements like this. But now? He wished he knew a way to help his brother back to steady ground.

As the mayor continued to recognize people, Mack lowered his voice to speak to his mother.

“I’m worried about Scott.” He was used to looking to his brother for help dealing with their mother, not the other way around. But this was the most clear-eyed that Mack had seen his mom in a long time.

“So am I,” she admitted, turning toward him more and whispering so they wouldn’t be overheard.

“But we talked, and he has promised me he’s going to try harder to win his wife back, and I believe him.

I’ll get to work on helping him next. But right now, Mack Finley, you should pay attention to your own future. ”

“What are you talking about?” He tensed, prepared to defend himself. He was clearheaded, right? The family issues hadn’t caught up to him yet.

“Nina. Spencer.” His mother peered over her glasses, a deft master of the “mother knows best” glare. “She loves you and she understands you. You love her to distraction. Why the two of you can’t get out of your own way to?—”

“Mom.” He closed his eyes and hoped redirecting her would work. Even with his eyes closed he could still see Nina, though. Remembered the hurt he’d glimpsed earlier in her expression. “Sounds like Zach is finally winding up the thank yous and moving on to the announcement. Let’s listen.”

The mayor was cueing up the spotlight again. The lights roamed the crowd in a dizzying pattern.

“Now for our favorite part of the night when we name your Harvest king and queen.” The mayor held up his hand with a flourish while the crowd clapped. A soft drumroll began behind him and the spotlight slowed. “I give you…Ethan Brady and Ally Finley!”

The bright lights found them. Mack’s eyes went to the group seated by Nina.

Ethan jumped to his feet with a crowd-pleasing fist pump while Ally hugged Rachel, Nina and then, when she was standing…

Ethan. Mack clapped hard and so did his mother.

Ally walked to the stage—composed and smiling, but teary-eyed, too.

He could see the sheen in her eyes from here.

Mack was so proud of her he wondered how her mom and dad must feel.

Turning, he spotted Bethany beside Scott, clapping and united, for the moment at least.

The king and queen’s dance was just for the two of them—at least for the first few spins around the dance floor.

So as soon as the corn husk crowns were on their heads, the band began again while Scott and Bethany snapped pictures on their phones.

Harlan Brady was there, too, cheering for his grandson beside a couple that must be his parents.

Even Nina and Rachel were busy taking photos of the couple. Mack remembered a handful of pictures from his turn on the same dance floor with Nina, the disco ball pumpkin spinning overhead.

“Mack.” His mother tugged on his sleeve again, no longer whispering.

“I’m heading home. But I want you to understand something first. Your beautiful and talented niece is smart, driven and restless because she’s an ambitious soul.

The fact that she’s also challenged by some emotional issues will not define her.

They are only a fraction of who she is.”

“I know that, Mom.” He recognized that Ally was a truly exceptional kid.

“Well, then, don’t be so close-minded about what the future holds for my other grandchildren.

” She handed him her long cardigan and presented him with her back, his cue to help her put the thing on.

“If I’d had half the good treatments that are available to young people today, I would be running this town—and quite possibly the whole state of Tennessee—by now. ”

He slid the cardigan into place on her shoulders, trying to decide if she was kidding. She reached up to plant a kiss on his cheek, a gesture she hadn’t made in a long time.

“Good luck, son.”

“G’night, Mom.” He hardly got the words out there because he was too busy shaking the cobwebs of his old views of his mother from his head. “Thanks.”

She held up a thin hand in acknowledgement while gesturing for Erin to bring her home. Mack’s sister was by her side immediately, holding an arm to be sure their mother didn’t fall with her less-than-stable feet.

Damn. Mack had known his mother was looking more clear-eyed.

He hadn’t known she was so feisty. Or that the assortment of medicines she’d taken in the past had sapped her energy and forceful personality so much.

But she’d had enough good days that he recognized the strong character she was presenting now.

How sad to think she felt she’d been robbed of opportunities in her life because of less awareness and less options for treating her disease.

Still, he’d sure as hell been given the full effect of his mother’s clarity tonight.

She was right about Ally’s strengths. And about his own fears of taking a chance on kids based on old, outdated understandings of what it meant to battle bipolar disorders.

What if his mother was correct and new medications, therapies—hell, more acceptance of the illness from the people around her—could help her maintain the kind of focus and level emotions he’d noticed in her recently?

He’d been so stuck in the past, he’d been blinded to the present and unable to see what the future could hold.

His eyes found Nina again. This time, there was no looking away. No wishing for a different outcome. He owed the woman he loved a hell of a lot better than what he’d been giving her. He just hoped it wasn’t too late to convince her that he could change.