Thermal Dynamics (Nerds of Paradise Book 5) Read online

  “Exactly.” A mysterious smile lit her face.

  Jogi laughed and shook his head. “This is Wyoming. There aren’t wooded lakes anywhere nearby like that.”

  “There’s this weird, inexplicable lake over in Everland, Lake Enchantment.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s not that big,” Sandy went on, her enthusiasm growing and her body relaxing. “We used to sneak out there when we were kids. It’s the perfect place to run off to and play hookey.”

  Jogi raised one eyebrow. “We’re adults. We don’t play hookey, we take vacation days.”

  “Either way—” She brushed his teasing away with a gesture. “—it’s a great spot to practice dancing without being interrupted.

  “All right.” He nodded. “Let’s do it, then.”

  “How about Thursday? That way we’ll be fresh for the second night of competition.”

  “Works for me.”

  The decision was made, and the two of them stood there in silence. Jogi found himself wondering why he’d really come over to her apartment. He darted a look toward her bedroom, old impulses rising up in him. Why had they broken up again?

  “Come on. We’re going to be late to dance class if we don’t get moving,” she said, marching past him toward the door.

  Ah. They’d broken up because she’d pushed him too far out of his comfort zone.

  “Right,” he said, following her.

  Although, he thought to himself as they headed out into the hall, maybe he had needed that push.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sandy’s heart hadn’t held still since Jogi had agreed to her plan of taking a day off to prepare for the next night of competition. Why would someone she couldn’t seem to figure out and click with want to spend an entire day in isolation with her?

  But there they were, rattling along a back road in Jogi’s SUV, with the morning sunlight beaming down from a blue sky.

  “Right there,” she said, pointing out the windshield to a hidden side road between a stand of bushes.

  “What, that?” Jogi squinted ahead, but managed to turn at the last second.

  “Yeah, it’s weird how tricky the turn-off is. It’s almost like an optical illusion or something.” She was grateful to have something to talk about besides all of the pressure and failures between them. “Everland has always been a funny little town,” she went on. “And I still can’t figure out why this lake is even here.”

  “It doesn’t look like the kind of geography that would support a whole lake,” Jogi agreed in a somewhat distracted voice as he continued down the bush-lined drive. “I thought this was supposed to be the desert.”

  “It is.” Sandy pointed as they reached another turn that led to an open area where visitors parked. Fortunately, there were no other cars in sight. The lake sparkled just beyond a line of trees that had no business growing in that part of Wyoming. “I’ve always assumed there’s some sort of unexplored underground spring feeding the lake. That would explain why the water is so clear.”

  Jogi made an interested sound, but didn’t add any further commentary as he parked and cut his engine. For some reason, their arrival, the finality of the SUV shutting off, sent a tremor of uneasy anticipation through Sandy. They’d driven all the way out to Lake Enchantment to be able to practice dancing without interruption, but far more than the competition was at stake.

  She opened her door and hopped out of the SUV, circling around the back to help Jogi with all the things they’d brought, from a cooler full of snacks to a battery-operated boom box queued up with dance music. The long skirt she wore over a sleek, one-piece bathing suit swished around her ankles as she led Jogi through the gap in the undergrowth separating the parking area from the lakefront. A shivery feeling passed over her as she stepped onto the soft, sandy bank of the lake.

  “Wow,” Jogi said behind her. “I thought you said the lake was small.”

  Sandy glanced out over the glittering water, then over her shoulder to Jogi as she continued along the narrow bank to a wider section several yards ahead. “Well, it’s not like Great Salt Lake or anything.”

  “It’s not a pond either.” He paused, then said, “That’s what I assumed it would be.”

  Sandy shook her head and walked on. “I told you it was an unexpected sort of place.”

  The instant the words were out of her mouth, she was hit by uncertainty. Was that too harsh of a comment? Nothing she ever said to Jogi seemed right, no matter how hard she tried. If she were being honest, half the reason she’d suggested they get away for the day was in the desperate hope that she could figure out some way to say the right thing at last and to bring some sort of closure to their whole situation.

  “There should be plenty of space right over here to dance,” she said, picking up her pace to reach the wide, flat, grassy spot along the lake’s shore.

  Jogi nodded and followed her. The silence between them as they set down their loads and arranged the cooler, folding chairs, and boom box wasn’t prickly, but it still had Sandy on edge. Everything had her on edge lately. She did her best to avoid looking directly at Jogi, since that kicked her right over the edge into the realm of massive butterflies in her gut.

  “We should probably conserve the batteries and practice without the music to start,” Jogi said, straightening from the cooler, where he’d rested the boom box. He faced her, the lines around his eyes and mouth as tense as she felt. “Want to start with the waltz?”

  “Sure.” She stepped away from the folding chairs and towels that now made a pile along with her purse and a tote bag of random things like sun screen and even a book next to the cooler. They didn’t need to set up camp yet. They were here to dance, after all.

  “The waltz feels pretty easy compared to the cha-cha,” Jogi said with a wry grin as she stepped into his arms, held in dance position.

  “Watch out for anything that seems easy,” she said as his hand closed around her back, sending a jolt of warmth through her. “If you don’t have to work for it, you’re probably doing it wrong.”

  Jogi laughed, then counted, “One, two, three, one, two, three,” nodded, and moved smoothly into the basic steps of the waltz. But as effortless as the waltz steps felt, Sandy waited awkwardly for whatever comment she could see Jogi wanted to make in response to her until he said, “You really think you have to work for everything?”

  One, two, three, she counted in her head as her heart slammed against her ribs. One, two three. “Of course,” she said. “The stars don’t align themselves for people who just sit back and wait for life to happen to them.”

  “Actually, the stars are all on a set course, and they’ll align or not no matter what we do down here on Earth,” he said, a hint of teasing in his eyes. “Trust me on this. I work for an aerospace company.”

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” she sassed back, arching one brow. “You know as well as I do that you have to go after what you want in life.”

  “So you’ve told me.”

  Before she could study him to see if he was teasing or offended or something else, Jogi swept her through one of the more complicated turns they’d learned. She wasn’t ready for it, and came to an abrupt stop in a tangle of arms and feet.

  “You’ve got to let me lead,” Jogi scolded her. Whether he was offended or not before, he was definitely upset now.

  “I was letting you lead,” she argued on instinct. “You shouldn’t have taken me by surprise like that.”

  “That’s what leading is.” Jogi’s voice was harder. “It’s not choreography, it’s connection.”

  Carl and Buffy had insisted the same thing through all of their dance lessons, but coming from them, it sounded like a cheesy platitude. From Jogi, the suggestion of connection gave her chills.

  “Fine, we’ll try it again,” Sandy said, frowning and feeding her frustration to stop herself from indulging in the guilt that doing everything wrong piled on her.

  Jogi blew out a breath and straighten
ed his back, sliding her back into his arms in dance position. There was far more tension in his face and body than there had been when they arrived. “One, two, three, one, two, three,” he counted, then flowed into the steps of the waltz again.

  She was rigid with anticipation, trying to be aware of his every move and anticipate any turns or twists he might attempt. If she could just tune in to him, she could figure the whole thing out and get it right. But the longer he went on without breaking from the plain vanilla waltz step, the more frustration rippled through her.

  “Are you going to start actually dancing any time soon?” she asked, staring hard at him.

  “Are you going to let me lead?” he shot back.

  “I am letting you lead.”

  “As soon as you let me lead, then I’ll start dancing for real,” he said, ignoring her protest.

  “I am letting you lead.” She raised her voice.

  But he didn’t break from the boring one, two, three box step. At the rate they were going, there would be a permanent square in the grass below them. He wasn’t even turning in a circle. Even when she tried to cheat him in that direction.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “I’ll stop it when you do something.”

  “So you admit you’re leading, then.”

  Sandy stopped, shaking out of his arms with an irritated huff. “I’m only trying to get you to stop wasting our time to prove a point.”

  “Oh, I think I just proved my point.” He crossed his arms and stared at her.

  Uneasy prickles raced down Sandy’s back. She had a bad feeling he was right. Which meant that once again, she’d screwed up when it came to things between the two of them. Why couldn’t she get something so simple right?

  “Maybe this was a bad idea.” She sighed and walked over to the pile of their things to grab one of the folding chairs. There didn’t seem to be much point in setting things up, but she had to do something with the restless energy pouring through her.

  “You’re willing to risk losing your bank because you can’t let me lead in a stupid dance?” He followed her with his voice, even though he stayed in the square of grass where they’d not-danced.

  “And you’re willing to lose the chance to show your photographs in a real gallery exhibit because you can’t focus on getting some work done?” She yanked the chair open and planted it on the ground, then pivoted to face him.

  The second their eyes met, the air between them sizzled. As bad as it felt to know she was every kind of failure where Jogi was concerned, the heat of arguing with him did things to her. She left the chair and marched back to him, hardly able to catch her breath.

  Jogi held up his arms in dance position without saying another word. Sandy bristled with indignation as she stepped into him, resting her forearm on his shoulder. No, it wasn’t indignation, it was something far more painful. Something too much like regret.

  “One, two, three, one, two, three.” Jogi nodded and started into annoyingly plain waltz steps once more.

  Sandy clenched her jaw, staring at a spot beyond Jogi’s shoulder. If he wanted to play things this way, then she would show him just how stubborn she could be. He would lose as much as she would if they couldn’t get over themselves enough to work together. But she wasn’t going to let him walk all over her. She’d had enough of attempts to push her into “her place” from the likes of Ronny Bonneville and his dad. She dealt with prosecutors and judges who thought they could bully her because she was a black woman on an almost daily basis. So if Jogi thought he was going to steamroll her for something as trivial as a waltz, he had another thing coming.

  Five minutes passed like an eternity, without breaking from the box of waltz steps or saying a word. At least until Jogi asked, “Why didn’t you want anyone to know we were dating?”

  Sandy hadn’t realized how rigid her body had gone until his question smashed into her like a wrecking ball. She let out a breath, loosening her jaw and shoulders, which had begun to ache. His question sent her insides writhing.

  “It didn’t seem important to make a show of things,” she lied, staring into the space over his shoulder.

  “So, I wasn’t important enough to you,” he said. His voice was low and even and without emotion.

  “No, that’s not it,” she sighed, struggling to maintain a firm dance position. “I wasn’t ready for our business to be big news.”

  “So, you thought everyone would make a big deal of us dating.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes,” she said. “I mean no. Why should they care what we do?” She could feel heat rise up her neck and flood her face. Her throat squeezed painfully.

  “So, you didn’t think the two of us being together was anything special.”

  “Would you stop answering like that?” She sounded irritated, but in reality, her heart was thundering against her ribs and the drowning sensation of fear and shame was starting to pull her under.

  But Jogi just shrugged. “I’m only trying to figure out where I stood with you then so I can assess whether there’s any point in moving forward now.”

  “Of course there’s a point in moving forward now,” she said, snapping her eyes to meet his. “We need to win this competition.”

  To her surprise, he smiled. “I thought you were ready to walk away a few minutes ago.”

  “I—” She pressed her lips shut and blinked up at the sky. Part of her felt like crying, but since she never cried, ever, that was ridiculous. She could figure this whole thing out. She could get herself under control and push forward to do what she had to do, save what she had to save. Even though her body felt like it weighed three times what it normally did, and her heart seemed ready to tear itself in two.

  A strange, physical sensation filled her—an odd kind of movement that felt awkward and comforting at the same time. It hit her just as her emotions were on the verge of betraying her and somehow lifted her up, made her feel better, more confident.

  “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  She blinked at Jogi’s comment. Only then did she realize that they’d moved out of the basic waltz step and into a simple turn. Jogi had swept her to an entirely different part of their grass dance floor, and she hadn’t noticed.

  A split-second later, it was gone.

  “You’re fighting me again,” he said with an impatient sigh and stopped. “Stop fighting me.”

  “Wait, I can do it right. I swear I can,” she insisted. She wouldn’t let him let go of her. “Do it again.”

  Jogi raised an eyebrow at her, but counted, “One, two, three, one, two, three.”

  They swayed into motion. She expected him to go immediately into the turn, but he locked them in the same box step that they’d started with. It was like he had no intention of budging. Which was ironic, considering a few minutes earlier, she was the one who had no intention of budging. Aggravation started to pour through her all over again, but with an effort, she swallowed it down. She closed her eyes and blew out a breath through pursed lips, forcing herself to relax and let go.

  The second time, she recognized the sensation of letting Jogi lead. It was a sort of gentle tug, a supportive pulling. It was completely foreign. But instead of fighting against it like her mind told her to, she relaxed into it and let him choose which dance steps to run through. Thankfully, Jogi didn’t say a word, either to rub it in or to encourage her. He just waltzed her through all of the steps, turns, twists, and spins they had learned in the last three nights of dance class.

  And for a change, she simply went with what he was doing. Without trying to telegraph where they should go or what they should do. Without trying to control or argue against the situation. She just danced.

  As he led her through a second set of turns, something else poked through Sandy’s concentration.

  “When did the music go on?” she asked.

  “Hmm?” Jogi blinked out of his concentration, glancing toward the boom box on the cooler. Waltz music was playing. �
�You must have hit the play button when you were setting up that chair.”

  “I didn’t,” she insisted, continuing to dance. Oddly enough, it was easier to let her body do the dancing and keep her mind out of it with something else to wonder about.

  “Well, the boom box didn’t turn itself on,” Jogi said, his mouth tilting into a smirk.

  A moment later, that smirk softened into a smile. Just a simple smile, as plain as the basic waltz step, but it gave Sandy a thrill all the same. With the sudden addition of the music, the entire dance had taken on an ethereal, romantic feeling. That only pushed her internal struggle to the surface.

  “Do you hate me?” she asked as they continued to waltz across the grass.

  “No,” Jogi answered, his brow knitting into a puzzled frown. “Why would I hate you?”

  “Because I’m a pushy bitch?” she suggested. “Because I have the subtlety of a pipe bomb when it comes to handling relationships.”

  He didn’t say anything. He just studied her with his dark, unreadable eyes.

  She let out a breath. “You know, it drives me a little crazy when you just stare at me in silence instead of responding when I say something like that.”

  His lips and brow twitched. “Why?”

  “Because it gives me nothing to work with,” she said, her turbulent emotions bursting. “Because it doesn’t give me a chance to justify all the things I’m feeling or to argue them away. If you don’t react, the only person I have to make a case against is myself, and believe me, I’ve had myself on trial for the last twenty years at least. And I don’t like the verdict I reach when I start questioning myself. So react, dammit. Give me something I can use.”

  Jogi remained silent. He stopped dancing, stopped moving at all. The music continued, but they were still, his arms around her. And yet, as silent as he was, his eyes burned with all the things he wasn’t saying, all of the things Sandy wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear and embrace or run from.

  And then he pulled her closer, his hand on her back dropping lower, his lips meeting hers in a kiss that brought her world to a crashing stop.