Until You're Mine. Jessica Bird

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      Gray parked the BMW in front of Barclay’s Liquors, taking a space as it was vacated by a minivan. The town square was hopping tonight. A couple of white tents covered about half of the two-acre stretch of grass. Underneath them, people sat at picnic tables, eating barbecue that was being cooked over open flames on big, flat grills. In between the tents, a twenty-piece swing band was set up in Saranac Lake’s signature Victorian gazebo, its righteous horn section ripping through a Count Basie standard. People were dancing on a parquet floor lit with torches.

      “Does the town do this often?” Cassandra asked as they crossed the street.

      “Once a month or so in the summer. This must be the last one. In another couple weeks, it’s going to be too cold.”

      Three teenage girls skittered by wearing glow-in-the-dark, green neon necklaces. In their rush, they moved over the ground with the same restless excitement and chatter as the loose, colorful leaves swirling in the chilly wind. The sound of their laughter made Gray smile as he and Cass ambled over to the tents. Smoke, infused with molasses and cayenne pepper, drifted into his nose. His stomach checked in with a grumble of approval.

      “When are you going back to D.C.?” Cassandra asked.

      “Very soon. I need to go to New York next week and then I’ll move Papa down.”

      “Are you teaching that poli-sci seminar at Columbia again this semester?”

      “Yeah. They asked me back.”

      “We’ll have to have dinner. Maybe Allison and Roger can join us.”

      “Sounds good,” Gray replied, even though the thought of the Adamses made him wince. He still couldn’t believe the adultery story, and was hoping when he looked into the facts Beckin had given him, that it would all be just a bunch of BS.

      As he and Cass stopped in front of the band, he glanced over at her. She was staring at the couples that were dancing. “You ready for some food or do you want to risk a little swinging with me?”

      “Sounds good.”

      “Let’s try eating first,” he said gently. Cassandra had been remote since going to see Alex Moorehouse. Gray gathered that the meeting hadn’t gone well, but she didn’t seem to want to talk about it so he didn’t press.

      As they got in line, he looked over at the people in front of the band. There were a couple of folks who could really dance, the men swinging the women over their shoulders, twirling their dates or wives around in circles. There was one couple who were damn good. The guy handled his woman as though she were an extension of his own body and she responded to him as if thinking of the same move at the same time he did.

      Gray stopped moving.

      Good Lord, it was Joy.

      As the song came to a fevered end, that White Caps cook spun her around, flipped her over his back and then dipped her low, holding her in place. Joy hung on to his shoulders, head back, breathlessly laughing. Her hair drifted down, almost touching the floor as she looked up at her partner.

      Young and free. So beautiful, she hurt Gray’s eyes.

      The man slowly lifted her to the vertical, his hands lingering on the small of her back.

      Gray ground his teeth. He had a stupid, near overwhelming urge to march across the dance floor and peel the other guy off her. Roughly. And sure enough, he felt his weight shifting to his left foot and his right knee bending up. As if his body were not under his control.